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[NullForceOmega]

I am human, humans are animals.  I accept this as it has been clearly displayed over and over again that the human animal is one of the most hardened survivors on Earth.  I don't deny that what you are talking about is possible, I am saying that it is an attempt to deny that very humanity in favor of an ideal.  And in achieving that ideal a fundamental component of the human experience is lost.

Not that any of this philosophy addresses the topic, except in an extremely esoteric fashion.  I do enjoy the discourse, so I'm willing to walk the path to 'humor' you.

Also, every minute I spend talking here is a minute I'm not doing something I can't take back.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You believe that the human experience is in denying yourself the ability to choose?

Everything we do or believe in is a part of our humanity, it is inescapable. What changes is what is available to us based on our circumstances and direction. To indulge in the base urges is to eschew that direction entirely. It is no coincidence that all of the best accomplishments are found in enduring things we don't want to endure, in order to serve a greater purpose. It doesn't have to be a ridiculous ideal. It just has to be something that can't be done otherwise.

The part of the mind that asks what we want to do in the here and now is poison. If you're lost in the wilderness and filled with despair that you'll never escape, then what you want to do then and there is lay down and die so you'll stop being in pain. Fuck that. Decide, act to fulfill that decision, and keep acting until you find an acceptable outcome. This principle applies equally to all less dramatic scenarios.

[NullForceOmega]

I think that we are miscommunicating here, I absolutely believe in the ability to choose, but I recognize that when you choose against nature there are consequences, I have personally racked up so much damage from pushing myself beyond my physical and emotional limits that I have caused permanent damage to my body, and probably my psyche as well.

I have walked barefoot and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans through the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet in the dead of winter (its kind of a long story, and doesn't really matter.)

What I'm talking about is that when you 'deny' your emotions and sublimate them entirely, you lose some of your basic human perspective, and thus a level of understanding of the world that surrounds you.

Also, I'm already rather emotionless in my interaction with the world, I push it any farther and I won't have a marriage anymore.  The only strong emotion that is really even present in my emotional makeup is 'Rage', and it is strong enough that keeping it from taking control of me is an active battle with my impulses.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

In that case, my response is that I'm not advocating denial and stoicism of one's emotions. Being honest with yourself is important, very important.

However. A person's emotional state is in large part determined by what they're willing to believe is acceptable. If your only emotion is rage, force yourself to try and feel otherwise. Engage in every positive, constructive thing you can manage while feeling but not indulging the rage and understanding that isn't the way it should be. The emotional mind can be reshaped through this struggle.

Your problems are clearly way more intense than mine, but I was rage-possessed when I was younger. Every emotion stems from something, somewhere. Change the input, change the output.

[NullForceOmega]

I know exactly where the rage comes from.  I have distanced myself from the sources as much as is reasonably possible, but a substantial portion is self driven, and I can't even begin to address it in my current state, it is very possible that I won't ever be able to actually deal with it.  That hasn't stopped me from trying, and I do not know how to quit.

All of this would probably be easier to deal with if it was currently possible for me to get some of those 'constructive' activities you mentioned going, I do what I can, but we aren't talking about an easy to manage degree of rage, so it takes substantial distractions to keep myself from focusing on it.

[Detoxicated]

Ouch, let me tell you though, the one who searches for peace will find it...
I find it quite brave of you to tell your story and to share your pain with us

[x2yzh9]

Ouch, let me tell you though, the one who searches for peace will find it...
I find it quite brave of you to tell your story and to share your pain with us

I find it quite brave as well...

To be honest, I have been at the same point as you before-it ended up leading me into a nasty fight and I ended up hospitalized, for good reason. I have much anger throughout the day, believe it or not, but surprisingly enough(for me at least) I control it. So, I'm going to try to substantiate all this with what's gotten me through it, whether it may help or not.

A)Intensive therapy for years(to this day still)
B)Intense meditation for quite some time(I'd say about a year or two, maybe at max three)
C)Medications, which I wholly hated and despised for the longest time(that being at least 5 or 6 out of the 7 years that I've been taking it, but that co-existed or exists with the loss of my father, a grief I felt for the longest time)
and D)Knowing how to cope with a situation I can change or cannot change. And I mean, really, knowing is half the battle as they say. Finding effective mechanisms to cope with it was a tough challenge.

