It's a threshold problem, not an anger problem

It's funny, but the reaction I get to the occasional times when I've been angry related to Lyme disease and nervous system assault is perhaps the MAIN thing in my life contributing to chronic low-level anger and shame.
Which then are probably the biggest emotional component contributing to any perpetuation of this behavior.

When are we going to learn as a society that saying "No, you're bad, you can't do that, you're a bad person, we're going to shun and punish you"doesn't really help?

What I'm reacting to is a comment this morning on one of my youtube videos, where someone said, "you assaulted a doctor and screamed in a psych section of an emergency room. the doctor did what she had to do."

Sure I can see how it can seem that way to the doctors. I'm sure they feel self-satisfied like they "did what they had to do," even though I got the sense from them that they felt guilty about it. They seemed shifty and embarrassed and looked at one another when I asked "What did you give me?" They lied to me and did not tell me about the Haldol and said they had given me only Ativan. Little do they know how much they escalated the situation. Had the doctor not CALLED ME CRAZY when I was having a documented reaction to permethrin, I would have gone home feeling reassured that my symptoms were not too dangerous and my insurance would have saved several thousand dollars.

It's like, where is the outrage that the doctors were overlooking a normal medical reaction, that of muscle problems and nausea from permethrin?

I just feel so angry that I had a brush with a system that is "always right," and that most people do not want to question.

Because I happened to have an intense reaction, suddenly everything the doctors did was "right."

let's take a step back: Hyperventilation can be a symptom of chemical poisoning from Permethrin:

http://symptoms.rightdiagnosis.com/cosymptoms/diaphoresis/hyperventilation/tremor-sall.htm

Here is the list of signs of chemical poisoning from permethrin:
http://www.rightdiagnosis.com/c/chemical_poisoning_permethrin/symptoms.htm#symptom_list

What are they going to do the next time someone comes in with neurological symptoms related to chemical poisoning? Call them crazy, agitate them, and drug them even more?

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Basically I have to remember that regardless of what society thinks, I KNOW from my own experience that thresholds for behaviors and such can change drastically based on neurotoxicity.

Many people have not experienced these drastic changes in their thresholds.

It doesn't mean that there's not a component from my emotional state, my habits, my childhood, or patterns.

It just means that the thresholds do change, and at times they are so low that it's unreasonable to expect me to keep all my triggers below the threshold, especially when very minor things (one time, a person asking me to move over in the subway) can exceed the thresholds.

Basically, that's why I haven't had much success from normal emotional control methods. I have wanted to work mainly on the biological side, because I need the thresholds to be high enough that I have some time even to work with things or notice what is happening in order for any other methods to work.

With the Budwig diet and ozone and getting more oxygen and beneficial fatty acids into my brain, I've raised the thresholds a lot! Now I actually can understand what people mean about observing your anger or making choices about it. I didn't have that option before, when I was always inches away from melting down (while dealing with Lyme herxing in the past).

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I guess I am really upset that people have interpreted a biological problem of SEVERELY LOWERED IRRITATION THRESHOLDS to mean that there is something bad about me.

They assume that the thresholds are the same for everyone, since theirs have probably never changed, and they assume I must be doing something really wrong with my emotions if I am getting "that angry."

What's funny is that often when I would scream or throw water or whatever, I wasn't even angry.

I was doing things that made it seem like I was angry, but I wasn't even that upset at all.

It was just that my thresholds were so low that even minor irritation, what you might feel if you were getting a mosquito bite or if you were slightly embarrassed or annoyed, was enough to provoke full-out shrieking (because my nervous system felt attacked by the combination of the endogenous neurotoxicity plus the small amount of additional irritation).

It's actually very rarely that I'm very angry. I can deal with a lot in an easy-going way.

That's an important point to consider.

It hasn't been an anger problem; it's been a threshold problem.

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Having lowered thresholds isn't a character problem. My character and behavior might have been the same all along. The main thing that changed was 1) lowered thresholds and 2) my life has been pretty hard and frustrating with Lyme and I'm chronically a little bit stressed, and that probably lowers my thresholds for irritation from an emotional perspective.

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Nonviolent communication as a better way to talk about Lyme rage

I had a realization last night.

While dealing with Lyme-related agitation, people have been approaching it in two ways that have not worked at all:
1) You have to stop doing this because it's not acceptable.
For people with bad childhoods, hearing this makes them feel more shame. Shame leads to more violence. Also, so much in my life is unusual already. What is the real motivation to stop doing something just because it's "unacceptable" when I have had to do so many other unacceptable things to survive? (Think of how people in poverty might think the same.) "It's unacceptable" is a terrible motivation.
2) Bad things could happen.
Threats.
3) It's bad for me. You need to stop doing something that's good for you, and make your life harder, because it's bad for me (often someone who has a much easier life than me and a much less inflamed nervous system).

But those responses rely on shame and blame and force.

What ways of talking about Lyme-related violence would be better?

A) Concern for the person experiencing it.
Believe it or not, people committing violence are victims or symptomatic, the same way as people with other "conditions" or symptoms.
It's a symptom that something is wrong, whether with a person's biology, psychosocial environment, or their ability to meet their needs in other ways.

In the case of Lyme rage, it feels terrible. It's harmful to the body. It's likely neurotoxic and probably destroys part of the brain. The effects can last for hours. It feels like it fries the nervous system.

It would be a much more effective way to handle it, to talk to people experiencing Lyme rage and say, "Wow, it seems like this experience is harmful for your body and really unpleasant for you. Let's see if we can decrease the propensity of your nervous system to having it happen, and if we can decrease the occasions that can cause it."

Focus on the well-being of the patient.

B) Ask people what they need. What unmet needs could be related to this last-ditch effort by their bodies to protect themselves?

C) Talk about the impact on others, not as a "should," but just for the person's information. e.g., here's how I feel, it's not your fault, but here is the impact.

Blaming and "shoulds" almost never work. what works is listening to people in a nonviolent way, showing that you are interested in their well-being and they are in a safe place where they can get their needs met, and communicating nonviolently about one's own experience.

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