Coping with Anger When You (or a Loved One) Has

Mesothelioma

Dana NolanLicensed Mental Health Counselor

What Is Anger?

Anger is a common and normal emotional state that varies from mild irritation to fury and rage.

We all feel anger and it is usually accompanied by physiological changes, including increased heart rate, high blood pressure and raised levels of adrenaline.

Anger can be caused by internal or external circumstances.

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What Is Anger? (cont.)

Anger can feel out of control and unpredictable. The goal of this presentation is to help you

understand anger and gain some control over how we manage this emotion.

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When anger gets out of control it can become destructive to our work, our families and our overall quality of life.

Anger and Mesothelioma

Reasons why mesothelioma patients and their caregivers may feel anger:

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Delay in specialist approvalOccupational exposure Out-of-pocket medical

expenses

Delay in diagnosis or misdiagnosis

Incurability of mesothelioma

Delay in VA or Social Security benefits

Coping with Anger

The goal of anger management is NOT to eliminate feelings of anger, as this is simply impossible.

The goal is to manage the expression of anger in a healthy way.

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Feeling Our Anger

When we feel threatened, we respond instinctively with anger and aggression. This is an adaptive and natural response to a threat.

A certain amount of anger is necessary to our survival so that we are able to fight and defend ourselves if we feel threatened.

However, uncontrolled anger leads to hypertension, headaches, digestive problems and insomnia.

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Healthy Strategies to Deal with Anger

We can’t get rid of or avoid all the things that enrage us. We can’t change other people, traffic, weather, economy or other things not in our control.

But, we can learn to control our REACTIONS to those things by:

Expressing our anger Suppressing our anger Calming ourselves

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Expressing Our Anger

Finding a way to assertively talk about what is angering us to the appropriate person is the healthiest way to manage anger. What are your needs exactly? How can I get them without hurting others? What is respectful to myself and others?

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This is the best strategy when trying to manage a people/organizational problem that has a solution.

Suppressing Our Anger

Suppressing our anger is what we do when we hold in our anger and try to redirect it positively or constructively.

Situations that we cannot control, such as being stuck in a traffic jam and a hurricane blowing the roof off our home, may lead to anger. These situations respond well to suppressing strategies.

Redirecting our anger usually involves cognitive restructuring, which means changing our thoughts about these situations.

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Cognitive Structuring

Avoid catastrophizing an event that makes you angry.

Avoid words like “always” and “never” which are inaccurate and can make you feel like your anger at a situation is justified and insolvable.

Use logic and problem-solving. Remind yourself the world is not evil or out to ruin your life.

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Humor

At times, use of humor will help diffuse the energy of our anger.

Being able to step back and see our anger from another perspective can lead us to see how silly we look blowing our lid over something insignificant.

Watching something funny on TV or being around someone who makes us laugh also diffuses our anger.

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Calming

In those situations where we can’t communicate assertively with anyone, suppress or redirect our anger, the only thing left is to acknowledge our anger and try to physiologically calm ourselves down.

Deep breathing helps to lower our heart rate and blood pressure and diffuses our experience of anger.

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Calming (cont.)

Music that we connect with can diffuse our feelings of anger.

Distracting our ourselves with hobbies: Reading a book, scrapbooking, wood-work, painting, going for a walk, doing a puzzle, etc. All these things have calming effects and

allow us to de-escalate and have a clearer mind to try and cope with the situation that angered us.

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Taking Anger out on Our Loved Ones

Sometimes patients and caregivers will become irritable, verbally aggressive or demanding toward their loved ones because of fear, stress and their anger related to coping with mesothelioma.

This is misplaced anger and usually is expressed with people we feel will love us unconditionally.

Misplaced anger is damaging to our closest relationships and can have a detrimental effect on our ability to get support from others when we need it in the future.

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Take Home Messages

There are many understandable reasons why people affected by mesothelioma may feel higher-than-normal levels of anger.

Not managing anger appropriately leads to health problems, relationship issues and poor quality of life.

Trying any of the these strategies are proven to help diffuse our feelings of anger.

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Contact Information

1-800-615-2270

(800) 615-2270