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Orius

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What's up, everyone. I'm a 27 year old Chinese from Singapore. My first name is Wee Boon, but you can call me Orius if you want.

I have a history of bad temper that led to many lost friends. Recently, I was banned from a forum for making a "personal attack" against another member. The ban will last for the next three months. Of course, the situation wasn't as simple as it sounds, and the other party had some faults of her own in the argument as well. It takes two to clap, after all. But she never received any punishment as far as I'm aware. Not only that, my friends at the forum have probably turned on me because I never got the chance to tell my side of the story before the ban.

As pathetic as it sounds, the fact remains that the forum was my main source of social interaction in my life. I made a lot of friends there, and the thought that they probably hate me now because of one outburst, it just hurts. I've been going through depression for the past five days since my ban. I've been having trouble sleeping and all I could think about was the bitterness and pain from not getting a fair chance to explain myself. And I might be having some paranoia as well, because to tell you the truth, I don't really know if they really hate me or not (hence why I used "probably" for the two sentences above). I'm basing it on very little information I could find. But one of my most treasured friends (past tense now that I've seen what she wrote about me) did compare my outburst to child abuse and workplace abuse, so there's that. It's a ridiculous analogy, and shows how much she resents me, especially when the argument didn't even directly involve her.

So here I am, wandering around the Internet to seek yet another new source of social interaction. This is my way of coping, I guess, to move on. But it's been almost a week now, and I still couldn't move on. I loved those guys, and to have this aching suspicion that they've turned on me, it's kept me numb and heartbroken. I've wondered over the past few days whether if I should return to apologize after the three-month ban is lifted, but everytime I thought about this, I always felt like it wasn't fair for me to be the only one to apologize, that I shouldn't be the only to go through this humiliation. And what if they still hate me after a sincere apology? Furthermore, the actions of the members there after my ban were questionable, unprofessional, and unethical, which was something I feel is only fair that I point out after my ban, which might not help with my apology at all. I know I should be the bigger man and look past their actions and poor choice of words regarding my ban, but I don't know if I could swallow my pride and let them put the entire blame on me.

Regarding my anger issues: I have seen a number of counselors and therapists throughout my life for this matter. None of them really helped of course. It's hard to find an anger management program in Singapore. I sought out my nearest polyclinic and asked the doctors there to admit me into some kind of anger management program, but all they did was gave me a lousy therapist with cognitive therapy. I've been at therapy for a year now and it didn't help. The medical fee is costly too.

My anger has gotten me into trouble for more times than I could count, but it's been so long since I've been like this that it feels... unfixable. I just can't stop myself from getting bothered about criticisms and insults. More often than not, I would admit that it has to do with my ego and pride than anything else. I hate being accused of something I feel to be false. If I've done something wrong, I'll admit it, but I hate being falsely accused. It's ironic, but my loneliness is a factor that has made me so defensive. In turn, my defensiveness leads to my anger, and my anger leads to my loneliness. It's a vicious circle I can't break from.

I see myself ending up bitter and alone in the next ten years. I'm hitting 28 next March, soon to be 30. I can't see any way out of this downward spiral.
 
Hi Orius,
Welcome to the forum. I've struggled with anger, outbursts and all sorts of issues since I entered my first professional career in 1997. I've learned over the years that anger needs to be dealt with in a fashion such that it doesn't alienate you from others. I think we all come to this at some point but it's also easy for one to feel their frustrations are 'terminally unique' or the worst of the worst that anyone could ever face and not take that in stride, that we all face frustration.

I came here out of a similar alienation to what you had faced except it was from a single colleague. She had shut me out all of a sudden by blocking me everywhere (on social media you name it).... as I now do my work online from home, she was someone I met 3 years ago and eventually became friends with. Thankfully I did not lose my last job (prior to working online) in my previous profession out of anger, rather from the aftermath of being through a major health condition where I learned a possible biological source for that anger (excess iron buildup in the brain). Not saying that is the only source of recovery, since I've learned this I now donate blood regularly to help that out.

