Where to go for support

Call: If you are a child or young person, parent or carer in crisis, you can call the Alder Hey CAMHS crisis care line 24 hours a day, seven days a week on freephone 0808 196 3550, Email CrisisCare@alderhey.nhs.uk.

Face-to-face: YPAS’s Alternative to Crisis Drop-In provides a safe space for children and young people to come to. Our trained professional staff will listen and support you through difficult times. Available across three community hubs.

Text: the word SHOUT to 85258 for a free, confidential, 24/7 text message support service for anyone who is feeling overwhelmed or struggling to cope.

The service is staffed by trained volunteers who will help you take your next steps towards feeling better. We can help with issues such as stress, anxiety, and depression and are here to talk at any time of day or night.

Online: Kooth

YoungMinds has some helpful advice on how to manage feelings of anger.

Feeling angry

Everybody feels angry at one time or another, usually, this will be caused by a particular situation or event and isn’t a frequent or common occurrence.

Sometimes, however, constantly feeling angry, on edge and close to losing their temper can become a problem to both the person feeling this way and also to others in their life.

Symptoms

Anger can be displayed in a lot of different ways, you might:

Shout at people
Hit or physically hurt others or yourself
Smash or break things
Throw things
Lose control

If you’re feeling angry you might start to act differently in other parts of your life, such as:

Feeling sad or low
Getting yourself into dangerous situations
Drinking too much alcohol
Taking drugs
Withdraw from friends and family and stop speaking to people
Anger can make you feel lots of different physical symptoms, you might not even realise that what you’re feeling is anger. Some of the ways you might feel are:
Heart beats very fast
Your breathing also speeds up
You might clench your fists and tense your body
You might fidget and find it hard to stay still

These symptoms are down to your body releasing a hormone called adrenaline. This hormone prepares the body for a ‘fight or flight’ reaction to the current situation.

Learning to recognise the above symptoms as you starting to get worked up and be close to ‘losing it’ can be really useful as you then have a chance to calm yourself and the situation down.

Help

If you are feeling angry a lot or losing your temper very easily you might not want to see or talk to anybody, but letting someone know how you’re feeling will really help. They might be able to help you understand why you are feeling like this and then show you ways to avoid getting so angry.

Some good people to talk to might be a parent/carer, friends, a teacher, youth worker or somebody else who you feel you can trust and talk to.

You can also talk to someone in one of the Liverpool CAMHS Community Plus Hubs.

Treatment

As well as telling somebody about how you’re feeling, there are other ways that might help you to relax, feel calmer and so reduce how stressed and angry you get. Keeping a diary of when you feel very angry and when you feel calmer might help you to notice what sorts of things help your mood. Try to do more of the things that help you de-stress and feel calmer, these might be:

Going for a walk
Listening to music
Playing computer games
Reading a book
Seeing friends
Taking a bath

Going to see your GP will also really help as they will be able to suggest other things to try and reduce your anger. One thing your doctor may do is refer you for counselling. The counsellor you see will speak to you about how you’re feeling and also your behaviour. They will then be able to suggest things you could try to reduce your anger and also tips and tricks to use when you feel yourself starting to get angry or worked up.

If you are a child or young person, concerned about your own mental health or that of a friend and need somebody to talk to, people at Childline will be available at any time on 0800 11 11.