When there's that much pent-up rage in a person, I go very small and silent, because the one thing I learned about that kind of rage when I was very small was that to witness it was to be subject to it. While I feel that I can physically defend myself against most people who aren't larger/more muscular/better trained, now that I'm big enough, strong enough, and deadly enough, verbal anger leaves me defenseless. I'll take an angry stranger over an angry friend any day, because the angry stranger doesn't know where to hit that's vulnerable.
And when I've been smacked a good one and tossed away without much on the "Ack, sorry, are you OK? I was pretty pissed there, sorry you got caught in the side effects!" end of things, I retreat and hope it heals and do anything I can to avoid being caught in the situation again. Sometimes I lose a friend. That always sucks. I hate it when that happens, but after someone's screamed at me for speaking, I never want to speak again around them unless they tell me it's all right...
