People who have low self esteem are blinded to th truth of the behaviors they developed overtime. This behaviors are what we call low self esteem symptoms and it is usually left untreated unless someone helps the person receive professional help. A very good example of low self esteem symptoms that could greatly ruin anyone’s life is rage. People who have low self esteem have know trust in themselves and usually blame that mistrust to other people. Here is a good story that will help explain how rage can damage any person’s life.
A FEW years ago, a client convicted for common assault was referred to me. He was given a six-month custodial sentence but he had his sentence suspended for a year on the condition that he sought professional help for anger management. It was a straightforward choice – either therapy or prison.
I can still remember rather vividly our first encounter. He was over six feet tall, looked stern and was huge. His presence was rather overbearing and intimidating.
As he sat down, he wasted no time in telling me in no uncertain terms, “I shouldn’t be here!”
His bluntness took me by surprise. Furthermore, I was not quite sure whether he was being rhetorical or he meant it quite literally.
I asked what he meant. He growled: “I’m not the problem.”
I stretched his patience slightly: “What do you mean by you’re not the problem?”
He responded impatiently: “They are the ones who are annoying me, I’m not the problem.” Or words to that effect.
I was pushing my luck this time, but I needed him to be more specific: “Who are ‘they’?”
“My wife … my boss and the people I work with,” he snapped back.
“Well, since you’re not the problem, you should send them all to see me instead,” I put it to him gently, for my own safety.
He stared at me for a few seconds (it seemed like an eternity), and replied sheepishly: “Okay, you may have a point.”
This is a classic example to illustrate the fact that we are never the problem. It is always the fault of someone else for losing our rage.
No one is exempt from anger. Anger is an aspect of our emotions, and it is not altogether bad if it is kept under control. It provides us with the necessary ‘oomph’ to strive and succeed in life. Anger motivates and spurs us on, and one would certainly be dull and predictable without it.
It only becomes a destructive force if left unchecked. Such anger is an age-old problem and solutions to tame its destructive force have been sought by sages and philosophers.
Indeed, interest in anger management has grown recently due to the phenomenon of road rage and air rage, on which numerous academic studies were conducted. It was only recently that anger was considered as a ‘specific emotional disorder’.
It is true that some people have a higher tolerance threshold for dealing with life’s irritants and disappointments, while others are hypersensitive and quick-tempered.
This suggests that our personal backgrounds play a part in the way we cope with and handle our (angry) emotions.
Therefore, the problem lies at the core of a person’s emotional stability rather than the circumstances which trigger the emotions.
It is a fact of life that there are things or situations which often annoy or irritate us. Most people are able to let it pass and move on. Some people, however, have difficulty in doing so, and they tend to let their anger fester.
Soon enough, their whole being becomes a ‘pressure cooker’ and in no time, a situation, which would be considered as trivial under normal circumstances, can unleash the pent-up emotion causing a massive explosion of rage.
These are exactly the kind of people who are forever angry and believe that the whole world is against them.
There are many reasons as to why some people find it more difficult than others to keep their anger under control. One of them could be due to a repressive childhood when they could have been bullied or abused.
This, consequentially, can lead to low self-esteem, lack of self-belief and low self-confidence. And, they become hypersensitive, intolerant and defensive.
Anger then becomes an instinctive reaction to deter threats or criticisms as well as a means to ‘let off steam’.
However, the latter approach is not necessarily a constructive way to ease tension and frustration. On the contrary, it is rather dysfunctional as research has shown that the perpetrators invariably end up feeling bad partly because of the harm that they had caused.
As stated previously, anger is a useful force provided it is utilised properly. People with poor anger management are aware of their hot temperament and short fuses. They tend to deny they have a problem until it is too late – by then, they would have caused serious emotional and/or physical harm to others.
To avoid that, it is imperative that they seek professional support to enable them to deal with the underlying cause(s) of their anger.
Finally, it is useful to point out that anger management therapy is not about stopping someone from getting angry. Instead, it is about helping them to understand where their anger is coming from and channel it constructively.
