What I mainly took from your post was the need to identify the particular norm being violated each time I'm angry/offended. I've found (2 or 3 examples come to mind) that it really helps to do this, especially if the anger seems to keep simmering without progress. It does typically take a few tries, to identify what I'm really upset about, but after I identify the reason, there is finally resolution because (i) I find that I finally agree with myself (the self-validation seems to be very important step for moving on, I no longer feel a need to petulantly keep defending myself by protesting) and (ii) I usually find that my anger was a little bit misdirected or not appropriate for the context. In any case, I'm able to let it go.
I'm often surprised how primitive the 'norm' is that I felt was violated. Typically for me it's a basic need for love and acceptance that isn't being met (which seems strange when I'm a grown, independent adult).
The most recent example is that I was offended/upset by a critical remark by a health technician who matter-of-fact told me I needed to do something differently. Of course there was the initial sting of being criticized, but I was disproportionately angry. At first I thought I was upset because she "wasn't being professional" about other peripheral things, which is the first argument that came to mind because that's what people tend to say, and also mentally attacking her relatively lower level of education compared to the doctor was distracting me from identifying the real reason.
It took a while, but I discovered I was upset because I wanted her to be loving and supporting, because I've been putting a lot of effort in this aspect of my health. As soon as I realized I was looking for positive feedback for my efforts I (i) agreed with myself, it is true I ought to receive positive feedback for my efforts if I'm going to succeed in this and (ii) realized my anger was misdirected; it would have been nice if there was some support coming from the technician, but once consciously realized I wouldn't depend on it.
... for caring and support there are, fortunately, friends that I can call, but as soon as I identified the problem, it wasn't necessary. I know that I'm doing a good job and working harder than the technician gave me credit for, which is (for me) a relatively atypical occasion of self-validation.
Maybe in retrospect the reason was obvious, but I don't seem to be as strong in identifying the source of negative feelings, so identifying the 'norm being violated' is a very useful exercise for me.
Thanks for the reply.
Typically for me it's a basic need for love and acceptance that isn't being met (which seems strange when I'm a grown, independent adult)
It's not that strange at all, actually. It's quite common for us to not learn how to take care of our own emotional needs as children. And in my case at least, it's been taking me a great deal of study to learn how to do it now. There are quite a lot of non-intuitive things about it, including the part where getting other people to love and accept you doesn't actually help, unless you're trying...
Usually, I don't get offended at things that people say to me, because I can see at what points in their argument we differ, and what sort of counterargument I could make to that. I can't get mad at people for having beliefs I think are wrong, since I myself regularly have beliefs that I later realize were wrong. I can't get mad at the idea, either, since either it's a thing that's right, or wrong, and if it's wrong, I have the power to say why. And if it turns out I'm wrong, so be it, I'll adopt new, right beliefs. And so I never got offended about anything.
Until one day.
One day, I encountered a belief that should have been easy to refute. Or, rather, easy to dissect, and see whether there was anything wrong with it, and if there was, formulate a counterargument. But for seemingly no reason at all, it frustrated me to great, great, lengths. My experience was as follows:
I was asking the opinion of a socially progressive friend on what they feel are the founding axioms of social justice, because I was having trouble thinking of them on my own. (They can be derived from any set of fundamental axioms that govern morality, but I wanted something that you could specifically use to describe who is being oppressed, and why.) They seemed to be having trouble understanding what I was saying, and it was hard to get an opinion out of them. They also got angry at me for dismissing Tumblr as a legitmate source of social justice. But eventually we got to the heart of the matter, and I discovered a basic disconnecf between us: they asked, "Wait, you're seriously applying a math thing to social justice?" And I pondered that for a moment and explained that it isn't restricted to math at all, and an axiom in this context can be any belief that you use to base your beliefs on. However, then the true problem came to light (after a comparison of me to misguided 18th-century philosophes): "Sorry if it offends you, I just don't think in general that you should apply this stuff to society. Like... no."
And that did it. For the rest of the day, I wreaked physical havoc, and emotionally alienated everyone I interacted with. I even seriously contemplated suicide. I wasn't angry at my friend in particular for having said that. For the first time, I was angry at an idea: that belief systems about certain things should not be internally consistent, should not follow logical rules. It was extremely difficult to construct an argument against, because all of my arguments had logically consistent bases, and were thus invalid in its face.
I'm glad that I encountered that belief, though, like all beliefs, since I was able to solve it in the end, and make peace with it. I came to the following conclusions: