I thought much of Cary's advice was spot-on. Some additional thoughts, however.

not surprising that, with trained helplessness, the flip side of that will be untrained outrage that is disproportionate to the moment. Given that you could not express feelings of outrage at your father's bizarre and hurtful behavior, it is not surprising that they erupt, like volcanoes, when one least expects it. Congratulations for the self-awareness of circumstances of unfairness in your life. It's a great recognition, frankly.

Personally, I think anger as I have come to understand it, can be a powerful and rewarding emotion. It informs me of circumstances of injustice, of lack of parity, of unfairness. however, the trick for me, has been to learn how to express it. And there's the rub. Shouting and coworkers isn't cool. The issue is how to process the feelings in a more reasoned way than your amyglada which is firing in response to trained childhood circumstances... you are doing now what you might hve wished to do as a child, frankly, and - sadly, the only mentoring for anger expression was the volatile hostile anger of your father. So, suddenly you sound like your father, and recoil in horror.

There is a middle ground, and I would urge you, with your capacity for introspection, to seek it out. Indeed, I would concur with others that you are dealing with PTSD as a result of repeated abuses in your childhood. Time to recognize that you were repeatedly victimized as a child, honor and process the emotions you were unable to process at the time, and then udnerstand how you can function in an adult world, with adult behaviors. But - if you don't tend to the feelings that you had to stash undercover as a child, they will continue to erupt, inappropriately....

I remember throwing a coke can at an employee one day. Horrific behavior, and I blush as I write this. The lawsuit was settled out of court, and the situation hushed up, because I was a partner - and a lucrative one. The employee's behavior was egregious, apalling and pushy, I note, and - his behavior reminded me of a sexual predator from my youth. Suddenly, I was 9, doing what I wished I could have done as a kid.... fight back. That incident was a major wakeup call for me, in undertstanding that it was imparative for me to separate out my youth from my adulthood.... despite the fact that my amyglada, which controls fight/flight responses, was doing what it had been trained to do. Time for retraining.....

So, what I have learned to do is identify that I am angry, and then pause - pause and reflect - on what is causing my anger. Truly. takes a minute, takes half a minute, and then - I can, while my instinctual response of lashing out chills down, consider a course of action. These days, it may well be a verbal response that is crisp and definitive, it may be a response that is in a memo to file (what I should have done with the employee in question, in truth), it may be to postpone resolution of the conflict until I can think through more complex options. So, I might suggest, LW, a working course of action with a trauma therapist to resolve unresoved feelings from your youth and - with that ongoing process, began a parallel process of restructuring your adult behaviors.... DON"T GIVE UP that anger, you own it... but you can learn to express it in different ways.

Anger, as an emotion, I have learned, needs to be "moved".. and part of what you are doing when you yell, take on an arguement that is notyours, is "moving that anger"... There are other methods. For years, I kept a box of old china in the basement, and after a trying day, would bash china to smithereens. Now, living in a highrise, I place, with care, some fragile object in the middle of the trash chute, and wait to hear it crash ll floors down. Satisfying. And, when throwing my coffee cup at a recalcitrant client is not cool, the memory of shattering glass can be a useful private reverie - and then I can return to the meeting, highly functional. More subtle, but also effective, are the methods that other writers have suggested - self defence courses, a workout regimen - something to get that adrenaline charge dissipated positively, richly.