Reddit reviews Honor Your Anger: How Transforming Your Anger Style Can Change Your Life

Similar story from Bulgaria this past week: grown man (ex convict) repeatedly stabbed a 15 year old girl because she rejected him. This shit is indefensible. :(

As to why these things happen... I really don't know. But I can speculate.

Everyone gets rejected in life. Everyone. But people whose feelings of self-worth and identity are strongly externalised, and depend on other people's acceptance will perceive this rejection as an existential threat to the self. I've linked before this study which shows that social rejection triggers some of the same "wiring" that underlies the sensation of physical pain. In a very real way, being rejected hurts.

So, maybe these men felt like they've endured so much pain, that the only way to deal with it is to externalise it. And I'm willing to bet that they generally don't come from backgrounds where healthy strategies to do that are socially accepted. For us, the main ways to deal with negative emotions are usually stoicism (bury it) and anger (explosively release it). Don't get me wrong, anger is not a bad way to deal with some things, but this requires a lot of self-discipline. And it cannot be the ony coping mechanism you have. Anger can push you to do better for yourself, but you can't just keep pushing harder every time something bad happens in life. Human beings have limits.

And it seems, unfortunately, that for some this limit lies at murder.