[Becca07]

I was just trying to fall asleep, but something occured to me and I wanted to get it down. The vast majority of the time, the only person I feel anger with is myself.

That doesn't strike me as healthy. But when I would normally feel anger towards someone, which doesn't happen too often, it usually gets channeled into depression without me even recognizing it.

I don't think I experience anger like most people seem to. I tend to be fine until, very rarely, I'm so angry I'm shaking with rage and crying, which then just turns into feeling helpless about the situation making me angry and then feeling angry at myself for not being able to assert myself better.

Becca

[dalila]

<font color="green">Becca,
That is exactly the way that I feel. In my case, I know why I feel this way. My mother would beat me any time I showed any anger in front of her. This was particularly effective as she would start these sessions screaming at me and then move on to demanding I show only sorrow for offending her. Anything else earned me a blow - usually across the face and usually knocking me to the floor.

I am working hard in therapy to overcome this cos once you stop feeling one emotion the others become lessened until they are all shut down.

Talk to your therapist about this - as you can accept being angry you will find that your whole life is richer. </font>

I get that too but unfortunately I can also act out my anger. I think I;m getting better at handling the anger now. T says I still am not feeling the original rage at my mothers, she doesn't mean me to go shouting and acting out in the hear and now but she means really experiencing the true rage. But it seems just as I think I'm about too, it stops and its like my memory gets wiped in that instant. Not sure if that makes sense. In fact I don't think it does LOL!

[Becca07]

I think for me it comes from both my parents lashing out (not physically) whenever they were angry, and I always hated that. So I have this deep seated belief that when you are angry, you don't take it out on the people around you. It's kind of my golden rule, so to speak.

I think I do need to talk to my T about this. I'm guessing there's a middle ground?

Becca

[lauren_helene]

Becca, there is middle ground, I'm learning that slowly...as my T says I'm either aggressive/scrappy or self doubting...I'm also missing the piece in the middle.

[WinterRose]

I'm in the boat with you Becca. I rarely feel rage and my T wants me to experience anger more often because I usually go to depression instead. But I feel like anger is wrong and I can't be angry with anyone else so instead I get angry with myself and turn all that inwards. I used to be the last straw type where I'd explode suddenly - though it's only happened maybe 3 times in my life. It makes me feel sick. So I guess depression is more comfortable. I'm working towards finding the middle too.

[sunrise]

Becca, I don't really get angry either. Probably due to family interactions growing up, not being allowed to express anger, being beaten or punished if I did, etc. I can feel hurt and pain, though. My T tells me that many people then take their hurt and get angry, but I don't seem to do that. I just get hurt and stuff it all inside. And I get depressed. People who get angry scare me and embarrass me too. When someone is angry and slams the door or something, I am soooo embarrassed for them. It just seems stupid. I cannot imagine ever having a little temper tantrum like that and slamming a door. It seems like something a 2 year old would do. I need some good models of how to be angry, so that if I could allow myself to feel anger, I would know how to express it in a healthy, adult way (is there such a thing?) rather than a temper tantrum 2 year old way. I really have no idea how to do this. I have so many problems to work on in therapy, this is not at the top of this list. And they wonder why therapy can drag on for years....

[Perna]

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Becca07 said:
The vast majority of the time, the only person I feel anger with is myself.

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Becca, I felt compelled to respond that I would reframe the statement, "The only person I feel aware of feeling anger with, is myself." That way it's not that you don't feel the anger, it's only that you haven't learned to become aware of it when you are feeling it toward another. It's only an "educational"/focusing on feelings and interpreting them correctly difference, not a "fault" in how you are made or what you yourself have been doing. You had to "not see" that anger at your parents/others in authority in order to survive for so long that that has to be unlearned and another way learned instead. There's nothing wrong with you! You have been doing things right all along to take care of yourself.

[Becca07]

Sunrise, everything you said resonates with me. I'm exactly like that. I'm so embarrassed if I'm out with someone who starts making a fuss. I would never make a big stink over something.

It's funny, I started therapy because I thought I was depressed over the continuing surgeries and problems with my feet. But there's so much else going on! I guess most of the time you take your experience as the norm. Sometimes I think I'm that depressed when I probably am.

[SecretGarden]

Anger is currently pretty high on my list in therapy. I would possibly embarrass Sunshine and you too Becca.... and often also myself. I think in my case my anger also causes me distance from what I need to deal with. It hides it somehow as it is hidden in the anger. Unfortunately I am pretty good at expressing my anger... though it has gotten better. I hope this exploration will be the key to some much needed successes and progress. Yes ...always something to be talked about.....

And yes...alot of the anger I feel is with myself. I feel so powerless...