The fact you've brought your anger to consciousness and can 'play the tape through' so to speak is really the first step in gaining recovery for yourself. "you cannot change what you don't acknowledge". There's a lot on this journey to knowing yourself and this won't be the last time you feel lonely and alienated due to anger but it can be the first step in a new journey of how to channel feelings of frustration in a different and more productive direction =)
 
Hi matt. Thanks for the reply.

The thing is, while I've been able to acknowledge my anger and "play the tape through", so to speak, this isn't a new behavior for me. I've acknowledged my anger for several years now, and in spite of all the therapy and self-reflection, I just don't really see that much change in me. It feels like a habit.

Actually, it's almost like I expect myself to lose it whenever I join a new community. That forum I mentioned in my previous post? I started became active about a month ago, and I had the subconscious feeling during that month and there would eventually come a time when I would break and not be able to keep my temper in control. It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophesy really. Maybe subconsciously, I even wanted to lose it for all I know. I can be quite stubborn, so during heated discussions, it's just so easy to go out of my way to shout that I'm in the right and they're in the wrong. Like I said, it's an ego issue. There's always this need to defend myself from being wrong.

It just comes so naturally without warning. People kept telling me to check the warning signs - escalated heart rate and breathing, profuse sweating, increased body heat - but there were no warning signs. It just happens when it happens. There's no prior thought like, "I'm going to lose my temper now!" Nothing. It's like something's immediately in control of me when it happens, and no matter how I reflected and told myself to get better, no matter how many therapies I went through, it just doesn't.

Maintaining my anger is one thing, but right now, I'm just thinking about how to mend my friendship with those people, and whether if they are people that are worth my effort to mend it in the first place. It's hard to move on from a broken friendship (or just about any broken relationship). I've done so several times in the past, but at least with those past friendships, I was at least able to get some closure. Three months I have to wait before my ban is lifted. I'm just sitting here thinking what this will do for my anxiety, and how I'm going to have sleepless nights for those three whole months, only to reach a possibility where my apology wouldn't repair those friendship and people would still hate me - for a single outburst that wasn't even entirely my fault! Ridiculous.
 
Orius said:
Hi matt. Thanks for the reply.

The thing is, while I've been able to acknowledge my anger and "play the tape through", so to speak, this isn't a new behavior for me. I've acknowledged my anger for several years now, and in spite of all the therapy and self-reflection, I just don't really see that much change in me. It feels like a habit.

Actually, it's almost like I expect myself to lose it whenever I join a new community. That forum I mentioned in my previous post? I started became active about a month ago, and I had the subconscious feeling during that month and there would eventually come a time when I would break and not be able to keep my temper in control. It was almost like a self-fulfilling prophesy really. Maybe subconsciously, I even wanted to lose it for all I know. I can be quite stubborn, so during heated discussions, it's just so easy to go out of my way to shout that I'm in the right and they're in the wrong. Like I said, it's an ego issue. There's always this need to defend myself from being wrong.

It just comes so naturally without warning. People kept telling me to check the warning signs - escalated heart rate and breathing, profuse sweating, increased body heat - but there were no warning signs. It just happens when it happens. There's no prior thought like, "I'm going to lose my temper now!" Nothing. It's like something's immediately in control of me when it happens, and no matter how I reflected and told myself to get better, no matter how many therapies I went through, it just doesn't.

Maintaining my anger is one thing, but right now, I'm just thinking about how to mend my friendship with those people, and whether if they are people that are worth my effort to mend it in the first place. It's hard to move on from a broken friendship (or just about any broken relationship). I've done so several times in the past, but at least with those past friendships, I was at least able to get some closure. Three months I have to wait before my ban is lifted. I'm just sitting here thinking what this will do for my anxiety, and how I'm going to have sleepless nights for those three whole months, only to reach a possibility where my apology wouldn't repair those friendship and people would still hate me - for a single outburst that wasn't even entirely my fault! Ridiculous.
Be easy on yourself.  The less easy you are about the process the more you end up self-loathing and hating yourself in the end.  This isn't an easy ordeal and certainly isn't something you solve overnight.  And at least for me, a lot of it has been done in isolation (finding the root causes and committing to healing from those).  For example, perhaps you can see behavior trends in your family and be determined to not become like them - like you mentioned, a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Momentum is hard to change but again a lifetime is designed to change one's behaviors and even legacies that may have been passed down to us through our generations.

