Anxiety Random Anger

[NotCool]

Alright, so i've well established and accepted the fact that I obviously suffer from some multiple forms of anxiety - health, social, future, anxiety, whatever. All until today, I thought it's pretty manageable, and i've been feeling relatively decent for the last few days - I don't generally worry about health so much anymore, and have kept positive mentality for the most part. Until today.


I've been eating normal lunch with a part of my family (father, brother and his girl, and fathers girlfriend), and it was nice. After the main course, it was time for desert - some rice bisquit and cherry juice with cherries. So i'm eating, and then I notice that some of the cherries went rotten. I guess looking back, that was the trigger, because out of the blue, I started experiencing this random weird ANGER towards fathers (female) friend, literally intrusive anger in my mind, not rage per se, but pretty intense feelings, that i haven't experienced before, since i'm usually calm and collective (when i'm not anxious, lol). At the exact same time, I started getting freaked out over my anger feelings, which lead to a panic attack - so i excused myself, and went to the bathroom where i stayed for a bit. Then i came back, and I still felt the pretty strong remnants of those feelings. My dad's girlfriend is a great positive lady, but i don't know why, but i found her ANNOYING, as i could almost angrily snap at her, or something. I sat in the room for a while, quiet, caught inside my head, and then went home, and while driving, I kept getting these random anger feelings towards people i saw - a car supposedly driving too slow, a driver not using a winker, trivial, bizzare stuff like that.


Please, can ANYONE relate? I'm sorry for the long read, but I need to know WTF is this intrusive anger? Is that a common symptom of anxiety? Could it be something else? I would appreciate any insights, opinions and experiences from you guys.
I could mention also that today I only had 3 and a half hours of sleep, since I had to get up early and couldn't sleep before, but I lacked sleep many times before, and these feelings and random anger was totally new.

[anthrokid]

Lack of sleep can often be a factor in unexpected bouts of anger. I've had this before only a couple of times and understand how bizarre it is because I'm generally a laid back, happy, bubbly person. Then out of nowhere I turn into a ball of anger - angry at slow drivers, angry at slow walkers, angry at people. On the rare times I've experienced it I had only a few hours sleep and was stressed over a busy day or something or another. I don't get a lot of sleep on the best of days, but it seems that a combination of minimal/no sleep AND stress is the trigger for me. It isn't something I would be too concerned about unless it begins happening frequently.

[kchan]

The thing i've found with anxiety is that it will create a reason to exist somehow, so that's kind of what this sounds like to me. If you had exploded that would have created tension between your family, resulting in further anxiety. If you had yelled at any of the other drivers you would have felt regret after, resulting in further anxiety. It operates in a very weird way sometimes, i've had similar situations where i've just felt really annoyed at someone for no reason or fault on their part and had to remove myself from the situation for a bit to let it pass over. Like i said i just think of these situations as the anxiety trying to squeeze its way into your head and find a space to root itself for a while, it's a part of the fight against it i suppose. I'm not really sure what you can do to avoid it though, if it happens to me i either just recognise what it is and try my best to ignore it or back away for a minute to consider it rationally or even write it down somewhere to get it out of my mind. Maybe some other members can give better advice? Good luck :hugs:

[NotCool]

Thank you for the input. The thing with my yesterdays experience, which frightens me the most, is the pure genuine, intrusive and strong feeling of anger that just randomly came over me. When I first started to feel it, I immediately thought of a brain tumor, because one of the main symptoms is a change in personality - and that anger was definitely a change in personality, since usually i'm calm, rational and non-violent.

I guess anxiety really does throw you a curve ball just when you think you're getting better.