I fixed my anger issues! It used to be that when I was extremely angry at someone, I would sometimes feel a desire to physically attack that person. This was not something I wanted, because having a desire to attack people is a risk factor for hurting people in certain circumstances. However, the main solution that I heard about to this problem was to calm down whenever I was angry, which wouldn’t actually be in my best interests, because anger is useful.
Once I figured this out, and realized that I had forced myself out of a “wanting to hurt someone” state once when I’d realized that it was entirely counterproductive, I just forced myself out of the “wanting to hurt someone” state the next time I entered it without calming myself down completely, and it worked.
Now I can be angry, but I’m not at as much risk of committing a crime while angry. The last thing I did out of anger was encrypt my computer and backup drive, because I caught my mom listening in on a phone call. I do not regret this.
Interesting. Are there any reasons anger is useful aside from motivation/Actually Doing Things? (Though that’s pretty big on its own.) Also, are you sure your judgement isn’t affected by anger? Even when it’s not intent on harming someone, it’s still a strong emotion.
As a minor, anger is pretty much the only way I have of creating negative incentives for my parents that doesn’t automatically lead to me being punished, because anger is not seen as purposeful retaliation in the same way that other things that annoy people are. (I can’t fine my parents, I can’t refuse to associate with them, and I can’t damage their reputation within the community without breaking community social norms.)
Anger is also really great for signaling that you consider someone else’s behavior extremely unpleasant. If I just tell people I’m upset, I have strong incentives to make this statement when I am only mildly annoyed, and so people can’t trust me to verbally signal the level of disutility their action causes me. However, because people generally don’t enjoy being angry, you can generally tell that if someone is angry, they are very upset.
Also, my judgement is definitely affected by anger, but I can limit what angry!ilzolende decides to do, because I am aware of my poor judgement when I’m angry, so I default to the the hard rules that my non-angry self sets, such as “don’t cause property damage or injury while angry, you’re probably wrong”. Things I have done while angry:
Turn on lots of lights and faucets to increase my parents’ utility bills, because I thought there needed to be a financial disincentive to their actions. (Unfortunately, losing ~$0.5 at most is really not a strong incentive.)
Move objects to annoying locations, because I wanted to inconvenience the person who I was upset at.
Encrypt my hard drive and backup drive, because I realized after catching my parents wiretapping me that the only reliable privacy boundaries were the ones that I could enforce, and trust had just been shown not to work as an enforcement mechanism. This was probably the best decision I’ve made while upset.
I already don’t hurt people. My problem was that I was entering mental states that, if I continued to enter them, made me somewhat liable to potentially hurt someone.
Also, the people who make me extremely angry have so far been either people who I am not near in person (historical figures and people running organizations with goals directly counter to my interests), or people with power over me (I’m a disabled teenager, they’re legally allowed to do all sorts of stuff and call it ‘treatment’ if they wanted to), both of whom are groups that I really don’t want to or can’t scream at. (I would like to scream at the people who state that preventing deaths from measles leads to autism, and that a chance of autism is worse than a lower chance of dying painfully, but they quite wisely avoid me.)
I fixed my anger issues! It used to be that when I was extremely angry at someone, I would sometimes feel a desire to physically attack that person. This was not something I wanted, because having a desire to attack people is a risk factor for hurting people in certain circumstances. However, the main solution that I heard about to this problem was to calm down whenever I was angry, which wouldn’t actually be in my best interests, because anger is useful.
Once I figured this out, and realized that I had forced myself out of a “wanting to hurt someone” state once when I’d realized that it was entirely counterproductive, I just forced myself out of the “wanting to hurt someone” state the next time I entered it without calming myself down completely, and it worked.
Now I can be angry, but I’m not at as much risk of committing a crime while angry. The last thing I did out of anger was encrypt my computer and backup drive, because I caught my mom listening in on a phone call. I do not regret this.
Interesting. Are there any reasons anger is useful aside from motivation/Actually Doing Things? (Though that’s pretty big on its own.) Also, are you sure your judgement isn’t affected by anger? Even when it’s not intent on harming someone, it’s still a strong emotion.
As a minor, anger is pretty much the only way I have of creating negative incentives for my parents that doesn’t automatically lead to me being punished, because anger is not seen as purposeful retaliation in the same way that other things that annoy people are. (I can’t fine my parents, I can’t refuse to associate with them, and I can’t damage their reputation within the community without breaking community social norms.)
Anger is also really great for signaling that you consider someone else’s behavior extremely unpleasant. If I just tell people I’m upset, I have strong incentives to make this statement when I am only mildly annoyed, and so people can’t trust me to verbally signal the level of disutility their action causes me. However, because people generally don’t enjoy being angry, you can generally tell that if someone is angry, they are very upset.
Also, my judgement is definitely affected by anger, but I can limit what angry!ilzolende decides to do, because I am aware of my poor judgement when I’m angry, so I default to the the hard rules that my non-angry self sets, such as “don’t cause property damage or injury while angry, you’re probably wrong”. Things I have done while angry:
Turn on lots of lights and faucets to increase my parents’ utility bills, because I thought there needed to be a financial disincentive to their actions. (Unfortunately, losing ~$0.5 at most is really not a strong incentive.)
Move objects to annoying locations, because I wanted to inconvenience the person who I was upset at.
Encrypt my hard drive and backup drive, because I realized after catching my parents wiretapping me that the only reliable privacy boundaries were the ones that I could enforce, and trust had just been shown not to work as an enforcement mechanism. This was probably the best decision I’ve made while upset.
Have you tried screaming at someone? Not as bad as hurting someone, and it gives an immediate feedback.
I already don’t hurt people. My problem was that I was entering mental states that, if I continued to enter them, made me somewhat liable to potentially hurt someone.
Also, the people who make me extremely angry have so far been either people who I am not near in person (historical figures and people running organizations with goals directly counter to my interests), or people with power over me (I’m a disabled teenager, they’re legally allowed to do all sorts of stuff and call it ‘treatment’ if they wanted to), both of whom are groups that I really don’t want to or can’t scream at. (I would like to scream at the people who state that preventing deaths from measles leads to autism, and that a chance of autism is worse than a lower chance of dying painfully, but they quite wisely avoid me.)
Oh. :(
As my religious friends sometimes say:
”It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living doctor.”
(Hebrews 10:31, more or less)