As for people, yes you formed bonds with them.  It's not easy to have to let those bonds go.  I would suggest grounding yourself in energy that is unconditional whether or not those people are there for you (sun rising everyday, the beauty of nature).  There was a point where I was (and still am) using herbal remedies and resolved to never let another person in my life, but I looked at the trees and said to myself 'Plants from now on will be my friends'....well of course, plants are not going to provide us interaction or support in the same way as human beings do.  But, maybe it involves taking a time out, reflecting.  Focusing on the advantage of being alone for a time and using that time to come up with 'the solution' can really help.  And maybe for example, to recognize that you are becoming less prone to anger. 

I for example went through a period of depression a couple weeks ago, and I noticed how the condition of having less anger compared to what used to exist previously, because I remained in my condo instead of having much interaction with the outside world, resulted in less stress on my body, which ultimately resulted in me having more healing from a lifetime of anger.  Anger has physical consequences, like increased cortisol, weight gain and the like.....and taking a break from that and patting yourself on the back for that break you gave yourself will feed on itself, and motivate you not to act or give your energy to anger in the future.  It is a self-motivating reward.

Hope that helps.  The answers will come to you as you go along.
 
Welcome ^_^

I used to have anger issues too, believe it or not X) Bit of it grew away with time, however, and I'm much better off now. Therapy/whatever it's called never did anything for me.
Three months sounds like a long ban.
 
Meaw said:
Welcome ^_^

I used to have anger issues too, believe it or not X) Bit of it grew away with time, however, and I'm much better off now. Therapy/whatever it's called never did anything for me.
Three months sounds like a long ban.

Thanks. :)

After doing some soul-searching and reflection. I feel like it's not so much an issue about my anger than it is about my attitude. I have the bad attitude of having this need to be right all the time, to defend myself from whomever would say something unpleasant about me. What I really need, I think, is to focus on something bigger than such pettiness, some long-term goal relating to my happiness.

Three months is a long ban, and I still miss my friends even now. It's going to be tough mending those broken bridges too.
 
Greetings Orius. Do you suppose Singaporean social customs are a contributing factor? I've never been there but the media reports that Singapore is a safe place to live because life there is so tightly controlled....a trade off between freedom and security. LKY crafted his city by blending Confucian discipline with the British "stiff upper lip". It's just a thought....
 
constant stranger said:
Greetings Orius.  Do you suppose Singaporean social customs are a contributing factor?  I've never been there but the media reports that Singapore is a safe place to live because life there is so tightly controlled....a trade off between freedom and security.  LKY crafted his city by blending Confucian discipline with the British "stiff upper lip".  It's just a thought....

Nope. Good guess, but nope. I have my problems with the stringency of this government, and it can sometimes be a pain in the a**, but right now in my life, at this very moment, it's not a contributing factor. This isn't North Korea. :p

On the other hand, the stringency did contribute to a rough childhood. We do have a collectivism mentality of sorts. School was full of bullying, etc. But they (and similar bad childhoods) are the usual contributing factors for many anger and self-esteem issues, so I'm not exactly a special case.

So no, I don't think me being a Singaporean has anything to do with my anger issues. Besides, I spent most of my life interacting with westerners online, not my fellow countrymen.

Honestly, I think it's my ego that's the real attributing problem. I've been trying for the past few weeks to expose myself to insults and humiliations to practice suppressing that pride... with some very slow progress (note the "Days Without Incident"). What I need is not another country; it's thicker skin and a stronger backbone.
 
