Ok, I've been visiting this site a LOT and I've noticed a common theme with many folks...Anger...and no constructive means of dealing with it effectively.  So,  I will post a few things here in the hopes that those who haven't found a positive way of dealing with this emotion will find something they can use to help them here.

Personally, after the accident, I found myself fully enraged at the world and everything in it.  I had already been mad as hell for years over the unbelievable abuse I had suffered as a child, a teen, a woman, and finally a wife.  Since I had never fully worked thru all of that anger, I'd simply shoved it into the recesses of my mind, refusing to deal with it...always changing the subject to "something happy" and just kept shoving more hurt feelings and abusive situations into that same area until my mind resembled some sort of overstuffed suitcase.  Well, after the accident, the tiny latch on the mental suitcase could no longer handle the strain and burst completely open.

I had been (unknowingly) leaking my anger out over the years...physical confrontation here....few hateful words there....but just enough to get the suitcase closed again so that I didn't unleash it all on someone who "didn't deserve" it.  Well, on someone "I thought didn't deserve it" would be a more precise way of putting it.   After the wreck, I didn't care anymore.  Anger ruled everything I did.  It ruled every thought, word, and action of my daily life.  It even ruled my dreams when I went to sleep.   Healing was a long way off and it would be a bumpy road.

I began to ask for help in my prayers one day when I finally realized that my Anger was destroying me and everything around me.  It tainted everything in my life..and I mean everything.  It didn't just keep people away from me, it repelled them at such a high rate of speed some of them won't ever return to the same hemisphere.  Darkness.  

How do you find the Light again?  The Laughter?  I started writing.  I wrote about everything that had ever hurt me.  Some days were good days where the pen made beautiful flowing lines across the paper like some sort of silent orchestra.  Other days the pages were filled with tear stains...and the worst days were the ones where my pen would scream, "FEEL MY PAIN!" each word was large enough to cover an entire page.  The more I wrote, the easier it became to mentally accept those events as "the past" and I would tell myself, "Now is the present...those things are not happening anymore.  You are smarter now.  You are better now."  In time, I could envision a small pin prick of Light in my heart where before, I had only seen cold, hard stone.

Prayer was another tool that helped me a great deal and reading the Bible too.  Prayer offered me the chance to forgive myself for the role I played in each situation, then to forgive the other(s) for the role(s) they played.  The Bible offered me insight on changing how I viewed situations.  It gave me another perspective and it taught me what Love was.  I began to Love myself.

Since I was bedridden for so long, I couldn't very well vent my frustrations on anything I pleased, as I had done sometimes in my "old life".  So, I used a pillow and I would punch the pillow, slam it around, scream at it...lol...until I was exhausted.  I would heal. 

Never have I been one to "count to 10"...but I learned to cultivate patience...and not respond the second someone/something pushed the Anger button.  I learned to wait until I was calm...because I learned that Logic Will Defeat Anger....and I had to be Calm to find Logic.  I did this by asking myself questions to defuse the situation.  "Have they been conditioned this way?"  "Is my interaction with this person based on Love?"  "Or, is my interaction stemming from a desire to hurt another like I've been hurt?"

These are some of the tools I've used and the progress has been amazing.  I no longer desire to lash out or hurt anyone...far cry from hating the world just a few years ago.   Ahh, Light and Laughter....Finally!

Course, I've only covered one side of this emotion here and only what I've done personally to help me heal.  If anyone else happens to have any tips for dealing with this emotion, please feel free to list them.  I'm always happy to learn new techniques that will help me and the world around me!