Quite often I respond when I am angry by withdrawing and being quiet. I think that I do that a lot, and probably most of the time I fail to recognized that I am doing that because I'm mad. It doesn't seem to be an aggressive response to withdraw and not say anything. But that's even aggressive when it goes very far. How comfortable is it for the other person to try to interact with me when I won't talk to them? Ouch. But I still don't know that I'm mad. I might think that I am afraid that I'll say the wrong thing (hmm, if I'm afraid I'll say the wrong thing should that be a wake-up call?), or I'm afraid that if I say something the other person will say something else that will hurt me (okay, so I'm defensive, which also seems related to anger). Anger is a fear-based emotion, and the withdrawal response seems to be acting on the fear component. If I withdraw and won't talk during therapy, T might start talking to her cat and say something like "she's mad. She just doesn't want to admit it, but everybody else knows that she's mad, don't they?" Ooh, that's so frustrating!

I have always thought that I internalized my feelings because I would either keep silent or act destructively against myself somehow. But T says I am an externalizer, and the way that I deal with or express my anger hurts other people. That really hurts, because the last thing that I want is to hurt other people. Okay, that's what I have always told myself anyway, but if I'm really mad at someone, ....

It is painful to look at myself this way. This thread is a bit uncomfortable to read if I actually pay attention to what it says and evaluate myself along these lines. I don't want to think of myself as an angry person, even though inside I'm probably boiling over most of the time. I just work really hard to try to keep it inside and not let it spill out, but it really doesn't work. Everyone else can tell when I'm mad, even if I can't because I lie to myself.

Somehow, it is so much easier to identify when someone else is mad, but I think that we tend to miss it or deny it when we are mad. We'll call it something else or try to hide it or blame the other person. Then when we lash out, we can tell ourselves that was just a normal reaction to the angry person we were dealing with at the time, and they had it coming. But isn't it funny how we can lash out at someone else who is angry, and not even notice that we are just as angry? Not funny in a humorous way, but strange, rather.

Rap