For people who always know better but can't always do better.
Maybe you don't want to be in therapy. Maybe part of you thinks it's bullshit, and part of you knows you'd be worse off without it. That's a pretty normal place to be. This isn't therapy and it isn't homework. Nobody sees what you do in here.
You probably know most of what's in here already. In a calm moment you could explain why yelling doesn't help, why stepping away makes sense, and how you'd like a conversation to go.
The problem is that anger shuts down the part of the brain that holds all that. When your heart rate climbs past roughly 100 beats a minute, the body shifts into fight-or-flight. Planning, perspective, and choosing your words get harder for everyone, no matter how capable they are. That's why people say things in an argument they'd never say otherwise.
That's not an excuse and it's not a character flaw. It's physiology, and it happens to everybody. So this isn't about learning something new. It's a safety net: the things you already know, written down and quick to reach, for the moments when you can't easily reach them yourself.
The point isn't to become a calmer person or talk about your feelings. It's to not end up with a mess you have to clean up later: the thing you said, the fight that went on for three days, the look on your kid's face. The skills come from DBT. They're practical, they're physical, and they work whether or not you buy into any of the rest of it.
Real talk: this app can't fix anything. What it can do is get you through the next twenty minutes, and put the things you'd hate to lose in front of you while you're doing it. Everything here stays on your phone. Nobody else sees it.
Your kids. A place you love. Whatever works. They're saved on this phone only, so keep the originals in your photos too.
The stuff that's true even on a bad day. Tap one to add it, or write your own.
Not what's supposed to. What actually does.
Things that would actually help. Small is fine. You write it, you check it off.
Tap the one that fits. Short, straight, no lecture.
Get past the peak. The actual problem can wait.
Or pick an exact number:
A long exhale activates the body's built-in brake, the parasympathetic nervous system, which slows your heart rate. It works on a physical level, so it helps even when you're too worked up to think. Follow the circle: breathe in as it grows, out as it shrinks. Two minutes is usually enough to take the edge off.
These work the same way. They change your body chemistry directly instead of trying to talk yourself down.
Check with your doctor before using cold water or intense exercise if you have a heart condition or other medical concerns.
Ten skills in three groups. In the moment skills get you through the peak. Before & after skills lower how easily you get there. Talking skills help you deal with the real issue once you're calm. Tap one to open it.
In the moment Before & after Talking
When something happens, the mind fills in a reason fast: "they did that on purpose," "they don't respect me." Sometimes that's right. Often it isn't, or it's only part of the picture, and the anger is responding to the story more than the event. This worksheet slows that down. Use it once you're below about a 6; above that it's hard to see other explanations. Saving it adds it to your Practice Log.
Often the anger is about something real that does need to change. The aim here is to raise it in a way the other person can actually hear. Each prompt matches a step in DEAR MAN (asking clearly for what you need) and GIVE (keeping the relationship intact while you do it). Fill in what you can and it puts the pieces together into a script. It will sound a bit formal on paper. Put it in your own words when you say it. The structure is what matters.
Takes about 20 seconds. The before and after numbers matter most: they show which skills bring your anger down and by how much. Over a few weeks, patterns tend to show up too, like particular times, people, or situations. Bad episodes are worth logging as well; they're often the most useful.
Entries are saved only on this device and browser. Nobody else sees them. Copy it if you want to keep it somewhere else.
Everything you wrote back. Only on this phone.