[SecretGarden]

I think it is interesting ... though ...I have another friend who says she does not get angry though I do see bits or certainly reasons that she could be/should be. It is just as foreign to me to not be angry as it is for you to be angry.

I think that society likes you better but they probably walk over yoiu a bit more... maybe....maybe not.... Hard to say.

I probably would be married or not so single if I was not angry or if I knew why I go to the anger.

Sigh. I am a good person....though... it is difficult though. I think I have felt walked on in the past so that is why I get angry sometimes. It defends me and also does not allow me to feel what I might be feeling...if that makes sense.

[Perna]

SecretGarden, I was comforted for myself when I figured out that a lot of my anger was at situations rather than people. I'm very good at quickly figuring out what is "wrong" with a situation and how to fix it so I rather "naturally," when someone suggests something, explain why it will not work. :-) My heart is in the right place but I'm ahead of where I should be in that I am already fixing things before they are broken. Others perceive this in me as being "negative" or angry.

It took awhile for my T to teach me to respond to and clarify/make sure I understood what is being said by others before I give my response. Learning to restate what has been said and asking, "Is that correct?" helps keep me from flying off the handle of my own assumptions of what someone else is saying.

If someone says, "The earth is flat" my kneejerk response of "And you are an idiot" (whether I state that or merely let myself think it and let it go at that) doesn't help things :-) However, a response of "Do you mean that you believe the earth is literally flat or that it appears to be flat?" would go a long way to "fix" any negative perceptions of what someone else says. Even the first half, if the person says they do believe the earth is literally flat; if you think about it, is a very curious thing to think in this day and age and I have a lot of natural curiosity so could easily respond, "Why do you think that?" instead of, "You are an idiot" :-)

I try to remember the "goal" of conversation is to learn about other people and their thoughts and feelings, not to "judge" them or set them straight on how the/their world "really" works :-) What another person believes is not my problem; I'm only responsible for myself.

[SecretGarden]

Perna, I thank you so very much for your response. I have had a cold and read your post and took the information in to my last snooze. It is indeed food for thought and really is important.

I think it is so powerful to think of how revved up I get when I am on overload, or out of control to a degree. It is like I spin out of control. But yet I should find a clothespin for my tongue. Perhaps it is my brain that I need control of. And yes it is the situation and not the person... well generally ... Some people do have a talent of plucking my nerves but given the situation it may or may not affect me.

It is a disconnect of sorts. It really is. This is such a revolation after all these years or maybe I am just finally ready to deal with it. It is within ME. I suppose that sometimes I need a reset button..... It is a fine line between needing to close myself off vs openning myself up to what is actually happening within myself.

Another thing you said about control.... I too like to field and fix things up front rather than have things "gang" up on me. I too am just responsible for myself but I try to please everyone else and want things to go smooth. Perhaps too smooth...as in not realistic.

I did smile with your paragraph about clarifications with possible idiots. I do like that....

I can relate this post to my work a day life but am also trying to relate this to my personal life... I think sometimes the defense of anger keeps people at a distance... In my most recent blow out...and I am still recovering... a friend invited herself from another country to come visit MY house... what a loaded intimate situation (not sexual....just in MY space, my reality) with less than 3 weeks notice. I could have handled it better and we are still friends. But alas....that is another title for another post and has provided all kind of therapeutic fodder.

[SecretGarden]

Sunrise... sorrry I called you Sunshine. I knew better. I have a kitty named Sunshine and I know I was used to just saying Sunshine.

Becca... I too think that perhaps there is a middle ground and that Perna's post might be helpful to both of us.

Perna's post resonated with me. I hope you do not mind my answering so here. Thank you.

Something has inspired you to post about anger and how it has affected you in your youth and how you experience it now. It may feel safer to experience it at yourself rather than at others. Perhaps both you and I need to work a negotiation with this anger so that it is better for each of us.

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mouse_ said:
I get that too but unfortunately I can also act out my anger. I think I;m getting better at handling the anger now. T says I still am not feeling the original rage at my mothers, she doesn't mean me to go shouting and acting out in the hear and now but she means really experiencing the true rage. But it seems just as I think I'm about too, it stops and its like my memory gets wiped in that instant. Not sure if that makes sense. In fact I don't think it does LOL!

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I'm with you, Mouse... I don't know how to get angry properly. I will idealize someone, and be scared to death to admit anger towards that person... but when I do get angry, I get very, very angry. I do not know how to express my anger appropriately, I have to physically act it out. I wish also act very childish when I get angry, stomping around, etc. I have no prelude to my reaction time when I get angry. Things just happen... stuff gets thrown, things get punched... before I can even think about it, my blood boils, and my body just reacts. The other thing I do is that I will think about how I can spite the person I'm angry at.