It is good you can say it - that's a good first step. ...What's the Days Without Incident? *imagines scenarios of crazy scientist experiments, Hulk smashing, death star rays etc...  :D
 
Meaw said:
It is good you can say it - that's a good first step. ...What's the Days Without Incident? *imagines scenarios of crazy scientist experiments, Hulk smashing, death star rays etc...  :D

That means the days I haven't got into a conflict thus far. Yeah, that's how far I've progressed in my anger management self-therapy - not very well. I woke up each morning now with a motivational video to keep me disciplined and reminded for the rest of the day. Not sure if I could keep it up for a week or two. Would be nice if I could, but that anxiety of whether if I would blow up tomorrow or not is always crawling right around the corner of my mind. It's... worrying.

Unfortunately, there's no deadly gamma rays or any form of smashing - just a lot of pathetic keyboard warrioring and venomous verbal exchanges. Very mundane, but nonetheless embarrassing.
 
Maybe the public display of the amount of days could help X) However, some alternative way of releasing the steam might be an idea - I dno, boxing is fun :D
 
Meaw said:
Maybe the public display of the amount of days could help X) However, some alternative way of releasing the steam might be an idea - I dno, boxing is fun :D

Good plan, but half of the times I get angry, there's usually no warning, so it's not really a case of "built up stress" that leads to the anger. When it happens, it happens, with or without build-up. It's why it's so scary, because I could never see it coming. Anything could remotely trigger the detonator. So now I need to keep myself disciplined 24/7, always reminding myself of my end-goal.

Unfortunately, even that might not work. This isn't the first time I tried a "public display of the amount of days". Once, I nearly made it to 30 days, but I still ended up blowing it after that; not to mention that I kinda "cheated" during those 30 days, and I did allow my persecution complex get to me during that period (albeit not a full-blown temper, but it still counts as letting my emotions get to me).

So yes, it's a hit-or-miss scenario. Not extremely effective, but it beats professional therapy right now.
 
It was exactly the same for me. I read an article in Science Illustrated (might have been an old example of them, but still) that the anger desicion was the first two seconds, so insted of counting to ten, two might do X) Not sure if it works, however.

Gratz to the 6 days incidentfree :D
 
To be honest, it seems as if you want acceptance for an outburst and to have created some kind of manifesto in that long read justifying your actions. I hate to say it but very focused on not the forum but on this person. You need to really not forum hop asking for people to side with you, but more real world interaction. You need to yes, get support but not on the internet alone.


And yes that seems cold but fresia, I wrote it. I have faults too. I am cold. You'll have to forgive me.
 
Meaw said:
It was exactly the same for me. I read an article in Science Illustrated (might have been an old example of them, but still) that the anger desicion was the first two seconds, so insted of counting to ten, two might do X) Not sure if it works, however.

Gratz to the 6 days incidentfree :D

No, I would probably need those ten seconds if I have the attention capacity to count numbers in the first place when I get angry. I would need minutes, in fact, to calm myself down enough to be even remotely rational. That's my experience anyway.

6 days is nothing worth celebrating about, or even a week. Like I said, I blew up after 30 days, after all. We can pop the champagne after 60 days, and even then, a trigger might just be a foul remark away.

Maybe you're right. Maybe I do need to release steam to vent out the anger every now and then. Might be a good solution to prevent triggers. A lack of such venting might also explain the illogical, abrupt, and utterly spontaneous blowups I had in the past despite being calm for more than a month. I'm still trying to figure out why the blowup I explained in the opening post of this thread happened. That sudden outburst in that forum came out of nowhere in a forum I've been calm and civilized in for an entire month, so something set me off. If I could find the root psychological cause of such random and sudden outbursts, and it would be easier to prevent and eliminate the volatile thoughts that led to said outbursts.

But right now, my ego and my history of habitual bad attitude are as good of an explanation as any to discipline myself and manage my thoughts.

GizmonicScrewdriver said:
To be honest, it seems as if you want acceptance for an outburst and to have created some kind of manifesto in that long read justifying your actions. I hate to say it but very focused on not the forum but on this person. You need to really not forum hop asking for people to side with you, but more real world interaction. You need to yes, get support but not on the internet alone.


