U.S. MILITARY H BOOK EXCERPT 3RD OF A SERIES

THE RESILIENT WARRIOR

ANGER MANAGEMENT

BY REV. BERNICE "DOC BUNNY" SYKES, PH.D.

Book Editor's Note: Featuring self-help, mental health, and mind and body tactics from a variety of sources — veterans, former and active U.S. Marines, Navy, Army Rangers, Green Berets, family members and caretakers — The Resilient Warrior is collaborative collection providing needed wisdom for complete well-being for all of us. The first step to thriving is surviving, and the first step to surviving is knowing how to get what you need, when you need it. The following excerpt of this essential self-help guide to living a healthy, resilient, fulfilled and better life is the third in a series of five that EP Magazine will feature over the coming months.

Identify, recognize, and manage anger and certain behaviors.

I am a veteran who lives with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). There were times when PTSD managed me instead of the other way around; times when I did not have information about how to effectively deal with life and with the symptoms I was experiencing daily. At that time, I felt lost and without hope. One day, I decided the time of me being helpless was over, and I needed to find a battle plan for accomplishing this task. If there was one thing that helped me understand PTSD, it would be understanding my anger. When people refer to anger, they treat it like the enemy. Yet the approach that helped me most was making my anger my best friend, by embracing it. In understanding your anger like it is your best friend, it ceases to be scary. Since anger is almost always a component in any issue related to mental health, we are taught to repress and/or suppress those feelings when something is bothering us. In the Army, for example, when you are ordered to do something questionable, you learn to "suck it up". Anger also rears its ugly head when you are going through the transition of leaving service, whether at the end of your contract or during retirement. Anger always seems to be present when receiving a

medical diagnosis or personal news that requires you to make sudden changes to your lifestyle, forcing you to make adjustments you normally would not have. As a veteran or a retiree, our skills for coping with anger are something that we need to work on and develop, to live our best lives after serving our country. Coming to terms with my anger meant taking my symptoms seriously and being committed to making necessary changes in my perspective, when it comes to controlling anger. It meant no more saying that everything is fine when it is not. It meant my guiding purpose in finding happiness in life was planning ways to greatly reduce the role anger played and executing that plan. To make a plan, first you need information. What I am about to discuss is accomplished best when working with a mental health professional. With a few exceptions, most veterans can receive that help at Veteran Administration Centers (VA Centers). But before you take that to mean your counselor is going to do all your work for you, think again. We must participate in our own recovery, which means doing the work. However, if you want to work an issue out on your own and get some assistance when you think you need it, that is fine. Just remember to delegate if it gets to be too much. What helped me most were the following three tools I used when taking my anger management classes: