I Don't Care

[Belacqua]

That's certainly possible! There are probably people so mad at their bosses that they'd happily shoot the next person in line at the supermarket. 

I guess what I want is mature, socially positive ways to do this. Ways that de-escalate, rather than just me taking my own pain and handing it over to someone else, so it becomes his pain.

You've actually prompted me to read up a bit on this subject, seems that apart from the negative effects that bottling up emotions can have on your mental health, there's evidence that it can also affect your physical wellbeing.
Here's an article on the very subject.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic...rcent.html

and @Thoreauvian

No question, I agree that the management of emotion is a crucial topic. The degree to which we have to expel bad feelings, and the foolishness of people who expel every little thing the moment they feel it, is a hard thing to calculate. Failure at either will get you on Dr. Phil. 

This is another of Freud's metaphors, I think: he talked about these things in terms of an "economy." How much we spend, how much we invest, etc.

Probably I've mentioned the Nicomachean Ethics before. This is all spelled out in that book. Spewing out -- or even feeling -- too much or too little of any emotion is considered to be a moral problem and, I have no doubt, can lead to health problems as well. Aristotle says that the wise man operates in the middle path, not too much not too little. And how does the wise man know how much is too much? Because he's wise. Which means there is no practical advice at all -- you just have to be wise. 

But I don't want to lose sight of my earlier point: I want to be a rational and kind person because it's good to be a rational and kind person. Not because the person I happen to be talking with is judged to deserve or not deserve it. If some oddball on the Internet can cause me to become an unkind person just by saying odd stuff, then I'm too easily manipulable. (And of course this is my goal, not something I claim for myself now.)