Why do I get angry at my family and not others?

[bad virus]

Why do I get angry at my family and not others?

Pre-Text: I ruined last night because of a yelling match I got into with a few of my brothers. The two of them were being snarky and rude teenagers and really upsetting my mother, but my response/over-reaction just ruined everyone's night. I basically had my mother shift from yelling at them to yelling at me/protecting them. I am 26 and the oldest of 6 boys and one girl, so high up on the family totem pole.

I consider a lot of the posters on here to be like older siblings so I have no problem coming here for advice. I am curious about why I find it easier to get into harsh confrontations with my family than with the people outside my family.

For example, If my brother is being rude to me the same way an attending was, my brother would get a yelling yet the attending would only get a cold shoulder. Is it the same reason I am afraid to yell back at my father (respect/he could break my jaw)?

The reason this whole thing bothers me is that family is the most important thing, not others. Why on Earth then would I find it easier to get angry at my family than the people outside. Is it cowardice, a fear of repercussions, the knowledge that my family won't abandon me, or the fact that they are in my face all the time? Or is it a combination of those factors?

For those of you who never get angry in front of their family, what is your secret? The only person that can control my temper at home is my father and that is just because he commands respect/fear. Also my sister who just has a knack for reading people just knows when I am up to no good and can diffuse the situation before I even realize I was about to get angry.

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

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[DB2013EM]

I'm Italian, so we yell all the time at each other and it's nothing. It's just how we converse, haha.

It sounds like you found it out yourself. It's respect. It sounds to me that you have a lot of pent up aggression, but are afraid/professional and don't use it on your elders and your "boss" (attendings). So when the time is "appropriate" to unleash it, it comes out all at once, probably multiple times more than you intended.

Do you have a lot of stress? Would you consider yourself happy? Simple way to control anger, IMO, not attributed to psychiatric disease or like explosive disorder, is to be aware of it. When you feel a chance to unleash it, THINK about how you are going to act, and then think of the repercussions, and what the outcome of the anger will be. After you realize how dumb it will be to blow up so extremely, think of a better, more passive way to control the situation.

PM me if you want more of my opinion. Hope you get some good insight in this thread

 

[Birdstrike]

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[bad virus]

PM Sent to above poster for your beautiful advice. I really appreciate it.

Family Dynamics:

Father: My father has never laid a hand on me. He has just always commanded respect and is a master of giving you the "I am so disappointed in you talk," that you would almost just rather be beat senseless instead as it would probably be less painful. He was very strict with me and always set very high standards for me in comparison with my other siblings. Our relationship has transitioned more into a friendship as I get older. Still he commands a great deal of respect and really knows how to run his house. He is the exact opposite of me in regards to how he deals with the outside world and how he deals with his family. At home he is a bubble of love yet people on the outside know not to mess with him. He is very in control of his emotions and almost never gets angry.

My mother used to whoop our rears like no tomorrow, yet I never feared her and our relationship has always been more of a friendship. I find it much more easier to talk with her and she never pushes me to go past my comfort point like my father does. she just wants to see me happy.

With the outside world, people know me as the super funny and super helpful guy.

With my second brother (one year apart), we have more of a best friend relationship.

With my sister (three years younger), we have more of an affectionate, best buds relationship.

With my three younger siblings who are all teenagers, I treat them like my father treats me. Sure I joke and mess around with them, I still run the show at home as if I was dictator. I demand to know their goals, and their school progress and push them real hard to succeed. I can easily blow up on them and usually offer more criticism than appreciation.

My baby brother (9 years old, the accident), he just gets away with everything and we all just baby the crap out of him because it is so fun to have him around.

I guess that what bothers me is that I wish that I could never snap at them and be more like an advisor/friend than an authoritarian dictator with the younger ones.

I can always tell when I am about to snap, and can control it for a bit, but then it just all goes down hill. I have no idea why this happens. I always apologize within an hour, I just wish it never had to escalate to that point.

My hope is that I can change my self to be more like the funny, really easy to get along with guy that I am outside of the home. I feel that family is much more important than strangers and that they deserve to see the best of me not the worst.

My questions is, why do I behave like this with my younger siblings, and why do I have a harder time being confrontational outside of the house? I think of people who yell at their family as disgusting, and weak, and I am tired of viewing my self in this light.

Do any of you have advise on how to better control my emotions and reverse my behavior at home?

Thank you guys for your time and sorry for the ramble. This is just something that I have become more and more aware of as I grow older and move further away from my family. I don't want these kids to grow up thinking that their older brother does not love them, because I really do. I almost think that I am so harsh with them because I want them to be the very best they can be at everything.

Anyway, thank you all in advance for your advice and have a wonderful day.