These aren't answers on some test, or anything, and I would never recommend it to be that way. But simply speaking from my point of view, these are what I've found to help me. In your situation, I mean, it's not clearly defined and it doesn't have to be. I'm not here to placate your story or your anger because all that has ever done for me is lead to having to deal with it more intensely later on. I'm just simply trying to help, and I hope the above text has cleared up any misunderstanding you might have had about my advice. Thanks for your time, sincerely;as an individual who myself felt like his time was being wasted by the above remedies that I've found to help me.

[NullForceOmega]

Well, got really, really sick, and for the moment at least the boiling-over about to explode rage has subsided back to fairly well contained.  Don't know how long that will last, but since things are quieting down maybe I can limp along to the next crisis before I make the world burn (and if I'm very lucky, I can make it past that one too.)

[Ghills]

I think that we are miscommunicating here, I absolutely believe in the ability to choose, but I recognize that when you choose against nature there are consequences, I have personally racked up so much damage from pushing myself beyond my physical and emotional limits that I have caused permanent damage to my body, and probably my psyche as well.

I have walked barefoot and wearing nothing but a t-shirt and jeans through the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of nearly ten thousand feet in the dead of winter (its kind of a long story, and doesn't really matter.)

What I'm talking about is that when you 'deny' your emotions and sublimate them entirely, you lose some of your basic human perspective, and thus a level of understanding of the world that surrounds you.

Also, I'm already rather emotionless in my interaction with the world, I push it any farther and I won't have a marriage anymore.  The only strong emotion that is really even present in my emotional makeup is 'Rage', and it is strong enough that keeping it from taking control of me is an active battle with my impulses.

Might some of your baseline upset be due to physical pain? Long-term pain can be processed into a variety of sensations as the body tries to handle it. Pain itself is a signal that something needs fixing, and if it goes on long enough it often starts transmuting into something else (ex, referred pain).   Have you had a whole-body evaluation from a chiropractor to make sure all your joints - neck, shoulder, spine, pelvis, hips, ankles, etc - are working right? That helped me tremendously with all kinds of things that seems completely unrelated to joint problems.  A thorough physical is probably a good idea too.

Have you tried deliberately inducing gentler emotions? The don't-quit-replace-habits mindset, but with emotions instead of nail-biting. This might be best done with your therapist though?  It helped a lot with me, every time I started spiraling out of control I focused on something specific that made me happy, or went out of my way to do something nice for a family member or friend.  It jerked me out of the bad emotion and also made my relationships stronger so they survived my freakouts.

I also have to second the approach mentioned upthread of just devaluing whatever feeling is out of control - mine was stress, so it's not exactly the same, but it worked really well.  It took umpteen repetitions of 'everything is OK; I have survived until now and I will survive this; I don't need to get fired up about this' and lots of deliberate muscle relaxation when I started winding up, but I managed to subdue my reaction to things that had previously sent me into nervous twitching fits.

[NullForceOmega]

Oh, without a doubt the constant physical pain is one of the causes, but it isn't the largest by any measure of imagination.  I'd love to get a full chiropractic adjustment, and a few deep-tissue massages as well, but those cost money which is better spent on my children (I am not ignoring my own health or anything, it's just that handling the pain is much lower priority than my hypothyroidism and glaucoma).

As for the emotions, I honestly cannot even differentiate positive emotions from neutral states the vast majority of the time, and when I do rarely feel something positive, I tend to force myself into a full depressive spiral.  As noted earlier in the thread, I hate myself for enjoying causing physical harm to others, and have pretty much trained myself to not allow it.  I am trying to break down those barriers in a controlled fashion, but it is time consuming and emotionally draining.

I do the mantra thing too, "This isn't worth it, don't let it get to you."  "You can just ignore it, it doesn't matter."  They don't really work for me, to be honest, the best I can hope for is that I find something less enraging to concentrate on.

[Detoxicated]

Be patient homes...
You are searching peace and you will find it...