Blackouts when angry

Disclaimer: I am not a mental health professional and my words should be taken as an outsider with experience, looking in.

When I was in grade school I had blackouts from rage. I would bet money that the reason the blackouts are occurring is either a lack of oxygen to the brain or an excess of oxygen to the brain. Either the blood pressure rises as the stress does and as the blood pumps harder, a sort of hyper-ventilation occurs in the brain which causes blurred vision and decreased brain function, which puts the body into a primal fight or flight mode, -OR- as stress rises the person begins to breath shallow or not at all, which causes the brain to suffer from lack of oxygen, and again puts the body into a fight of flight mode. (my issue was the over oxygenation)

Now how does that help someone deal with anger and blackouts? For me, understanding the physiology behind the psychology helps me to get a handle on what is happening around me. I would recommend anyone with this issue attempt to pay attention to their breathing when they start to become upset. Regardless of your issue, if you attempt to rebalance your oxygen intaken, you may be able to ward off the blackout.

For people who have to deal with people who have this issue, (not to be insensative or anything) be prepared to consider the possibility they are deflecting responsibility by saying they have blackouts. Our culture is ripe with inability to take responsibility for our actions. If medical and mental doctors are not able to diagnose or treat this issue, perhaps a trip to juvenile detention might help with their attitude.

I was on google searching about the very same thing, I also blackout when angry, it starts wi me feeling sick then a sharp pain in e head,I then blackout. But one thing I noticed even in the blackout ma consciense works to some extent coz if its ma mum or a lady I won't harm them... I end up collapsing.. However if its an ordinary guy I will destroy, put a guy in a comma with my bare hands. Am scared guys coz am a blackbelt in kyokushin karate,red in taekwondo, completed kopojutsu(ninjitsu), am currently doin krav maga..I CAN'T AFFORD to lose control, am a killing machine

I am the "angry one" in the group so I don't get to black-out, unfortunately. I just have to deal with it. But I do get so angry at times that I feel like I'm looking at the world through a pink screen. I guess this is what some people would call "seeing red"?

I honestly can't see myself doing anything when I black-out, anyway, that I wouldn't do while in control.

U c the thing I noticed wi me is tt I hev internal battles, rage kept inside for so long and thisz what drives me to lash out when I blackout, so e only solution is to get e anger out(dnt know how tho), anger is natural but ths rage I doubt it is... Need help

Hi,

I've only ever seemed to have this happen once, it was 2 years ago when I was in year 9, this girl in my class was laughing at me because I was sat on a table in class on my own (it was meant for 6 people) so I stand up - all I'm going to do is walk out, but I don't I walk over to where she's sat pull the chair out from underneath the guy next to her throw it across the classroom, then I grab the girls hair and slam her head 3 times into the table, then I grab the guys chair again and throw as he'd got it back and tried to block me from leaving the classroom, then I walk out, I 'come to' well at this point I carry on walking to the spot I go when I walk out of lessons, then I'm collected by a member of staff taken to my year head and asked what happened i answer ''I don't remember'' and because I couldn't remember and plead my innocence (even though I wasn't) they excluded me, I remembered what happened 3 days later, I was so shocked :O

As I said it has only happen once but I've just turned 16 by depression and self harm are getting worse again, so I'm scared it'll come back as well especially considering I cannot let my anger out, because the only way I no that get's my anger out is either having a cigarette and/or punching walls, well I can't keep punching walls and having a cigarette isn't always appropriate so I bottle my anger up then when I do blow it's epic

I feel really really bad that you have go through this regularly, or often.
I have heard of this kind of thing before.

I also really think that conventional anger mgt. programs or classes may not be the right fit for people like me (and I would imagine you too). By that I mean people who may have organic brain differences from the typical population. ( I have mild autism. I forgot read from your post what your dx may be, if you have one).

What works for a mainstream person may not be right for some one who is autistic, borderline, etc.
I can only pray that there will be more suitable treatments for people like us.

I wish you the best.

