For me, I try to forgive myself for my inability to do whatever it is I had hoped to accomplish. Kinda like, giving myself a break for not living up to my own expectations. Does that mean I don't get angry, well I can't say that I can only say it is a lot less. Then, there is the whole hormone thing that I am still not sure if cfs makes it worse, I guess time will tell.

The frustration of lost abilities and dreams is constant, but my kids put the smile on my face. They make me laugh and that lets me know I'm still me! I also very firmly tell myself that I'm doing my best and what is best for my health to alleviate my guilt.(Takes practice!)

If you live alone like I do, anger issues can easily build up to toxic levels. I'm sure it's more than just the outrageous injustice of the way we are treated by the medical establishment and our communities. I think the illness affects our endocrine system and causes extreme irritability at times.

I know this to be a fact because I can predict when I'm going to get really testy and irritable based on my experience with the cycles of the way the illness affects me.

I get busy, that helps a lot. I'm careful to balance activity with rest, but inactivity just makes me stew and get into morbid states of mind. My advice is to get busy with something. I do a lot of gardening, I'm trying to grow a lot of my own food.

Try giving your living quarters some cleaning, it will make you feel better if you can take the exercise.

Yes, I get angry now and then. I also try to understand where it is coming from and a lot of times it comes when I compare myself to someone or something. For instance, IF I wasn't sick I could do this or that, and IF I hadn't ever gotten sick I would be..... The bottom line is that we don't know what our lives would be like IF we hadn't ever gotten sick because who knows what else might have come our way instead.

How do I deal with it? It's okay to have a bit of a fit now and then. Go ahead and scream if you need to. The problem is that for a lot of people they can release pent up emotion with physical exercise. If you can go for a walk, great! If you can put on some musice and dance, fantastic! If you can throw a pillow at the wall and punch it and pounce on it, terrific! If not, then come to DS and scream about it because we know what your screaming is about.

I think we all deal with the anger issue as part of the grieving process. As people with chronic illness...we do grieve the loss. It is the death of our once healthy bodies. And it hurts. Bad.

It's good to vent the anger in a positive way. Talk to someone. Go in the yard and yell. Throw nurf balls at the house, whatever you need to do! Just don't stuff it.

Come here and talk about it the way you are doing. I'm sure all of us have found ways to deal with the anger part of this grieving process. Some are doing better than others.

I try to not take the anger out on anyone else. That's my number one priority.
When you feel the anger coming on, acknowledge it, to yourself. Then move on. I find humor to be the most helpful thing. Seriously, find something to laugh at!! It will lift your spirits and move you from that angry place.

Most of all, understand that we all deal with this. There's nothing wrong with feeling anger. It's a normal emotion.

And come back here and talk about it!! xoxo

This is going to sound awful, but there are quite a few holes in my walls, resulted from my anger for what I have lost. Ive smashed a lot of things in rage and dispair. I know it was wrong and I really regret doing it, but apart of me doesnt feel like I should apologise because I am a human with real emotions, and I had the majority of my youth taken from me.

Thanks a lot for the support guys, I really appreciate everyone's input.

I spent literally YEARS so angry I couldn't see straight. I think it was exacerbated by my family's conviction that I'm not really sick, just lazy. But also, I got sick just a few months before I got married, and so I had to face the loss of all those magic dreams of what that was going to be like. I spent a lot of time being sure that "when I got well" we could do all the things we'd planned on. In addition to having my illness stabilize, I finally just decided to go ahead and do as much as I could. Waiting for some mythical future time of wellness just fueled the anger. My life is no where near what I thought it would be, but most days I'm okay with that. And frankly, even non-sick people have to deal with the impossibility of most of their youthful dreams. I have an amazing marriage, and the most wonderful little daughter I could have ever dreamed of. So really, I have a lot to be thankful for.
Hugs to you.

I completely understand where you're coming from. Often when I'm in extreme pain - which at the momen is about two/three times a week - It will be so bad that I will cry - take some heavy duty drugs - then smash something in my room up. Sometimes I find that the pain in my fists and wrists afterwards distracts from the horrible pains in my arms and legs that is with me so much of the time. This behavious really is not me - rather the old me - I don't like doing it but at the same time it feels good - it feels like something I need to do to get anger out of my system. I don't take my anger out on other people though. It's the pain above anything else that triggers the anger. It's like when you see an injured animal and they are going crazy with pain, biting at things, barking or making noise - that's how my pain will leave me sometimes. I also agree with Richie D that we are bereft of one of the greatest therapies for anger - excercise.

I've only been ill for a year but it's pretty severe. I find anything that allows me to be the agent of my own destiny helps a little emotionally. An electric wheelchair, playing a game of pool, doing some research of my own. I also have a feeling that building something physical - however long that would take - would be good for my head.

Also the years you have spent being ill have not been totally lost. Granted they have been unpleasant in ways that only you and us can understand but you may have also done little things you can be proud of - even if it's just surviving - just posting on here occasionally to help other people - you've got every right to be proud of your feat of survival.

CFSWarrior - good question.
Answer yes.

Noise inollerance > anger,
Food intollerance > ^ pain > anger
Cognative impairment > frustration > anger
Physical impairment > anger
6 in IBS-d ^ > in dispair ^ > in anger
Bitterness of losing many years is only ofset when we realise that we have been growing in unususl ways in testing tollerance compassion and understanding the likes of which we neer before knew of because we were niave to such loss.

