This is how I have always felt...the Jeckyl/Hyde thing. Let me explain...
As long as I can remember, I was always fairly well behaved in school, teachers liked me and I only got in trouble for talking or passing notes in class. Well, whenever I was home I was SOOOO out of control. Screaming, fighting, crying, sitting with my back to the wall and repetively hitting myself against it...the list goes on. Sometimes I was ok, but most days I was prone to some sort of outburst or another. My parents didn't know what to do with me, my dad just yelled at me for being 'melodramatic' and I just yelled back...that's what he and I did, we fought...a LOT. And I always felt like people at school or wherever wouldn't like me if they could see this side of me, the ugly, hateful, angry and self-destructive side.
As I got older, I got better at tempering my emotions...but seemed like once I was REALLY comfortable with my ex-husband...it started again. Not to the extreme of my teenage years, just the arguing, yelling and 'flying off the handle at the drop of a hat'. When I got sick of it, I got some medication...Prozac and this helped for a while until I would plateau and they would up the dose. Then I had to come off the Prozac for liver reasons and haven't been on it for years, like 4 I think.
I'm starting to feel the old rage and anger again, starting to be extremely irritable inside and am worried about starting to act out again. Many times I just want to scream at the top of my lungs.
I have become accustomed to 'putting on a happy face' but sometimes here lately it is very hard. I'm going to talk to my dr. at my next visit about medication. I think that's where I am at, just wish it would go away on its own :(

Sorry for the long story....was wondering if anyone else felt like this, acting one way in school/society/whatever and another way at home?

Jenn

Also, I'm not sure what to attribute this to. Anxiety, depression, hormonal imbalances, stress...all of which I have issues with.

Have you read "nutty professor" Amen's thoughts about this? He attributes anger issues to Temporal Lobe over-excitation and recommends anticonvulsants (which can be quite hard your liver) but only in small doses. His first choice is Neurontin, which is very mild unlike the others and causes no liver stress (I believe).

Jenn, You sound so much like me. I always was a quiet sweet little shy girl in school. Then at home I would just explode and say some of the most awful things, esp to my Mom. I am like you in that when I get comfortable I tend to let people see this terrible side. I hate it. It's like I just can't control it. I take lexapro now and it helps quite a bit. I feel like I will always have to take something if I don't want my family to hate me. And I don't.
Kathy

I haven't read Amen's theories on this, will look into it though because I still don't have a complete understanding of why I feel/act like this. It would be nice to just stop and be consistent in all environments, but somehow I can't manage to do that some of the time.
Lucy, I too said some awful things to my mother, but worse than that, to my younger brother...he got the fallout from my unstable emotional behavior and I will always regret that. I could hope he had forgotten how I treated him and acted, but my 'younger years' were brought up in an arguement he had with my parents several months ago...long story... The Prozac helped me feel more on an even keel so to speak, but I haven't taken anything for at least 4 years and have never taken any stimulant meds. *Shrugs* we'll see what the good old doc has to say at my next appt. :)

If the Prozac doesn't make the anger worse, I think that's not Amen's temporal lobe issue.

Sounds a lot like me. My family gets my fall out all the time. I too never wanted anyone at work to see this side of me.

Someone once said on a talk show to a guest, You can be kind to a stranger but you can't be kind to your on family? I sooooooo related to that.

I hate myself for being this way. It's not every day but it's a lot of the time.

I seem to use the good days to try and repair what damage I did during the bad days.

Denise