Johnnie

Hello

I have blackouts when angry, but if I try to remember I can slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together, and in 24 hours I can usually remember most of what happened, but sometimes I remember nothing. An example of this is when I was at school a very very long time ago, I was at quite a rough school (In England). It was about 1958 and I was going for a caning because I was involved in a fight, and when the teacher pulled me off the boy I managed to get loose and run over to the boy, giving him a couple of thumps to the eye.

Anyway the teacher was a bully, he was about 40 years old and was build like a tank, he grabbed onto a block of wood and said he was going to hit me with this because I was a nasty little bully boy who thought he was something big. I remember telling him "If you hit me with that you should do a good job, because if I get back up it's going round your jaw." The teacher grabbed onto my collar and started to push me down to the table and the next thing I remember if being smacked all over my stomach by two other teachers, with the block of wood teacher on the floor with a busted nose, he was getting up and I remember them dragging me off to the headmasters office. I then realised that my lip was bleeding aswell as my nose, I couldn't remember a thing. I later remember being told that I had just went for him and started to throw wild punches to his face, I was rolling around on the floor with him for a good couple of minutes, we were both throwing wild punches at eachother. The two other teachers then came in and knocked me in the mouth which is how I got the busted lip.

Anyway, I understand what you mean, blackouts happen to me when I have real hatred for the person I am attacking, they only happen when I know the person. The teacher bullied me for three straight years before I blacked out. In my younger days these blackouts used to happen quite often, once about 5 times a year with the extreme blackouts happening once a year. I never experienced any tunnel though, just a complete blackout.

I have the same sort of experiances. I carnt remember 5 minuts befor the thing that made me angry and black put whilst im angry it seems to get worse each time though. I nearly put someones head on a spike and it took 4 quit big people to stop me so if you can find anything on this it would realy help thanks

I'm not really sure how old this post is but i feel that i needed to post. In viking times beserking is basically everything all of you described the warriors would enter a state of mind where pain did not hurt them, they would essentially black out. I've blacked out numerous times and every time that i did i would come back over someones body, usually unconscious, if not bleeding and asking me to stop. I am Asatru, which is to say that i believe in the norse Gods. Beserkers are Odin's Elite and therefore i feel great. the only problem is that in todays time blacking out can cause serious jail time if you let it take you too far. i havent beserked in about a year, whenever i get mad, if the situation permits, i take a long walk or i shoot a bow or throw knives, i try my best not to let my rage leave me except when i let it. Blacking out to me is a gift a terrible powerful gift that not everyone possesses, count yourselves lucky because not many get the kind of power we have. we were meant to do great things one day or the other. Some believe it is a psychological issue and that may be the case things like this tend to run in the family and who knows our ancestors may have been just those beserkers that passed down this trait, its very likely. But my friends i tell you do not be ashamed of your anger, there is nothing wrong with you. Learn to control it as much as possible channel your rage into tasks like chopping firewood. though it sounds stupid i assure you it helps to split a log or two to dump off that anger. Be proud of who and what you are because your rage could save someones life one day.

Hi I know how you feel,
I've had something similar happen to me but it has only happened to me once before. I get angry really easily and people can rile me up very quickly, so I'm known for a bad temper but I'm not always like that and I'm actually a really friendly person. Anyway there is this boy I'm year of highschool who is a bully to everyone and in my first year of highschool I was his main 'target' I guess you could say. He would always make fun of the way I talk or do things. It's just people think I'm English and posh when I'm really not and don't sound anything like it. So he would always call me name, push me around and then one day I had enough and I was it breaking point, so I stood up in the middle of class, stormed over to where he was sitting and lunged for him. And that's all I remember because next thing I know I've got him on his back flat on this ground and I have my hands wrapped around his throat. I honestly can't remember anything that happened in between and it scares me aswell, my friends know this so whenever I get into a heated argument, they always pull me off to the side before it gets out of hand. I don't know if its the same thing but I'm glad to know I'm not the only one and if you ever want to talk to someone, you can talk to me. Sorry that sounds really weird but anyway, hope you can find someway to make you feel more comfortable around people even if your scared it can only get better