So I’m in an online course and in one section regarding the maintenance of equipment the instructor has a slide on Intermittent Explosive Disorder. He says that doing this kind of work often uncovers this disorder in people as they explode angrily when difficulties arise. He says if you have this disorder this work may not be good for you, but if you have no other option for work to speak with your GP or psychiatrist.
Upon seeing this slide I began self-reflection and thought that I did have it a little bit. However, I have not really angrily exploded at work in the almost 3 years since I’ve been doing the work. Nevertheless, there are definite situations where I see this disorder in myself. One is when word processing or using excel spreadsheets. I had to use these yesterday when doing an assignment for the same course. While using excel spreadsheets which i haven’t used in over ten years I angrily exploded a couple times when the monday to friday program wouldn’t do what I monkey fighting wanted it to do.
For most people such experiences are probably just an issue with regulating anger and not a disorder. It is normal not to be perfect. And we can always learn to do better.
That’s how I have settled it in my mind, but the instructor of my course said that a healthy person should be completely calm and cool throughout all difficulties.
He’s not a mental health professional. I think exploding with anger over excel sounds like a problem with emotion regulation but definitely not very abnormal. Unless it was extreme anger where you destroyed things, for example.
It isn’t a bad behavior if it doesn’t hurt anyone. Just a bit of self-regulation. I scream and shout all the time when I’m alone and no one can hear me.
Medicalizing behavior is not something I do. I’m just thinking this way because of what I learned in the course. Usually I would look at destroying something like the netbook as in the scene from office space, as kind of a rebellion against the rational enslavement of having to operate machines or some arrangement of words like that.
It also depends on the context, if you have 5 minutes to finish the assignment you will probably be more likely to get angry.
If you have 2 years, probably not so angry.
It might be intellectual anxiety too,
When you dont know/dont understand/cant do something you might get intellectual anxiety (i think that’s the term) which depending on the context might make you angry.
There are manny more nuances but i dont think you have exploding disorser.
If your definition is correct i knew somebody who has it thou. And they wont keep into account if they’re alone or surrounded by people.
It’s not really interesting. It is a boring technical subject. I can’t wait for the online class to finish. But it is a valuable certification if I am going to devote the rest of my life to work.