 

[bad virus]

You could do what I did:

Get married, move many states away, and have your own family.

The closest family is the one that's an airplane ride away.

Their is some serious truth to this birdstrike. My relationship was really enhanced when i was a few states away on my away rotations. All of a sudden, the phone calls and conversations increased and they were much more pleasant than what they normally were.

What's the reason behind this? Is it just easier to get angry at people who are constantly in your face?

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Birdstrike]

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[deleted109597]

You're not the only one. For some reason, I have more conflict with those I know than those I don't.
Succinctly, it's easier to argue with the nurses than it is with patients. I know the nurses. I don't know the patients.
Family is the same way. Maybe it's the familiarity thing. Maybe it's fear of actual conflict. Who knows.


Try not to take it out on your family though.

 

[WilcoWorld]

I love my family, but they can frustrate me more and more quickly than can anyone else on earth for a few reasons:

1- While you can switch jobs or move on to the next patient, you're stuck with your family.
2- You don't take time off and travel to get to work, and then arrive expecting to have a nice time. You show up expecting to work and get paid, so if you get frustrated you can more easily shrug it off as "just coming with the territory".
3- You don't love your patients/bosses/cowerkers, so when they do something stupid or behave badly, it doesn't bother you in the same personal way as a loved one's bad decision or selfishness.
4- Regression. When we're put into old, familiar situations (like your family's dinner table) we tend to regress to our old, familiar behaviors (you take on the oldest brother role, I take on the middle child role, etc). These aren't always the most shiningly positive sides of ourselves.

That all being said, some family dynamics are simply intolerable. Hopefully you don't have one of those. But, if you do, Emergency Medicine is a great specialty - you can be the nice guy who offers to work all the holidays.

 

[Postictal Raiden]

Family members push each others' buttons because they can.

I have been tutoring at my college for quite sometime. I also help my wife with her school assignments. I've noticed that I am significantly more patient with my students than I am with my wife. I hated myself for it, but after thinking, I realized that this contradictory behavior has a reason behind it. Although I care about my students' satisfaction and success, I understand that at the end their success and failure have no effect on my life. On the other hand, my wife's academic performance has a direct effect on me, so I get extremely frustrated if she makes mistakes.

Bottom line, the more you care the more intense your reaction will be toward any stimulus.

 

[EM2BE]

I agree with Birdstrike - moving away helped quite a bit. I didn't get married and have my own family, but I think even with that, my relationship with my family has gotten much stronger. I have good conversations every time I call. I was usually the one that got stuck in the middle of family arguments, and now they don't want to "bother" me with it. They just want to talk. They love to see me on my time off. They also expect me to sleep and let me sleep much longer than they used to when I lived there. Both my parents laid down the law, so we didn't get much of a chance to talk back to them. If we did, we would get assigned a ton of house work. As everyone gets older, it becomes friendships among the family.

Teenagers are harder to deal with, but when they get older, things will get easier as well. My youngest sister is in high school too, but she was forced to grow up at an early age which helps out with the teenage issues. I used to make it a point to take her out shopping as a Christmas gift. She loved it. Just her and me without other family members. The sister older than her is special ed, so she never got out alone. Little things go a long way in families. See if there is something your brothers may enjoy one on one or something like that. It's amazing how different they are outside the home environment.

Now when there are differing opinions amongst siblings and it causes one of their kids to almost die, there is no healing that one. Going home this time is going to be different. Very different. Hopefully they don't expect me to be the peace keeper. They already know which side I will chose if I am forced.

 

[bad virus]

I agree with Birdstrike - moving away helped quite a bit. I didn't get married and have my own family, but I think even with that, my relationship with my family has gotten much stronger. I have good conversations every time I call. I was usually the one that got stuck in the middle of family arguments, and now they don't want to "bother" me with it. They just want to talk. They love to see me on my time off. They also expect me to sleep and let me sleep much longer than they used to when I lived there. Both my parents laid down the law, so we didn't get much of a chance to talk back to them. If we did, we would get assigned a ton of house work. As everyone gets older, it becomes friendships among the family.

Teenagers are harder to deal with, but when they get older, things will get easier as well. My youngest sister is in high school too, but she was forced to grow up at an early age which helps out with the teenage issues. I used to make it a point to take her out shopping as a Christmas gift. She loved it. Just her and me without other family members. The sister older than her is special ed, so she never got out alone. Little things go a long way in families. See if there is something your brothers may enjoy one on one or something like that. It's amazing how different they are outside the home environment.

Now when there are differing opinions amongst siblings and it causes one of their kids to almost die, there is no healing that one. Going home this time is going to be different. Very different. Hopefully they don't expect me to be the peace keeper. They already know which side I will chose if I am forced.