And yes that seems cold but fresia, I wrote it. I have faults too. I am cold. You'll have to forgive me.



First of all, unless you've known me personally on other forums, you couldn't possibly know that I've been forum-hopping to ask people to side with me, in which case, your assumption probably stemmed from the part where I said I would constantly escape to other forums everytime an outbursts occurred, in which case, that "forum-hopping" has nothing to do with me seeking justification from multiple forums and is a separate matter relating more to my reluctance in dealing with the conflict than my insistence in whining about it. And yes, I do confess to whine about it, but again, that has nothing to do with my "forum-hopping".

Secondly, yes, you're right, I was seeking justification because I felt I was unfairly treated - at the time. As it is now, while I still feel that I was unfairly treated in some aspects of that banning, I'm intending to focus on bigger and more important matters, like honing my temper and focusing on not letting the criticisms of others (such as your own that I've quoted) affect me. From the evidence that I have yet to thrown any profanities at you or accused you of attacking me, I'd say it's working - for now. It's only been one week after my last blowup, after all. Even volcanoes slumber.

Thirdly, no, I couldn't establish any real world relationships right now, nor do I intend to. If it sounds like I'm making excuses, then I apologize, and let it be so - that I'm making excuses. I have my own plan, and I need to just focus on this more important training right now, the training in not blowing up in online conversations. Baby steps, yes, but the best way to fail at achieving success is by setting unrealistic goals. Real world relationships, to me, is one of such unrealistic goals right now.

As you might be aware of, not getting angry online is fundamentally much easier than not getting angry offline. When you have a person's face right in front of you as he's spewing insults, the first thing an angry man would want to do is to punch his face immediately. There's no computer barrier that's blocking you. There isn't another web page you can click away from. There's no relaxing music on your bookmark you can access immediately. There's no "stepping away from the computer". It's much harder. And if I can't even get myself calm enough in online conversations, if I can't retain online relationships for more than one month, do you seriously think that real world relationships is such a good idea right now? Logically, it is not.

And finally, feel free to be as cold and condescending as possible. It's good practice, if anything.
 
Listen,
I try my best to think everyone needs a chance to be heard.
Although,
no one needs a scary sixteen thousand page of this caliber of selfish asking that we side because you didn't lose your complete honeysuckle.
You are a frighting person.
I really hope you get enclosed treatment.

I have to draw the line sometimes.
 
GizmonicScrewdriver said:
Listen,
I try my best to think everyone needs a chance to be heard.
Although,
no one needs a scary sixteen thousand page of this caliber of selfish asking that we side because you didn't lose your complete honeysuckle.
You are a frighting person.
I really hope you get enclosed treatment.

I have to draw the line sometimes.

Well, I'm really sorry you feel that way. I didn't mean to come across as frightening.

However, I don't really care whether you side with me or not. I said what I said because it's what I felt to be the truth; siding with me would be a bonus to me, not a necessity nor was it the goal.

I do agree, however, that my last post might have contained more passive-aggressiveness than I should've had, for which I apologize. The reason I wrote that "sixteen thousand pages of this caliber of selfish asking" was because I felt that it's more positive to think of my lack of "losing my honeysuckle" as progress rather than let negative thoughts drag me down. It's more productive than feeling sorry for myself that I'm unable to change, don't you think?

And besides, I just finished watching an episode of Sherlock before I wrote that; I got rather influenced by it and tried to sound brilliant. Heh... Not that I was, of course, but the adrenaline was still there.

And yes, I do count this post as progress too. 20 minutes ago, I wanted to call you out for acting like a condescending jerk, but I managed to click away from this page and calm down long enough to write this post. I reminded myself that the world will keep spinning regardless of what someone else on the other side of it says about my well-being and my personality. The only problem now is to keep this reminder going for the next week, preferably for the next month. Baby steps, but something's changing for the better.
 

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