Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

Thirty-five-year-old plumber Tyler got angry with Gemma, his thirty-seven-year-old partner for inviting his brother over for the weekend pot-luck event. She knew that he didn’t get on with Roy but she kept trying to get them together. Tyler didn’t speak to Gemma unless it was absolutely necessary. He was civil in front of family and friends, but the stress was killing him. He was too tired to fight!
 

The folk music she put on while the guests were out on the patio grated on his nerves. He hated it, and Gemma knew that. But she went right ahead and turned the volume on full blast, disregarding him. Feeling himself get more stressed, Tyler played with the dog for a few minutes to calm himself down.

Over the last year Gemma seemed to do things that made him feel like she didn’t think of him, and nor was she interested in catering to his tastes. Feeling unacknowledged over and over again made him feel small and devalued – two key ingredients that made him insecure and stressed him out. He could do nothing to control it, and this weekend was the straw that broke the camel’s back. When the guests had gone, Tyler didn’t have the energy to clean up. He crashed on the sofa and slept for over 24 hours – straight, as if he had been drugged.
 

Waking up the next night, Tyler’s heart was heavy. He didn’t want to get up; he wasn’t hungry and had no interest in checking the messages on his phone. It was as if he were in a parallel world, looking at himself, lifeless and unmotivated to attend to his work calls or the notes left by his angry wife.
 

Tyler had fallen deep into a stress-induced depression. It had been creeping up, and now he was in a weird place – he wasn’t exactly numb, but he wasn’t full of the joys of spring either. His anger was subdued but so was his ambitious nature.  Nothing seemed to matter that much, except the hopelessness that he felt.
 

Gemma nagged to no avail. She tried to bring him back to normality with seductive acts, and dangling vacations in front of him, but nothing jump started his motor. He stayed in this morose, worn out, hopeless place, anxious about doing anything but hiding out.
 

What’s going to become of Tyler, his health, his marriage and his business if he stays locked in this stress-induced depression?

It’s a good bet he will suffer loss of self-worth and feel powerless. He will probably be zonked out on medication and or alcohol to make things easier. He may lose his wife and business if he remains in this awful place.
 

The secret to getting out of a stress-induced depression
 

Research published in the journal Nature in June 2015, found that focusing on positive memories could ‘override’ the negative effects of a stress-induced depressive mood. Stress is known to damage the memory centers of the brain, making it harder to learn, or unlearn and retain the new information. But a deliberate focus on past positive experiences can dampen if not negate the harmful effects of stress that triggers a depressive state.
 

Recalling those positive experiences alters the neurochemistry in the brain by neutralizing the effects of stress hormones in memory cells of the dendate gyrus area in the brain.
 

So, how can Tyler use this research to counter his depression and empower himself again?

1. Recall times in his marriage with Gemma when he experienced her as caring and sensitive to his needs.
2. Re-live and recapture the good feelings of lovability and self-worth he once enjoyed by using photos and videos of better times.
3. Listen to music that evokes those happy times.
4. Watch shows that remind him of his carefree, humorous and wild times with or without Gemma.
5. Eat foods that he once enjoyed and looked forward to.
6. Share all of the above with Gemma.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

AUTHOR OF:' Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

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Disclaimer: this article is for educational and informational purposes only. There is no liability on the part of Dr. Raymond for any reactions you may have when reading the material or following the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Raymond.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

Juliette was at the end of her rope

Working as a risk management specialist for a large medical group was getting 36-year-old Juliette down. She was exhausted and had no energy left for her husband, 38-year-old Elliot and their 5 and 6 year old children Aden and Mara. She hated having to work, but was the only breadwinner. The pressure on Juliette made her depressed. All she wanted to do was to sleep. She left the chores to her Elliot who attended to them with pride, seeing them as his contribution to the family.

Even when she was awake, Juliette felt fatigued and disinterested in playing with her kids. She preferred to look on as Elliot engaged them in cycling, swimming and ball games. She was easily upset when things didn’t go right with the family, and felt useless as a mother, sister and wife. Depression had taken hold, and Juliette was steeped in a lack of self-worth. Her anger at having to be the breadwinner was buried in the depression, as was her disappointment and resentment towards her husband for not taking on that role.

The happiness Elliot felt taking care of the home and family was tainted by his anxiety about Juliette’s depression. He was scared that if she got worse and couldn’t work, he would be forced to step into the breach! Since losing his sales job three years ago, he had given up looking for other opportunities having had little response and numerous applications rejected. He had settled into being the primary care taker, but Juliette’s depression was stirring up fears again. Frantic efforts to cheer up his wife, and fix whatever problems she talked about didn’t make things any easier. She just got more and more morose and shut down, hoping that he would take up the baton and support the family.

