I’m comfortable saying 0 at this point. I actually don’t really have many memories of childhood. We were just very poor. My parents spent what money there was on cheap can beer and something you need rolled up dollar bills for. We did do fun things, during the good times we had stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut and a video. I ended up being really short just from my diet of kool-aid and flint stones vitamins. I remember food things the most. We were spanked, but only occasionally, and this was the norm for the very rural area of Florida I grew up in. I remember mom’s ongoing grudge with the neighbors. She didn’t like them, apparently, because they gave us food when we played. It took many years to piece all these things together. What living family I am related to I am NC with, and have been for decades. I feel like this was textbook neglect exacerbated by poverty.
Coping skills. It’s fine to get pissed and you may have a strong sense of justice and need to keep things even and explosions bring things back into equilibrium. A lot of “not exploding” on people can be addressed by what you do ahead of time, giving yourself escape routes, and learning new behaviors to replace explosive ones. These can be alternative activities that are incompatible or functionally just better ways to address situations.
-Identify what happens before you explode. How do you feel, what are you thinking, is it the location, people, etc?
-Time out from that moment until you come down from wanting to take people’s heads off.
-Use strategies that you find to calm you down. Some people go for walks, use stress balls, fidgets, chew gum, color, play a game. I know this will vary wildly depending on your location and what’s acceptable. The point is to find some alternative for a few minutes or even during higher stress that you can do.
-Increase activities that bring you joy. Again these don’t have to cost money and may vary depending on your interests.