Anger is a very powerful emotion, and when it comes to me, I sincerely believe that I become a different and scarier person when I'm angry.
And this didn't just start. I remember far back as a kid how I would engage in fights that I've known from the beginning that I was going to lose but wouldn't care because I was so angry; all that mattered to me was doing something, anything at all, just to get that anger out of my system.
I've found myself where I've had to be disrespectful to people I normally wouldn't be disrespectful to, simply because I was upset. One time during the period when we were planning my mother's burial, my aunt had taken us to the house of some other lady who had recently lost her child, and I had refused to go say hi to her because I didn't know this lady and I was still hurting from my mom's death.
I remember my aunt trying to force me out of the car with her words, and I remember how shocked she was when I responded back to her rudely, almost like I was talking to someone my age. For a kid they've always known to be quiet and reserved, everyone in the car had been shocked, even my brother.
So far, that was the first and last time that I was rude to her, and also the last time she tried to force me to do anything. I still get angry easily even to this day, but luckily for me, I've been able to find a way to always calm myself down or use my words only.
And the reason for that is because I've seen what fighting does to people, how you could end up spending the rest of your life behind bars simply because you had hit the guy who offended you and he died.
So yeah, a huge source for my control these days is fear, fear of hurting someone and regretting it later or getting hurt myself, because when I'm angry, all I want to do at that minute is to exert that anger, to get it out of my system, and sometimes that includes either saying some harsh things to someone or wanting to exchange punches.