I think it's important to delve more into the importance of resolving my anger issues as they pertain to constructing and preserving my boundaries.
My Dad knows I'm taking anger management classes. He knows it's a vulnerability point, and he might just use that to manipulate me in some way. It's something he can get from me. It's a form of attention, even if it's negative.
I forgot to mention that I did ask our group therapist whether or not anger was a useless emotion. She said something to the effect that it serves as some kind of signal similar to a fight or flight response if one feels threatened. Without having the time to ask her to elaborate further I didn't find her comment either convincing or very memorable. I wish I'd jotted it down, because maybe I would have been able to reflect on it more. I still don't see how anger serves much purpose. Well, I guess if one doesn't have the option to hightail it, then anger has a place somewhere. I guess that makes sense if it serves the purpose of saving our lives. We just don't want to misdirect that anger.
I think that because of the "nature of the beast" that is my Dad, I have done pretty well in restraining myself from lashing out many times (at least at him). Having said that, I wonder how many times I have misdirected that anger or how many times I have lost sleep over it. That needs to be dealt with, because he will provoke me again.
Tudor's book gets into provocation, and as I go through it I will post some useful quotes. There is one entry in particular I read tonight that precipitated the thoughts I have written and which I found useful:
"Healthy people in essence go through a four-stage process when making a decision. Firstly, they see the situation in front of them. Then they will assess the situation to ascertain precisely what is happening. Next they will identify the courses of action available to them before finally making a decision as to what they will do. I do not ordinarily engage in this process. I see a situation and then act or react. I am programmed to be this way because my responses are invariably based on certain triggers. I am like a vending machine; press a button and something happens without any need for consideration or assessment.
We expect you to behave in a similar fashion and therefore expect you to always react to what we do rather than carefully processing the behaviour. We do this by relying on a mechanism that means you bypass stages two and three. This mechanism is the fight or flight mode. When you are faced with certain stresses you will rely on deep-seated, rather than reasoned responses. I want that to happen, so that you will just react. One way of achieving this is to put you under pressure by provoking you. The purpose of this provocation is to engage your deep-seated immediate response rather than you considering the situation in a detached and calculated manner. This way we can make you do things, which you will come to regret as you acted very much in the heat of the moment."
This was exactly how I responded after I replied to his initial email. . . .just not toward him.
So between what my therapist said and what the author wrote, the flight or fight concept as applies to anger makes pretty good sense.