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Is It Ok To Get Angry At Other People?

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you can lay as many eggs as you want (as long as they're chocolate)
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@Meadowsweet, what is your 'personal relationship' with anger / aggression?

I can be really, horribly aggressive - always over insignificant things, such as a salesperson who doesn't understand what i want, or someone who constantly interrupts me, i.e. low frustration tolerance. On the other hand, when I really get angry, which is not often, I go cold, my voice drops and I have superhuman control.
 
I think there can be a lot of subjectivity. Sometimes a person who expresses themselves strongly is communicating with a person who is highly sensitive, and their perceptions of what's happening will be very different. Anyone observing is also going to bring their own reactions into it.

It seems that a strong idea here is that a person expressing themselves in the way that's being talked about is deliberately, or at least knowingly, going to hurt another person:

People express it in different ways, but the drive behind the expression is still anger and that somebody else needs to recieve it.

People can be extremely nasty, damaging and abusive based on their blame and anger, whilst not swearing or shouting. The same thinking is behind it - that somebody else should be hurt, because the angry person is hurting

But I don't aim those feelings at another person, because I don't want to hurt them.

what makes it ok for them to hurt others?

The justification seems to be that they are annoyed or hurt by the way someone else has treated them, and that makes it ok for them to hurt others.

Regarding intent, what intent is there in firing angry words at others? Even if that intent is to express someones own feeling, surely there must be some awareness that expressing it in that way WILL upset and hurt others?

I can't agree that this is always the case. Perhaps not even often the case. @Meadowsweet, I think this might be a bit too much imagining what your feelings and motivations would be, and assuming they are everyone's feelings and motivations. I don't think that's likely to be accurate. I think the perspective of someone who tends to be more sensitive is likely to be different from the perspective of someone who tends to be more expressive.

As someone who's more expressive, I'd like to illustrate that from my personal point of view. It can be frustrating to me to feel that some people are being too passive or indirect. I would rather know straightforwardly what they mean or what they're thinking. I'd like to extend the same courtesy to them.

I would much rather deal with over-strong expression than deal with what I perceive as under-expression. I might associate lack of expression with lack of honesty. I might associate it with manipulation, passive aggression, harbouring grudges, being fake, letting things fester instead of getting them out into the open air. I might associate it with lack of caring. I might associate it with leaving it to other people speak out about injustice, and not doing anything about it themselves. I'm not saying you or anyone in this thread is doing any of those things. I'm just trying to present a different point of view, since you said that you don't understand people acting in certain ways. It's possible that they don't understand people not acting in those ways. I often don't.

I may have to accept someone feeling hurt as an outcome but that doesn't mean my aim is to deliver hurt. My aim is to be straightforward, honest and true to myself.

Sometimes I feel someone receiving something as anger isn't justified. Everyone is at different points on the sensitivity spectrum and what one person thinks is honest another person might think is aggression. Sometimes I feel someone's hurt isn't justified, especially if it's coming from their past more than the present.

I recognise that sometimes people are aggressive or abusive in their communication. They might be doing this but be unaware of it - which is why it's recommended to say things calmly to someone like, "Hashi, you're shouting" to bring it to their attention. In those cases it might be appropriate for them to apologise.

Aside from that, I think there can also be a grey area where people perceive things in different ways. I think some of what your talking about probably falls into that grey area. One party isn't necessarily being inappropriate or hurtful. People may simply have different levels of sensitivity and different motivations.
 
Sorry survivor2thriver, I don't understand what you mean in practical terms. I understand that as a child you dealt with abuse by being angry at abusers. Was it ever expressed at people who weren't abusing you? And the same question for now - you see I'm not suggesting that anger shouldn't be expressed, I'm saying that it's never right (with the exception of being in physical danger), to express it by firing it at other people.

No. I didn't get angry. I didn't have time! LOL

I associate anger with ignorance. Our house was either silent or raging. My point is the opposite. I refused to feel anger. I associated it with "bad." Understanding they were/are stupid was and is a lifesaver. I experienced bewilderment by being surrounded in deep dysfunction. Once you fully understand the many causes of dysfunction. Anger isn't what you feel.
 
@Meadowsweet, what is your 'personal relationship' with anger / aggression?

I felt I had to suppress anger as a child, then I became very depressed as a teen to the point where I didn't care anymore, and I would get angry and have angry outbursts. But I was in a violent relationship by 17 and after a while that stopped the outbursts. After that I avoided confrontation or ran away from anger, and I felt frustrated sometimes, but never really angry.

The first time I felt real anger again in years, was a couple of months after a man who had been a friend had intimidated me enough for me to give in to him sexually (or be raped). I had told him I didn't want any friendship with him at all, and he phoned me and was cold and manipulative, and I lost it - as in shouting so harshly to make myself hoarse and I can't remember what i said other than effin every other word, and then smashing the phone up because I couldn't put it down hard enough in my anger.

A few months later he tried to kill me and I dissociated at the time. But he came back to the house a couple of hours after saying he wanted to speak to me, and I've never felt anger rise up through me like that - and my reaction was to walk out of the house. But I felt good with that anger. I was walking round a rough area, late at night and I felt that nothing could touch me.

Years later I got angry with a friend for putting my life in danger - I realise now that she couldn't see that because she didn't know or understand what had gone on (she was acquainted with my attacker, and was getting close to the man who helped my attacker out and covered it up and it was triggering me at a time I didn't know what PTSD was). I did get angry with her, and I apologised because I was in the wrong. Seeing myself like that, I didn't like it and so I left and I went and told my doctor that my mental health wasn't right.

That was years ago, and I've reverted back to childhood now, when I'm angry, I don't speak, I leave. But I realise that anger needs to be got out of me, so i write in detail every bit of what I'm feeling. And it always, without exception, comes down to fear and wanting to protect myself or others.

(Sorry that got so long)
 
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I think there can be a lot of subjectivity. Sometimes a person who expresses themselves strongly is communicating with a person who is highly sensitive, and their perceptions of what's happening will be very different. Anyone observing is also going to bring their own reactions into it.

I understand this and agree with you. But this thread is about my experience of hearing people admitting that they are angry and firing it at others, because they feel justified in doing so. It's not referring to misinterpretation of forthrightness being anger. But you have made some valid points - just not relevant in this particular discussion.

Retreating is aggressive?

Absolutely agree that it isn't aggressive.

@surivor2thriver, apologies for not understanding what you meant.
 
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When pushed into a corner I tend to push back. The cure for my ballistic anger was taking a anger management class. Now I just walk away from people whenever I need a time out. Wait until I calm down and then decide what I am going to do with my anger. Growing up is so hard but it can be done.
 
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