Anger (Personal Notes)
Anger in the past:
The behavior makes me uncomfortable because of confrontation
I view yelling as non-productive confrontation
Having held anger for so long, I’m uncomfortable with the emotion when it pertains to people I am close with in my life- so the idea I don’t want to be mad at the people that I love, or especially the people that provide for me. Feeling like I can’t acknowledge the duality of the help they provide me and also that they have been hurtful to me
Friction: he/she gives me so much and I’m still so angry
Anger for multiple reasons- gaping wound of the affair (or whatever the indescretion is)- feeling of abandonment, being taught I don’t deserve love/to be put first, anger towards a protector, an idol. Feeling as if I still wasn’t enough for them (at such a young age), hurtful but I felt like I somehow deserved it because I couldn’t comprehend that it wasn’t my fault
Never letting myself feel it. Fear of reciprocal anger. Fear of losing others. Fear of expressing because not confident in my own grounding, beliefs, standing up for myself. Conflict avoidance.
Gender stereotype: women being too emotional, while men are able to be angry because it is inline with being manly
Difference between anger the emotion and anger the behavior: Identifying am I uncomfortable with the emotion or the behavior?
Emotions are a universal thing that everyone experiences, they’ve been around forever, and they were especially important then because it meant the difference between life and death.
Biological use for anger:
Self-defense
Life or death situation
The prevention of loss of things important to your survival
“You stole my food, that is how I was going to keep my family and self alive with” threatening to survival
Keeping you from being taken advantage of
Threatening to sense of self
It is understandable that there is a conflicting parts:
Can I be mad at this person?
Because what if that means they get mad at me and take away the things I need to survive
Scary when someone gets mad, so we’re gonna cower and be easy so I can ensure I’m taken care of
Conflicting with —>
Fuck that. This has been a lot and I resent that I need him and it has been a rollercoaster, and I’m sick of the way it makes me feel and that makes me mad.
Threat of survival: I feel like I need to have my family unit in tact for survival while also, having my family unit in tact means there’s a part of my sense of self that is being taken advantage of and disrespected- having to compromise myself and my needs
Fearful of reciprocation of anger
When I push down anger because of this fear:
Suffocation of emotions
Sacrificing myself and how I want to feel in fear of others reactions and for others
When you tamp down your anger you tamp down yourself
You lose yourself by letting another person’s possible reactions dictate your reactions and your decisions
Dictate your life and identity
Feeling anger in a healthy way:
Acknowledgement of anger
Being able to label the feeling
Followed by creating validity for it within myself,
So instead of questioning
“Do I have a right to be mad”
Just honoring it
If I’m questioning it, it is there and it doesn’t matter if the other person “deserves” it
Because it is a valid emotion I am feeling because of some threat to myself and I don’t need to undermine myself for feeling it
And then once it has been acknowledged- understanding ok is this something I have felt and it is now ok or is it something I need to have a conversation about/ take action around
And being able to tell the difference
Its unfair to myself to question the validity of my anger, because the reality is anger shows up and it’s a message. And if you say I’m not supposed to be angry or I have no right to be angry, you’re missing the point. You’re ignoring the message. What is my anger telling me? What is the threat?
Anger often comes from some kind of threat or power differential or unmet needs
When we say the loss of things important to survival- we’re talking about needs. If there are unmet needs —> anger.
I have a personal history of not asking for needs because I don’t want to be a burden (want to stay easy) and it leads to resentment or anger towards someone, but I don’t feel as if I deserve to be angry because it’s due to my own inability to voice my needs and then I turn the anger intrinsically. It is cyclical.
Leaning into to anger and saying what do I need?
What’s the unmet need or what’s the threat or power difference?
Giving anger a seat at the table
Working together with anger as a part of me, instead of shunning and then anger retaliating against me
A companionship
Anger turned inwards looks an awful lot like depression
Anger as my fiery protector
Recognizing that these patterns were integral to my survival as a child- the avoidance did at one point protect me. It is not my fault, I was adapting to my environment.
This is no longer serving me and it’s ok that I once did that because it is what I needed at the time and it’s ok now for me to shift for how it does serve me