[Becca07]

Anger is something I've been thinking about lately. I realized about a week ago I was angry at my mother (it sounds strange to say I had no idea before) and freaked out. I was incredibly agitated and shaking and unable to be very coherent. But then I just pushed everything back inside and I'm not really feeling it anymore.

I've only felt incredibly angry maybe three times in my life. But all I do when I feel that anger is direct it inwards, I don't even take it out on the person that made me angry.

Also, I was talking to my T about the only relationship I've ever really had dating wise, which lasted a year and a half, and how we never had a single fight, even when we broke up. And I realized how strange that sounded, but that's the way it happened. I know that wasn't "normal" and I don't know if I wasn't invested or what, but I can recognize that something is off about my responses.

[SecretGarden]

I think it is important when we recognize that something is off about our responses. Awareness is a major starting place. Keep talking about it.

I wish I would stop being angry...

[sunrise]

becca, some of the things you write remind me of myself so much. I have been married for almost 20 years and my husband and I have never had a fight. One time in therapy, Tand I we kind of worked on anger. I had a dream that I felt was an anger dream that I shared with T. He gave me an assignment (hey, yeah, I got homework!), to write down all the times in my life I had ever been angry and then write next to each one, how I would have preferred the situation had been instead of how it was. I guess that second part was to give me some sense of not being so helpless or something, being able to visualize a better outcome. So I came up with a list of 20 times I think I was angry in my lifetime and how I wish it had been instead. I shared this with T, and he read it. I'm not sure if this was somehow supposed to help me? Maybe by just identifying times in my life I felt anger, it was supposed to prove to me I actually could feel that emotion? I'm not sure. I didn't really want to continue with the anger path in therapy at that time, so I dropped it for the next session. T said with many people in therapy, he has them use certain techniques, like pounding a pillow in his office when they feel angry or are recounting an angry experience to him. But he said that won't work with me since I don't know how to be angry. And to me, it is just being really faky if I hit a pillow when I don't feel that, kind of like a 2 year old having a tantrum whereas I am an adult and don't react that way.

I see a couple of types of responses in this thread, 1) from people who don't know if they really even get angry, and 2) from people who act out anger in a childish way (stomping feet, etc.). It seems like both groups think they aren't doing anger in a healthy, "good" way. Can someone who knows how to do it, post here and say what they do to express anger constructively and healthfully? I just don't know what that looks like.

[SecretGarden]

Sunrise... It looks like you have described both sides of the continuum without seeing the inbetween. There are all kind of possibilities between the two extremes you described. I like to think that I have progressed so that my actions are somewhat inbetween... Time has assisted and I suppose lots of therapy and practice.. Also of note is though the actions have changed somewhat the internal discontent is still ravaging. .

What I find sometimes is that people I know, even therapists I have had, have expressed their discontent with certain things that may be outside of the room even but they do not experience the guilt. I wonder of the role of guilt. I do not think the answers are simple but it would be nice to continue to have various perspectives.

[sunrise]

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SecretGarden said:
Sunrise... It looks like you have described both sides of the continuum without seeing the inbetween. There are all kind of possibilities between the two extremes you described. I like to think that I have progressed so that my actions are somewhat inbetween...

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Yes, that is exactly it! It seems like the posts in this thread have described one end or another of a continuum, and I summed up those two ends in my previous post. I am very interested in learning about the "in between". I would benefit if people who deal with anger in an "in between" way (I guess what I view as a healthy way, although I don't want to come down on people who are at the ends of the continuum) could post here explicitly how they express anger. I really don't know what a healthy expression of anger looks like. Do you yell at the person you are angry at? Do you talk in a calm voice and say "I am angry at you"? Do you slam doors? I just really don't know how to be angry and I would like some examples of healthy models. SecretGarden, if you know how to do it, can you post how? Thanks so much.

I guess I feel kind of stupid posting that question, because maybe the answer seems so obvious to people. But I really don't know what healthy anger looks like. I don't express anger, I just get hurt and push feelings inside. My husband slams doors and throws stuff but we don't engage with each other. My two teen daughters act *****y and unpleasant when they are mad. Is any of this considered a healthy way of being angry? If not, what are alternatives?

SecretGarden, I wasn't sure how what you wrote about guilt and your therapist's discontent related to anger?

[Becca07]

Sunrise, if you're stupid for posting it, then so am I, because I have no idea how anger is supposed to work and I certainly have no examples from family members I think I should be working from.

I just don't feel angry. I kind of figured out I was angry with my mother through deductive reasoning, as stupid as that sounds. I still don't really feel angry. I suppose that I am angry. I guess I'm associating anger with a desire to hurt someone else? I really just want my mother to understand that some things that she did hurt me. I don't feel a great need for revenge.