They didn’t talk about Juliette’s depression or about Elliot’s anxiety that he would have to get a job if she didn’t pull herself together. They were caught in a vicious cycle where Juliette’s depression made her more dependent on Elliot to take care of parenting, housework and the children’s school issues. The more dependent Juliette became the more Elliot countered that he couldn’t get a job because he was burdened with all the child care and household management!

Depression promotes stress about not being able to cope, resulting in poor romantic relationship outcomes, says a study reported in Clinical Psychology Review, 2010.

Another study reported in Communication Monographs, 2015 monitored the communication between romantic couples where one partner was depressed.  They found that depressed members of a romantic partnership avoided talking about the depression and how it impacted their relationship, as well as about the relationship itself.  The uncertainty about the status of the relationship was the primary reason for avoidance. Women were less likely than men to talk about the depression, exacerbating the uncertainty in the relationship.

Depressed people like Juliette are motivated to avoid negative outcomes and often use avoidance as a way of managing their relationship problems. Although it may ease the stress in the moment of choosing avoidance, over the long term, there is a price to pay. Opportunities to practice interpersonal skills are removed. Chances to deepen bonds through understanding and empathy are neglected, leading to and interpretation of each other’s behavior in increasingly negative ways.  The threats to their identity as individuals and members of a couple are never faced and resolved, adding to the stress, and deepening the depression, as reported in an article in Clinical Psychology Review, 2011

A depressed partner may take anti-depressants like SSRI’s (Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro, Cimbalta, Effexor, Celexa etc.) and still not get any better. A recent study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Feb. 9, 2015 found that stress prevents the medication from doing its job, making the depression even worse. This study described the ‘punishment center of the brain’ (lateral habenula) that rules, making a person feel down on themselves and more depressed.

Put that together with a finding that placebo pills were as good if not better than anti-depressants in affecting mood (Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. 2010) we have a perfect storm of bad feeling and estrangement between a romantic couple. Putting Juliette on anti-depressants won’t make her better, nor will it remove the cause for her depression. She needs to be depressed to push her husband into being the breadwinner.

So what can this couple do with this awful situation?

Attend couples therapy and begin the process of implementing these 6 essential steps

• Discuss their expectations of each other.
• Express their disappointments, fears and anger at one another for the roles they are forced to adopt.
• Discuss the depression, it’s purpose and impact on the family, including the rage Juliette suppressed, about having to be the one supporting the family when she really wanted to be the one taken care of.
• Explore coping mechanisms for the relationship stress by noticing the trigger points.
• Begin the process of sharing parenting and household tasks
• Shift Elliot from feeling “forced” to get a job, to “wanting” to get a job

copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2015

AUTHOR OF: Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Now that Maureen a divorced medical secretary had reached her fiftieth birthday, raised her children and had a chunk of disposable income she wanted to go on cruises with her friends. But each time she thought about booking her travel plans she felt sapped of energy. Her allergies played up and she lost the will to go through with her plan. Sometimes she got as far as buying theatre tickets, but a day or two before the show she would be swamped with work and too exhausted to use them.

Unable to have what she looked forward to, Maureen became anxious and stressed. Her allergies got worse and she had to stuff herself with Benadryl just to make it through the day. She worked hard for her money and now that she didn’t have dependent children or a boyfriend, she felt entitled to use it on herself. But she was either too busy or too sick to take advantage of her good position in life. After noticing that she continually missed out on her dreams, Maureen got angry and felt deprived. She felt as if life was taunting her with goodies and then snatching them away at the very moment she reached out for them.

On the odd occasion that she did go out with friends and enjoy a meal she was wracked with guilt.

She came home with a massive headache and drank herself to sleep while beating herself up for being so foolish with her money. She told herself she didn’t deserve her evening out, that it was just an indulgence and she ought to have used the money to buy her granddaughter ballet classes. Maureen’s self-castigating added to her stress and worsened her allergies. No matter how much Benadryl she took she couldn’t get out of bed and lay there depressed, feeling unworthy.

Research Evidence About Stress and Allergies

What Maureen didn’t realize was that antihistamines like Benadryl isn’t effective for stress that is long term or that peaks on particular days, according to researchers from Ohio University, 2008, and others, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, 2009.

A report in Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology,  2014 indicates that allergies are exacerbated by actual stress and perceived or anticipated stress, and recommends relaxing and doing fun things, meditating and deep breathing exercises to reduce stress in order to minimize its effect on allergies. But the troube is that stress caused by long term emotional problems don’t respond to these remedies.

