Managing Surprise anger

[theaquarist]

Good afternoon from where I am 

I had a sudden mood swing while cooking breakfast this morning. Then suddenly my vision started narrowing, my neck bulged up and feels tense, nausea / appetite loss, and a headache came on. I felt confused why this was happening and I wondered if it was the noises going on in the house, my gf's hyper dog, or that I was cooking and waiting for her to join me but she disappeared with the dog. Abandonment issue?

when she asked me about the food, I started stuttering badly and humbling my words, my thoughts got thrown like confetti in my mind space, and I couldn't say a complete sentence. I fixated on her upper lip for a moment while kind of disassociating. I felt mad and frozen. She spoke up that she cared about me seeming "uneasy" and I found my hand crossed over my chest to self soothe my skin on the upper right of my chest/shoulders. Does anyone else here do that? I was able to snap out of it by noticing.

I don't know, I got my feelings hurt somehow and the anger was ahead of me suddenly, like I wasn't paying enough attention to it to prevent it. Look at me shaming myself for not being on top of emotions enough, haha. I still don't know exactly why I was triggered, but I have had lingering negative thoughts about the past this mornin. 

I bowed out and told her she didn't do anything wrong, because she didn't. And I didn't blame anyone, especially the hyper dog who I have blamed in the past (trauma history there). I'm really proud of myself for making a change on that. He's just a rescue pup with inconsistent training, trying his best. His noises, nervousness, disobedience, etc are not enough not reasons for me to get angry and flash into scare mode.

Right now I'm sitting on a the porch swing on a nice day, reading a bit about psychosomatic pain responses and working on relaxing an EF. I still want to charge ahead with the day and not give up my time to hiding and ruminating which is something I've done a lot over the years.

Ultimately, I'm happy that I handled the anger differently and found the strength to own my emotions, and take care of them. Wanted to share and acknowledge it.
Similar experiences, thoughts, feedback?

[Three Roses]

Sometimes when I need to know something, and I can't seem to catch it with my conscious mind, I start writing and inviting any "inner kids" who feel like it to chime in. I've had good results with this so far.

[Riverstar]

I've found blame a very important and useful tool. I don't mean blaming the innocent dog here, who was just a trigger, but blaming the person from your past who made you "overreact". One of the reasons PTSD people can have explosions of anger is because they have a whole lot of anger (and grief) inside of them and they never directed it at the person who actually hurt them. Learning to be angry and to blame the person who hurt you (though people like them would tell you blame is bad and isn't taking responsibility for your own problems) can be very therapeutic and help you to not be angry at other people/things that aren't really the source of the anger.

Another thing I read recently, which makes a lot of sense to me, is to try to pay attention - and even encourage yourself - to be mildly angry. Notice when you're just irritated or frustrated, and if you pay attention to why, address the feelings, and understand where they're coming from, then your anger won't build until it explodes for "no" reason. Anger can be very useful - it helps us to stick up for ourselves and recognize setbacks and recognize when things need to change. So not being afraid of anger, and be willing to be angry at reasonable things in a controlled way can actually (counter-intuitively) help you not be angry by releasing it in the right way at the real provocations.

Anger is a really tricky point with PTSD people, because often they get angry all the time, their anger pouring out at other things rather than the person who hurt them, or they're afraid of anger and of becoming like their abuser and never stick up for themselves. But hope this is helpful.