Sweet post, BTW, are you a female?


All of the above posts were awesome, thanks for the insight guys. I am curious though, is it just personality type? What I mean by that is the fact that my father is the exact opposite at home than he is outside. I guess the reason I am so disgusted with my behavior, even though it seems to be common, is the fact that parents are sometimes good role models and not fitting in with how they carry themselves can often cause internal strife.

This will probably mean nothing to everyone else, but I just realized it and had to write it down. The one brother that I come down on the hardest reminds me so much of myself. He is smarter than I am, but is a total clown. I fought long and hard to not be a clown anymore and it kills me to see him make a fool of himself. I guess I hate seeing in others what I hate in my self. I love the guy and I know he will do good, I just want him to respect himself more so others can respect him.

Sorry for the ramble, I just realized it.

Oh and yes, teens suck. I can't believe I used to be one.

 

[EM2BE]

Sweet post, BTW, are you a female?


All of the above posts were awesome, thanks for the insight guys. I am curious though, is it just personality type? What I mean by that is the fact that my father is the exact opposite at home than he is outside. I guess the reason I am so disgusted with my behavior, even though it seems to be common, is the fact that parents are sometimes good role models and not fitting in with how they carry themselves can often cause internal strife.

This will probably mean nothing to everyone else, but I just realized it and had to write it down. The one brother that I come down on the hardest reminds me so much of myself. He is smarter than I am, but is a total clown. I fought long and hard to not be a clown anymore and it kills me to see him make a fool of himself. I guess I hate seeing in others what I hate in my self. I love the guy and I know he will do good, I just want him to respect himself more so others can respect him.

Sorry for the ramble, I just realized it.

Oh and yes, teens suck. I can't believe I used to be one.

Yes I'm female. Why do you ask?

If it's about the shopping comment - you should know - I hate clothes shopping for myself. It's funny that's what I did with my sister.

 

[bad virus]

Yes I'm female. Why do you ask?

If it's about the shopping comment - you should know - I hate clothes shopping for myself. It's funny that's what I did with my sister.

Yes it was the shopping comment. I am sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I just could never go shopping.

Thanks for the sweet post by the way.

 

[Apollyon]

All of the above posts were awesome, thanks for the insight guys. I am curious though, is it just personality type? What I mean by that is the fact that my father is the exact opposite at home than he is outside. I guess the reason I am so disgusted with my behavior, even though it seems to be common, is the fact that parents are sometimes good role models and not fitting in with how they carry themselves can often cause internal strife.

The thing is, is that you can pick your friends, but not your family. As long as there is no division or disownment, your family is there for the long haul, period. That is not true for the general public or patients you see: for the patients, it is an unbalanced relationship, because you are in the power position, for one, and, for two, it is not a permanent relationship, and, when they DO see you, again, you control the interaction. If the patient does or says something unacceptable, then it is easy to completely break it off, and you wash your hands of it. With your family, it isn't, because you WILL, affirmatively, see them tomorrow, and infinitely into the future. Instead of telling them to "go away", it is with them that you will go.

So, with some people, it is like you say. With others, like Dr.McNinja says, it's avoidance. However, they both have the same root - that, with family, you have to live with the consequences.

Remember "displacement" from behavioral sciences? You have a bad day at work, so you come home and kick the dog? It's related to that.

 

[EM2BE]

Yes it was the shopping comment. I am sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. I just could never go shopping.

Thanks for the sweet post by the way.

No offense or anything taken. Hope things get better.

It's very difficult to compartmentalize, but I think that helps too. I found venting to co-workers before talking to family makes things better too.

 

[Croooz]

If I may,
Say your piece, IF YOU HAVE TO, and leave it at that. Eventually what you will realize is that questions are much better than statements. "What makes you say that....How did you come to that conclusion.....What do you mean by....." Stop making the assumption you understand their point before they even make one. Chances are they haven't even thought out their point and are merely thinking outloud and you just happen to be standing there. Becoming comfortable with family making ******ed statements and either asking for clarification or just giving them a toothless smile comes with age and maturity. My wife could do it back when we first got married in '92. Me? I just learned it. She's at genius level EQ in spoken and unspoken communication and I'm an IQ/EQ point away from being considered brain dead. I'm finally learning from her.

So with family and just about all relationships, seek first to understand and don't worry about being understood. You'll know those who want to understand your point. As far as doctors orders will that's a different animal.

And like birdstrike...distance works wonders as well. No foolin! Fish and company, especially family, stink after three days.

 

[Anonymous M4]

My favorite part in the Avengers is when Bruce Banner is like "my secret is I'm always angry" and then he goes all Hulk and saves Iron Man. I take that lesson to heart.