All logic goes out the window when pissed

Wrath & Fear override logical thinking

For the purposes of this article, I’ll refer to a “strong feeling of displeasure” as “anger” and a feeling of “forceful, often vindictive anger” as “wrath.” The definition of “vindictive” that I will use will be “disposed to seek revenge, spiteful, and a desire to hurt back.”

Not the Drama Triangle - Anger

I understand that when actual abuse happens it is correct to have the feeling of anger, which is hopefully used as fuel or fertilizer and turned into some productive actions taken by people who feel they are personally responsible for their own actions and emotions. The anger phase will last different lengths of time for people based on their personality and how deep the abuse went. But hopefully, it does not last too long of a time.

That productive action could be in the form of taking self-protection classes by a woman who was raped so she feels powerful again. In rape, the perpetrator is at fault (to blame), but the actual victim needs to take responsibility (not blame) in order to feel powerful again. Holly has written an essay on viewing your life as a house which shows this difference.

On the Primacy of Personal Responsibility

After a crime, the victim will have a desire for justice, in which the perpetrator is punished fairly in proportion to the crime. But there are those who want worse to happen to the perpetrator.

The Drama Triangle - Wrath

Someone playing the “victim” in the drama triangle may have suffered actual abuse. But where I draw the line between someone playing victim being an actual victim is in taking personal responsibility to pick up the pieces of their life and if they have a desire for something worse than fair justice.

I consider someone who wants to get revenge as having let their anger turn to wrath. We could all quibble about how much is too much and some might be more lenient than others. But we don’t need to agree on that line for my purposes here. If you’re wrathful, you may think your “just enough” justice is fine while others would say it’s going overboard. I’m not here to convince you of where you stand. You’ll have to figure that out yourself.

Losing Logic

When you are in the drama triangle playing “victim” or “savior” you end up demonizing and dehumanizing the “persecutor” you blame for what’s gone wrong. It becomes black and white, what’s called splitting. You cannot see that a person who you disagree with could have good reasons for why they disagree. You simply paint them as “evil.”

It’s like turning them into a cartoon villain twirling his mustache. So many people in the US actually think there are loads of racist people who want to make sure black people can not vote or get married. It’s shocking to me that people got to this point. But I understand logically what is going on. They’ve dehumanized the “enemy” because of their fear and wrath.

But I talk a lot about Democrats doing these things. I always want to let people know that I understand Republicans do it too. I wrote a whole article on how Trump seems stuck in the drama triangle, and by extension, the people who idolize him are also.

There are plenty of people out there who are so into conspiracy theories and hate the government for their lies that they could believe anything. I’ve interacted with people who believe that there are clone centers where famous people’s spirits or souls or consciousnesses are somehow dragged into these cloned bodies at night when they sleep. The clones get tortured and then in the morning, the spirits/souls/consciousnesses go back to their regular bodies.

I’m not saying all theories about conspiracies are incorrect, but not all of them are correct either. The people who get into the extremely illogical ones tend to do so because of their wrath or fear.

There was a good comment on Brad’s article about the nurse who had her bike stolen by Hey Jude: “The story sold by media: a young pregnant white nurse decided her best option to get home after a 12-hr shift was to steal a bike from a group of young black men. How is it possible that progressives nodded sagely and said, “of course, that makes sense”??”

The most illogical situations are simply believed when they can be spun as “evidence” of “white supremacy.” Why? Because of people who hate white people and want revenge or are opportunists and because of white people who have “white guilt” and are afraid to be called racist. White leftists will project and point to other white people and say, “They’re the racist,” to assuage their guilt and to take the lens off of themselves.

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Emotions Rule You Or You Rule Them

When you get into a state of fear or wrath you are clearly too emotional to think straight. All logic goes out the window. That’s what happened when people feared getting COVID. They were no longer rational. They simply argued from fear, wanting to lock down the healthy. All of the policies were backward. Vitamin D and exercise were known to help (as a lack of them and obesity were comorbidities). Yet, they kept people in their homes, away from the sun (which helps you make Vitamin D), and closed the gyms. Illogical actions. They were not thinking rationally.

We can’t stop other people from being emotional and illogical. But if you want to stay logical and have good, beneficial ideas, then you will want to control your emotions and not let them control you.

Advice For Fear

If you’re deathly afraid of something you should spend some time in mindful meditation about why. Put yourself into your worst-case scenario and play it through. You’ll learn more about why you’re afraid. You can also ask yourself what you would like to happen instead and see how that would make you feel. If you can find the good-feeling emotion of what you want to see and feel, and feel that relief and other position emotions for a bit, your mind can start to give you examples of where else you feel that way already. You can come up with new ideas for how to pivot your mindset towards what you want and away from what you don’t want.

Also, you are powerful. When you focus on what you can take responsibility for you will feel more powerful and capable of handling whatever comes your way.

You are often catastrophizing whatever you are afraid of also. Try to remember that, things you catastrophized in the past weren’t nearly as bad as you thought they would be. Neither will this be.

Advice for Wrath

Wrath usually comes from feeling like a victim to some “persecutor.” They say the best revenge is living well, which totally sounds like a cop-out when you’re in the emotion of wrath. But, if you can understand your emotions are being manipulated by whoever you’re pissed at, then you should understand you have become a willful slave to that person. Whatever they do or don’t do can manipulate your emotions and logical thinking mind on any given day and affect your life in many ways. Do you want them to have that control over you and your life? Or do you want to control your emotions so that you can break free from them?

I would suggest taking time to figure out the things you can do to take personal responsibility such as becoming more mindful and not spending as much time thinking about whoever it is. Do things that are good for your health instead. If you would normally ruminate on something they said, and find yourself doing that, you can be mindful and shift your thoughts and actions to something else, like going for a walk or run, or listening to music and singing. You can replace your thoughts and attention that were concerning that person with something that actually benefits you.