Anger triggers: 'Collecting Straws'

It's morning and you are getting ready for work. But you've run out of your favourite breakfast cereal. Or there's no milk. Or you can't find your keys. And you think to yourself  I just know it's going to be one  of those days!

You are about to begin collecting straws.

From now on you will be on the lookout for things to get annoyed about. And doing this will ensure that do not notice things that you might otherwise feel good about. 

For some people this is a thing they do for a few hours or a day. Others collect straws over weeks or months. And become quite furious in the process.

That's it - I've had enough!

Let's say Jo is one of these collectors. She is shopping and in the supermarket is bumped by someone's trolley. Anyone else might be mildly irritated by the other persons' clumsiness. on a good day Jo might have let it pass, too.

But not today. Because she is on the lookout for things to add to her belief that today is one of those days and that the world is out to make her annoyed.

So she explodes with fury, creating a scene that she may later feel embarrassed about or experience self-hatred or guilt.

The intensity of her outburst is due to the suppressed anger built up since she first thought to herself  It's going to be one of those days! And the unfortunate person who bumped into her while searching for the chocolate biscuits bears the brunt of this accumulated irritability or anger.

Days or weeks of 'collecting'

	People with a strong anger-habit don't collect reasons to feel angry over just a few hours. They can spend weeks, months or a lifetime doing it. This accounts for their quite over-the-top response to rather insignificant events.
	When these people reach their ' final straw' - the trigger event which takes them overboard the explosion  can be quite severe and may even result in physical violence.

How does this work?

We find what we set ourselves up to find. If I have a belief that the world is out to get me, or that nobody respects me, or that my partner, friends or family hate me then I will find lots of evidence for this. And I will ignore any evidence that contradicts this.

All the little pieces of evidence are carefully collected along with our irritability for each situation. Mixing metaphors, it is as if we have a cooking put into which we put every event and keep it simmering. Then the point is reached where we have had enough and we explode.

Now it is as if the final straw event has tapped into our 'unfinished business reservoir' where our memories of anger and injustice and disrespect are stored.

In the case of severe anger this reservoir can include memories of slights and injustices going back to childhood.

(Back to the mechanic of anger page)

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