With the doctor’s appointments, the chemotherapy, and all the changes in our lives, both my husband and I seem to “blow up” at the smallest thing.How do we handle this?

51.With the doctor’s appointments, the
chemotherapy, and all the changes in our
lives, both my husband and I seem to “blow
up” at the smallest thing.How do we handle
this?

Sometimes fluctuations in mood can result in “blowups.”
This may be bickering with loved ones, overreacting
to daily hassles (e.g., traffic, your child spilling
something, a jar not opening), and just yelling, feeling
very angry, or crying abruptly for “no reason.” Most
people do not have full insight into how their daily
levels of stress, or distress, contribute to such behaviors.

Think of stress as cumulative. It has a way of
adding up. And this build-up of stress can make people
react more strongly to a situation than they would
have otherwise. Sometimes the situations do not seem
particularly upsetting on the surface, but they bring
out a strong emotional response.

Jack, a 57-year-old businessman, initially met with his
hospital social worker to get help reducing his “hidden”
stress. He said:

I thought that I was dealing with my cancer well—I did not
let it get me down and I did not ever cry. I went through a
lot, though. I had some complications after surgery, and then I
found out that I needed chemo. After I started back to work
and taking chemo once a week, I started to feel a little more
“edgy,” is how I describe it; I was even losing sleep.However, I
thought that I was still doing okay. That is, until I found
myself getting really annoyed at small things. And I knew
that I wasn’t doing “okay” when I snapped at my young
granddaughter for spilling her juice. This was totally out of
character for me. I guess that my feelings were just building
up, and they did come out, but not in a good way.

 Jack later talked about how he really felt after his diagnosis
and through his surgery and chemotherapy. Jack
used denial to protect himself from overwhelming
emotions at the time of his initial diagnosis when he
was making important treatment decisions and when
the reality of his cancer diagnosis did not yet seem real
to him. However, his use of denial did not work well
for him over the long haul, when the reality sank in
and his suppressed emotions erupted.

He felt angry at having cancer, overwhelmed by the
complications, treatment, and other responsibilities,
and he felt guilty for having put his family through his
medical problems. He believed that he was the
provider and that he was not supposed to be the
dependent one. He tried to maintain the “strong but
silent” image to others. However, the pressure finally
caught up with him, and his “trigger” happened to be
his grandchild’s accidental spill.

If you and your loved one release emotions in a similar
way, you may find stress-reduction counseling helpful,
as well as other forms of counseling. Jack needed to
meet with his social worker only a couple of times to
gain insight into the role that stress and his feelings
played in his life. He learned new coping techniques,
which helped him gain better control over his reactions
to these feelings. He also learned to focus on his
love for his family and to use positive coping methods
(see Questions 30 and 34) to help him focus on the
good things in his life, which helped him cope with
the negative experiences.

For some people, however, the management of anger
or other potentially caustic emotions is a problem
they have tried to deal with all their life. Although
relaxation techniques and taking time-outs (i.e.,
actually removing yourself from the emotion-provoking
person or situation) can be effective stop-gap measures,
longer-term coping may require developing a
better understanding of your emotions, and learning
how to express them appropriately. People who are
perpetually quick to anger may be that way because of
certain patterns of thought that lead to emotional
meltdowns. They often turn the smallest problem into
catastrophes, or take a single event or comment and
generalize it for the person or the situation as a whole
(“She forgot to call . . . She doesn’t care what happens
to me . . . Nobody is helping me at all.”)


Time-out = A coping strategy of removing oneself
from an emotionproducing person or situation for a short
period of time.


In this case, repetitive talking about negative feelings
or “venting” your negative emotions may make the
problem worse.Without correction, you may be reinforcing
anger-provoking patterns of thought and
making them all the more powerful. Problemsolving,
better communication, and other coping
methods may help, but if your negative emotions
really seem to be getting the better of you, speak with
a mental health professional to discuss counseling.
Counseling can be very effective at helping reduce
“blow-ups.”