Dont wory anger is often just below the surface but I keep it in check and by grace allow patience and perseverance to preside. Anger soon plays second fiddle then 3rd fiddle.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/limbicsystem.html

Neurologically anger is easy to understand by association of proximity to the amygdala.

Neurological disorder ICD 10, G.93.3
World Health Organisation (WHO) 1969

Priority 1 Disease of Public Health Importance
Centers for Disease Control (CDC) 1997

The WHO rightly ID ME/CFS as a Neurological Disorder of Organic Origin - Virus's and Toxins.
Virus's and Toxins overoad the immune systems spinal fluid (Immune profile) and interact with the brain proteins.

http://aboutmecfs.org/forums/content.php?92-Proteins-on-the-Brain-A-Breakthrough-for-ME-CFS&page=2

The brain stem is damaged, frequently the Pineal gland is damaged, the toxic immune profile easily influances the central cortex Hypothalmus HPA axis and look at the vacinity of the amygdala.

In most ME/CFS sufferers the Parasympathetic Nervous system is non doninant and the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) anerobic metabolism is perminantly switched on necessitating the exhaustion we experiance. When sympathetic nervous system is dominant then its so much easier to arrouse anger.

http://www.chronicfatiguetreatments.com/forums/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-f1/topic1212.html

Idiots like Dr Wessley play on this by marketing advertising campaigns saying ME/ CFS sufferers gave him death threats. He is only seeking to provoke more angry public media friendly moments where ME/CFS'ers lash out at him. Such is the idiocity of Dr Wessley.

WOW! Some brains work a whole lot better than mine!!!! I get angry when my brain won't work right. I was an English major. I'm a published author and I wrote a column for one of the newspapers where we once lived. Now, I have trouble getting a coherent sentence out. That not only angers me, it terrifies me.

When I am angry about my life now versus my life 15 years ago, I yell at God. He can take it and he knows how I feel. If yelling at him makes me feel better, I think he's okay with that.

The other anger outlet I like is reading the book of Job. That guy lost a lot and he yelled at God. He is a first class complainer. I read it silently, but I comment out loud. I say things like - yeah you give it to him Job; that goes for me too God; Job you are one good whiner.

I usually end up laughing at myself but thanks to Job, my anger is back in its cubby.

i have had CFS/ME for my whole adult life - almost 30 years. i think that whoever compared the dealing process with grieving was spot on. there are definitely phases. anger is surely one. i have learned that anger & bitterness really only hurt me - makes me feel worse and who wants to be around that?!

i try to laugh at the stupid things that i say and do - rather than cry. my family laughs along with me (or at me :) i'm cheap entertainment)

i daily have to remind myself that this is how it is now and i can go with it or fight it and be sicker yet. i am always hopeful for a 'ure' but for now, it just gets worse. i do what i can - sometimes that's nothing - sometimes it's a little more than that. people who think we are lazy or complainers are clueless and i don't give them the satisfaction of annoying me. they don't get it and often don't want to get it. people who haven't walked in our shoes really don't fully understand, but some try very hard and come close. those are the people i keep close. i really try to count my blessings - there are so many of us with CFS/ME out there that have it even worse than i do.

so many great solutions/ideas mentioned above. i am thankful to have found such a supportive site.

I love what Zilnna said, "I don't give them the satisfaction of annoying me". Ha ha! Love it.

When I was at my worst I would go from depressed to anger to struggling for hope and a positive attitude just to repeat it all over again. You sure got a lot of great feedback from your post. I hope you have a restful, peaceful evening.

Oh yes, yes! When I had constant, chronic pain, I was angry about everything and did not hide it very well at all. (my poor hubby). Thankfully he knew I was rarely mad at him, just mad about life, pain, losing my old identity mostly, and dumb things, like unrealistic frustration with pickle jar lids. I remember wanting to smash the jar just b/c it was stuck and the only reason I didn't smash it was the horrible stench it would leave in my kitchen lol.

Talking to hubby about my anger really helped. Breathing Out the anger, as suggested by my acupuncturist helped me avoid keeping it all in my gut where it always did damage. She'd say "just acknowledge the anger and then blow it out until it feels gone." smart lady!

I spent most of the day in a low level of anger and indignation at a passing comment my brother made this morning. I thought he made a comment about how I could decide if I was going to be tired or not---wow, yes, anger and defensiveness clouds my hearing.

I think this may be part of the reason why so many of us become housebound and isolated.

Our illness makes us hypervigilant and sensitive to negative remarks, there are lots of people ready with sarcastic comments about our illness, emotional disturbance and anger causes our symptoms to flare...so we give up on social interaction and stay home.

I'm sure there are people who would read this and think of ways to coax us out of our caves. But in the long run it may be that we're better off staying away from people. It's never gotten me anywhere when I try to socialize with people, I know that much. It always seems to lead me to a place where my illness is a lot worse.

I'm hopeful some of the new research going on may help to legitimize our illness. Then maybe there will be fewer things to make us angry. As they used to say in my family...live in hope and die in the poorhouse. Unfortunately they don't have poorhouses any more.