Can Anger Courses Prevent Accidents?
What are the applications for anger courses? How does one know when an anger course is needed? Of course, I believe there are obvious instances where someone’s anger is so out of control that one need not even ask the question. What about the kind of unexpressed and suppressed, seething anger and frustration that seems to never really be released but is wreaking havoc in ones personal life and health?
One example is repeated accidents of various types. Situations where a person is constantly getting hurt and in many cases needing medical attention due to repeated incidents. A perfect example would be people who have ongoing auto accidents. Last year, a sheriff friend corrected me and said “they don’t call them accidents anymore, they call them car wrecks.” On some level a new distinction has been made about why people have accidents. Interesting and very worth pondering if you are one of those people who have had frequent accidents.
A few years ago someone I love was involved in a string of accidents. Many of the accidents involved cars, some involved various sports, and some included other people. If you know someone who gets into a lot of accidents, it might be wise to avoid traveling with them and especially avoid letting them drive when you are in the car. You see, you really don’t know the cause of all the accidents and consciously, neither do they, so you are at risk when they drive. That information is very worthwhile if you have teens who are driving or young adults who have already had a number of car wrecks. Unresolved anger may very well be the culprit.
As I looked back over my own history of auto accidents, I was able to pinpoint a time when I was going through a divorce, angry at an unfaithful husband, worried about providing a stable home for my child, had just moved, changed my city of residence, and changed my job. Do you think I was angry? Absolutely, and I was also in denial, telling myself and friends that I could handle it and it was all for the best. The problem is my feelings were all repressed and showed up in a string of car accidents where fortunately I was relatively unharmed. Thankfully, there were no passengers or other cars involved except in one where I was rear-ended. I did considerable damage to my car in each case, and my insurance rates skyrocketed for several years.
As a result, over time I became very conscious of how I was feeling whenever I got in the car. I remembered that in each case I had been angry earlier in the day due to a phone conversation with my soon to be “ex”, or I was frustrated with work and not making my numbers as a sales person. I was having a hard time with my real estate agent over problems with a house that had not been noted on the inspection and appraisal when I bought it but had surfaced soon after the closing – like a leaky roof that had not been disclosed to me, a single buyer who had just relocated. I felt very angry about the entire situation. The result is that I kept having accidents and I was starting to feel accident prone. I needed help and did not know it. I was angry and I was repressing it.