This may be more semantics than biology, but as we have seen repeatedly,
there is a great deal of physiological overlap among all the conditions we
have discussed.
BIPOLAR DISORDER. People in the hypomanic phase of this illness may
be extremely irritable and even assaultive. There will be other symptoms
as well. Most common are several nights of sleeplessness and pressured
speech. Hypomanic people can seldom stop talking for more than a few
seconds at a time. These same symptoms are also characteristic of stimulant
intoxication. Either way, this condition can be quite dangerous. If you see it,
do what you can to get away, or arrange immediate treatment. Chapter 13
will give you some ideas about whom to call and how to go about it.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER. Displaced anger is a characteris-
tic symptom of PTSD. Here’s how it works: People who have suffered trau-
matic abuse in their past, sexual or physical, may be triggered into that
same emotional state by events in the present. A look, a touch, or certain
words can all elicit intense anger in people with a history of trauma.
Such overreactions are a more severe version of what Freud considered
a universal phenomenon called transference, in which people in the present
are regularly confused emotionally with people in the past. Transference,
to the analysts, is the force behind all neuroses. Everybody does it, but
people with PTSD do it with more vehemence.
Such angry outbursts should be treated as a hang-up and not a hand-
icap. Controlling them is usually a primary focus of treatment for PTSD.
Regardless of what past horrors may have been endured, if you are not
presently abusing the person with PTSD yourself, you have a right not to
be treated as if you were.
People in treatment for abuse may go through periods of confusion
in which outbursts are very hard to control. You may have to forgive them
quite a bit as they wrestle with integrating the past and present. The
approaches to anger described in the next chapter will help you get
through difficult times.
Difficult times should not be permanent. If treatment for PTSD
seems to focus less on the person gaining control over outbursts and more
on you having to learn how not to act like the abuser, chances are that the
wrong person is being treated, or doing the treatment.
Explosions into Anger ❧ 215