Maureen’s source of stress was way back in her childhood

Growing up in a large family, Maureen had never felt seen and wanted. Shuttled from her parents to her grandparents and then aunts and uncles when it suited her carers, she longed to prove her value. She excelled in school and used her smarts to get jobs at the weekend to earn money and buy stuff for herself and family members. She didn’t want to feel like a burden, and enjoyed taking care of others. Basically she bought herself a place in their good books. That’s what made her feel good, and when she spent money on herself it didn’t give her that same sense of value and self-worth.

So Maureen filled most of her waking hours busy – as far away as possible from her feelings of not being wanted and loved for who she was. The long term stress that she endured wasn’t easy to manage. She read self-help books when she couldn’t sleep at nights. She bought meditation DVD’s and tried Yoga a few times before she felt guilty about working on herself and reverted back to her routine.

It wasn’t until she couldn’t shut out the fear of not being loved just for herself any longer that she came to therapy. Nothing distracted her from the palpitations and breathlessness that she experienced on waking up and during here working day. Physical checkups revealed no problems with her heart or lungs and Maureen was left with having to face the fears and the guilt about wanting to have a good time but believing that she didn’t deserve it in the eyes of her family.

In psychotherapy we worked on Maureen’s terror of being overwhelmed by feelings of sadness and anger about her childhood. Putting words to them and feeling them in the presence of someone who understood her dilemmas gave her permission to value herself for who she was and not just for how well she took care of others at work or in her family. Gradually her stress levels abated and her allergies subsided. She is now able to handle yoga and meditation without the terror that her suppressed feelings would overwhelm her if her mind was at rest.

Take the stress quiz

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. There is no liability on the part of Dr. Raymond for any reactions you may have while reading the article or implementing the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Raymond.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

It was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and Raul, a thirty-six-year-old property developer was struggling to keep his mind focused on the high powered meeting he had organized. He felt sluggish, his mind wandered and he could barely keep track of the agenda items he was supposed to bring to the table.

For the last six months he had felt lethargic and uninterested in things that he usually enjoyed. He stopped playing squash with his best mate, and he rarely went out on Friday nights with his interior designer wife Pat to their favorite restaurant as they used to do. His day-to-day routine felt awkward, as if he were undertaking something foreign. His autopilot stopped working and he had to force himself to think hard about the simplest of things over and over again.

Raul was depressed but he didn’t want to admit it.

It couldn’t be happening to him. After all he was the whiz kid who started his own company at age 18 and rocketed to becoming the biggest and most famous property developer in the State of Utah. From fancy upmarket shopping malls to exclusive residential gated communities his name was on all the signs. But just when he was about to expand to China and India, his body slowed him down. At first it was just the odd headache that stopped him from ‘Skyping’ all night with people on the other side of the world. Then he developed a pain in the back of his right shoulder that made him feel he was carrying an enormous weight. A week later he noticed that he was clenching his jaws and gritting his teeth – unable to relax his facial muscles. Then the pain all the way down his right leg throbbed and kept him awake night after night.

Medications didn’t help like they used to, and Pat’s home remedies and massages felt loving but did nothing to ease his symptoms. Slowly Raul’s various aches and pains turned into a sort of panic. When he got in the car every morning, he felt his heart race for at least 30 seconds and he often wondered whether he was having a heart attack. Yes, he knew that he should slow down and smell the roses, but that was crap! He needed to prove that he could do what his father talked of but never did. Raul wasn’t a dreamer, he was a doer! Yet no matter how much he achieved it wasn’t sufficient proof that he was not like his dad.

The stress of trying to be as different to his father as possible had been with Raul since he was fifteen – when he saw his dead beat dad take to the bottle after losing his job as an auto-mechanic –  giving up on life, and his responsibility towards his family. Raul’s anger was murderous, but he channeled it into making something of himself as an entrepreneur and had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.  Yet the anger still rankled him. He had never expressed his fear of having to take care of his family after his father gave up, and he continued to be bitter about the way he was forced to grow up and support his drunkard father.

Years of bitter anger added to the stress of being robbed of his teenage years before his time. But Raul’s discomfort with expressing it made the stress a chronic condition, ultimately leading to depression at the pinnacle of his career.

This time it was serious. It had lasted much longer than his previous dips into down states which he had always been able to get himself out of.  Now his whole life seemed like a nightmare that made him not want to do anything. The more he tried to force himself the less productive he was.

As reported in The Proceedings of The National Association of Science in May 2013, chronic stress makes depression last longer. It prevents regeneration of nerve cells in the brain that would normally counter the chemical imbalance linked with depression. So without the necessary neurotransmitters to change and rebalance his mood, Raul was suffering a longer spell of depression than usual. And this time it was seriously threatening his entire way of life.

