(anger)

[elainegrey]

I had an insight in the past few days. Someone wrote about being angry, and, wow, they have a major injustice they are coping with. I started thinking about anger.

I did not realize how angry Mom was until i was in my mid thirties. I didn't know how to use the word to describe her state. It seeped out of her as bitter and toxic judgements, controlling admonishments. Yes, she and Dad argued and she threatened, but i did not learn to identify this as anger.

I don't get angry often. But i suspect that there's a long thread of depression associated with suppressing anger. I try to identify how i feel more now, and i've made some strides! But, to use the recent example, am i angry that my coach was fired? No, i would say, but i did get in contact with that feeling of betrayal and abandonment.

Yeah, i was probably angry, but i can't see that in myself. I did see the emotional malaise -- https://elainegrey.dreamwidth.org/924248.html -- but i didn't see anger. And i'm pretty sure my mom went through life not-angry the way i was not-angry about my coach being fired.

I think i learned something along the lines of anger is only allowed for major injustices, some sort of value judgement about what one was allowed to be angry about.

Heh, i have an anger tag and have used it three times, one of which was to link to a blog post about using anger to address injustice.

Christine has anger. She flashes with it, and it can be at things like the zip-lock on a bag defying her. In general she's just angry, not angry *at* me, and she is keeps her emotions hers. So, when i say she's angry, it's body language and requests for space and her trying to take care of herself.

I realize i can't empathize with her anger because i don't have a good understanding of anger in myself, and i have this judgement in my mind that thing X is something you are allowed to be angry about but thing Y is not. I have been through enough emotional work that i understand emotions just are, that "being allowed" certain feelings is not a frame that leads to thriving and having a rich life.

I don't know how much it will help, but i think realizing and articulating that i can't empathize with her anger will help both of us. I don't know if she's expecting anything from me when she's angry, but i can make some progress on the "what do i do now?" feeling that floods me when she's angry. I've grown past all sorts of reactions that i have learned are not helpful. Maybe with this insight i can approach the dynamic with more curiosity.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

Just wanted to say it was interesting to read about your insights on this. I grew up in a household with a lot of anger and often screaming fights, and I think I'm less rattled by it than many people. Friends also run the gamut from pretty self-contained to "could go off at any minute."

I get frustrated much more easily than I get angry, and I find that empathetic humor works well in those instances. It seems to work well in that "taking a step back" that will defuse the response. But it depends on the person.

[tamena]

for me, frustration is the pre-curser to anger. I used to be a very "it is what it is" person and at the current life I seem to have been thrown into I find myself angry a LOT. I have also finally realized that I was a lot more angry than I realized over my lifetime.
I wasn't supposed to be angry though, "women aren't supposed to be like that" and I always deflected with humor too - most of it pretty self depreciating and dark, but humor none the less - if you can't laugh at yourself?
surprisingly therapy has helped a lot, I allow myself to feel angry and admit it, own it, throw it out there to help let it go.
My journaling has helped me with this too.

[amaebi]

The family theory when I was little was that I had a particularly bad temper. I believed it. (I no longer do.) I spent over a decade trying and trying to get a grip on it until, when my father had died and there was no one in the house strong enough to stop me, I was afraid I might kill my younger sister in a blind rage. Afraid enough that I thought of an odd emergency measure* that turned out to work very well. I could slow down and make choices just so long as I noticed when I was starting to get angry.

Going on from there, I got an even better collar on getting angry by deciding that I was never allowed to be angry with anything done to me. That took a long time to get better from, once, decades later, I noticed it wasn't a great thing. I still don't get angry often, though, and I still very much dislike the sensation. So/but I can treat anger as an important messenger now.

* I could slow down by imagining I was a cow, largely because I thought it was pretty funny. My sister was very dissatisfied when I ceased to be manipulable into anger: she'd received huge recompensatory payments when I had been, from our mother and from me.