Well...I don't know but I will say I had a huge anger/rage problem for years. Here's some thoughts.

I hear a confusion between feeling anger, expressing anger, and acting out in anger.

What I learned (in therapy years ago) was that anger is an emotion like any other emotion; joy, sadness, loneliness.... We all feel it whether we recognize it or not, as we feel the whole range of emotions because we are human. Anger doesn't have to be acted out. The T had asked me what was appropriate to do when angry. I told him what I had learned growing up: slamming doors, blaming, screaming, hitting, breaking things, etc. He asked how that resolves the issue that creates the anger.... Well..it doesn't.

If I slam the cupboard door or scream at my son because I'm angry that he came home late without calling... it does absolutely nothing to resolve the issue of him not calling when he will be late. Even though it's acting out, it's really a passive behavior because what is needed is talking directly. And it starts with "I feel angry because.. ". It's helpful to not blame, but to just talk about the situation that creates the anger and.. why... it creates the anger. The why is very important. "I feel angry because you came home an hour late last night without calling. When I don't get a call, I worry about you! I am afraid you've been in an accident." etc.

Or "I'm angry that you took all the credit for that project when it was a team effort. I worked hard on that project and I feel I deserve acknowledgement for my part in it too."

Recently when my employer drastically changed our health insurance benefits at work, I was furious. I could fully understand how someone could 'go postal'!! I griped about it to my friends until they were tired of hearing it. "It's a done deal." they said. I couldn't understand how and why they were just "taking it", accepting it. I still don't, really. I know I am powerless in that situation, making me feel frustrated on top of feeling undervalued and uncared for. Although I couldn't change anything, I had to express myself. I expressed my anger in a very polite and professional email to the director of HR, the owner's brother. He met with me, though it was just to try to sell me on the plan and the need for changing to this plan. Nothing changed; I didn't expect it to. But I had my say. I had my anger (still do) but didn't have to act out on it to express it and be heard.

Look right at the anger and see what else is there. What's underneath is what's important, to my way of thinking. That's where the issue to resolve can be lurking if it's not outwardly apparent. Assertiveness training helps too; it helps to practice so you'll feel more comfortable saying that you are angry and why.

It takes practice. Nobody's perfect and it might not work all the time. It gets better gradually, like many things. But it feels good when you are relieved of the need to act out on it.

There is so much to it. Setting and maintaining boudaries, fear of abandonment, fear of retaliation, feeling deserving of the things that anger is a defense of, fear of separateness (that we are each separate and get to feel and think and act for ourselves), wanting to control and/or thinking we can control when we can't.... Lots and lots of layers to explore.

ECHOES

[sunrise]

Becca, I know, I don't feel it either. My husband is unfaithful and has no desire to change, yet doesn't want out of the marriage. I am not angry. I want to leave the relationship but I am not angry at his actions, and like you, I don't want revenge. I am sad at the loss of our relationship and future together. People who know our story think there is something wrong with me. It makes me feel highly abnormal when those "normal" people tell me I should be angry. They even get angry on my behalf.

Becca, I hope your mother can reach the understanding you describe. It sounds like that would help you. (((Hugs)))

[SecretGarden]

I was concerned about your only seeing two ends of the continuum and not seeing the spectrum but perhaps that is just a difficult concept for me to look at? I think that it is difficult to categorize people but ... maybe that is my issue.

I think that everyone must have their own definition of healthy anger. To talk to a Buddhist, there is no anger. To talk to another sanction there might be anger but it may be justified... or not depending on who is diong the judging.

I think that there have been times that I have talked of my anger in therapy and I have been told that I am justified. I have also been told by the same therapist that I am mean....at times. That hurt but it worthy of considerable examination. It also plays a major role in my marrital status.

I know I have no answers. I have a goal in life to be able to release all of this and to be at peace but that would also demand introspection to understand what is giong on around me and within me. Interesting goal ...eh. That is not to deny the anger but to deal with it appropriately.... In my mind that would be in a calmer way or more understanding way. I suppose that takes me back to Perma, by looking at the action and not the person.

Your questions are NOT stupid at all. They are all valid. The answers are illusive and you will get many different answers of what normal anger is.

Keep talking though. I believe and hope this is the current way my therapy is going.

[SecretGarden]

I agree that assertiveness training is a wonderful thing and would help both "sides" of what we are seeing here.

I do not know that it is appropriate to just accept whatever somes our way but I do not know that alot of anger assists either. I suppose anger denotes more action rather than accepting but ... yes Echoes... over the years I have come to know how to release things some as not worthy of my anger or ... what will it help anyway.

Other parts of the anger remain.

I do admire the work you have done Echoes. I am not totally with you sometimes (and want to get angry for you ...lol...) but you have taught me much.