Until one day he couldn’t express his words clearly to his colleagues and partners around the world. He snapped at his wife and couldn’t bear her to touch him or want to have sex with him. That’s when he made the call to me and decided to come into psychotherapy, something he had thought weak and stupid for most of his adult life.

As we worked on the raw hurt of his early life Raul’s physical pain eased considerably. At first he felt the pain less intensely and later it was less frequent – we could always trace a flare up to emotions that he had not dealt with, that were adding to his stress load. But most important of all, Raul was able to decide what kind of man he wanted to be irrespective of his parentage and the hell he had been put through. He no longer needed to be the high powered executive since there was no one he had to prove himself to any longer. Instead, Raul and Pat took on exclusive clients and built their dream homes – inside and out – just as Raul had done for himself.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

  Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Careless Terry is Mortified

Terry couldn't get over himself. He had hit his neighbor's car while pulling into his driveway. He was mortified at this inexcusable mistake. How could he be so careless? He wasn't unusually tired, so why hadn't he been more alert?

If Only the Clock Could Be Turned Back!

The damage to the car was the least of Terry's worries. Shocked, he was unable to take in any words of comfort or reassurance from his wife. He was oblivious to the affectionate nuzzling of his dog, and the adoring smile of his two year old daughter. He replayed the scene in his head a million times. Each time he pressed the rewind button he rehearsed ways in which he could have avoided this disaster. If only the clock could be turned back.! But life wasn't that kind, and neither was Terry. He tortured himself for not paying attention and bringing shame on himself.

Terry Wants To Hide In Shame

Visions of being chewed out by his neighbor flooded his mind. He imagined being shunned when he walked his dog. Everyone would know what he had done, and think badly of him. How could he hold his head up around the apartment complex again? Choked with horror he couldn't eat dinner. He couldn't sleep either. As the next day approached, all he wanted to do was to numb his feelings and hide from the world.

Terry's Wife Becomes Impatient When Terry Shuts Her Out

The next day was a blur. Terry called in sick to work and didn't take calls from friends or family. He exiled himself from the world in a depressive funk. One day turned into five weeks – thirty five days of shutting himself off from everything except his self-recriminations. His wife at first sympathetic and understanding became impatient and irritated.

"What's up with you? You're not interested in our child anymore, you're mean to the dog, and you avoid me like the plague. It's intolerable. You won't talk to anyone or let me help you. I'm fed up with being shut off. I'm moving in with my mother."

The Worst Imaginable Scenario Is About to Happen

In a flash Terry's wheels started turning. The worst imaginable scenario was about to become a reality. He must be an ogre for his wife to threaten him with the one thing that mattered more than anything in the world- being a good dad. Terry felt powerless. His wife had all the cards and he had no bargaining chips.

Terry Recalls Being Made Fun Of

The hollow pit in his stomach growled as he recalled his father punishing him by taking him out of the school he loved when he missed getting chosen for the football team. At that moment he had felt like a moron that wasn't fit to be alive, never mind a part of his family. Terry tasted the bitter cruelty of kids taunting him as he relived that humiliating experience. He wanted to disappear then as much as he wanted to evaporate now.

Terry excelled himself in math at his new school. Gradually he won the respect of his teachers and class mates. He was nicknamed "super-math-man." Kids asked for his help with homework. This superman thing was quite something! It got him noticed, made him popular and gave him a reason to take up space. But the one thing it didn't do was get his father's attention. Terry's confidence was squashed by his father's mocking tone calling him a nerd.

The Old Familiar Battle Begins Again

Accidentally hitting his neighbor's car rolled out this old familiar battle. The battle to win approval by being superman. Losing concentration and hitting the car burst the superman bubble. All that was left was the reincarnation of the ridiculing remarks made by the brats at school, and his father's belittling comments.

Terry played both roles. He was Superman until he hit the car. At that moment he forfeited his right to be a husband, father, friend and colleague. Terry the brat took over, gloating at Superman's downfall. The brat was in his element, enjoying this moment of superiority, laughing as Superman became hu-man!

Terry's Desire To Be a Good Dad Rescues Him From Depression

Superman Terry's refusal to eat, take calls or be comforted was his way of going off to die having lost his battle. But Terry's daughter saved the day. His strong desire to be a good dad made him put the old battle back in it's box, and try a different playing field. He took the plunge and come to therapy with me.

He discovered Terry the gentle, sensitive, loving and smart human being, who could forgive and learn from his mistakes. The turning point came when he got accepted and cared for because he was human enough to make mistakes. Receiving compassion enabled him to put it on his menu. Now he takes calls and responds to his wife. Terry was glad he got depressed because it gave him the impetus to let go of the superman versus brat battle and sign the hu -man peace treaty.