ABSTRACT
It is common to experience increases in feelings of frustration and anger following a brain injury. This can be because you have a number of new problems to deal with (eg forgetfulness, feeling tired and being in pain), which may result in growing frustrations and being quick to anger, sometimes referred to as having a ‘short fuse’. A good way to look at your capacity to cope with frustrating situations is the ‘leaky bucket analogy’. If you do not experience any frustrating problems throughout the day, your capacity (the bucket) to handle frustrating situations is at its highest. However, if you experience many frustrating problems throughout the day, you will have a low threshold for dealing with frustration (ie your frustrations will gradually fi ll the bucket up so that something fairly minor may cause your frustrations to spill over, resulting in feelings
FIGURE 2 Leaky bucket of frustrations Source: adapted from Davies W, 2000, Overcoming Anger and Irritability, Constable & Robinson, London.
