Do I have to be angry?

[PlainJane]

I don't know if you have to feel angry but I wonder if this....
Is something to work through? The thought that anger = loss of control.
Why that feeling has loss of control and not other feelings?
When you feel angry for someone else, do you loose control or is it a feeling like any other?

I think there is merit to it. I think other feelings have loss of control, but the consequences don't sting quite as badly. I can become irrational because of an injustice on behalf of someone, quite easily, I think.

I think a lot of us equate feeling angry with a loss of control. Maybe for similar or different reasons. Maybe because it's an emotion that has been so repressed and stuffed down that to let it out feels like it will erupt? Or we have seen other people's anger mean they have lost control.

I don't think I fear an eruption because of repression, not because it can't happen, but because it's even more simple. I know there is potential for violence and pain where there is anger. By word or deed. Regardless of repression or regular expession. I have been on the tail end of the violent physical expression, and I fear I may match the potential because the pattern is there, like a blueprint. Fire is fire. It's a great tool, and handled with respect that fire deserves, it can be a tool for great things. Fire without respect likely wont exist peacefully.

I also think differentiating between a feeling and a behaviour might help?

I can see what you mean. How would you suggest I apply this thought to see if I am avoiding anger vs behavior toward trauma? I struggled wording that, so if I made no sense let me know.

 

[Torch]

What I am struggling with is how I feel anger, or the lack of. Not that I don't get irritated or whatever, but in terms of trauma work. There has to be anger somewhere right? I can't seem to feel anger for me or at someone else on my behalf. I can feel anger for you, at your abusers and for others in general, but I can't drum up the anger for myself.

Does there have to be anger?

Do you see what I am trying to get at?

Can you say more or give more context about not being able to feel anger for yourself?

I find it difficult to believe you've never felt anger for yourself, making me wonder if it is context dependent?

 

[PlainJane]

Can you say more or give more context about not being able to feel anger for yourself?

I find it difficult to believe you've never felt anger for yourself, making me wonder if it is context dependent?

For sure, I mean it in the realm of trauma work. I get irritated when Todd at work doesn't turn his data in for the umpteenth time, even though it's the same song and dance every month. If I compare how I feel towards my abuse vs someone else being abused, it's two different beasts.

 

[Movingforward10]

I can see what you mean. How would you suggest I apply this thought to see if I am avoiding anger vs behavior toward trauma? I struggled wording that, so if I made no sense let me know.

I'm not sure if I am understanding correctly, so do let me know if I have misunderstood. Are you asking how to apply the thought of anger as a feeling being different to anger being acted out, in the context of trauma?

I don't know if this helps any:
Anger can have an energy to it. It can be seen as an active feeling, something that has action linked to it. But it doesn't need to be and isn't always. We can feel anger and not do a single thing. We just feel it in our bodies and then it goes. Equally, anger can give us good energy. We can rightly be moved to (peaceful) protest for example through Anger, and anger can fuel the need to make change in society for the better.
Anger doesn't have to result in 'bad' behaviour (turn the word bad into: abusive, violent, out of control, etc whatever works in the context of someone inflicting trauma).

We feel something. We think something. We act something.

The pathway to someone inflicting trauma on someone else out of anger still follows that process above? Consciously or less so. Normalised or immediate.

So, feeling angry about what someone has done to us. Can have a passivity to it, or an activeness to it. It can just be a feeling. Or it can fuel an action that helps us. Or hinders us. Depending on how we decide to hold that anger and act on it.

I don't know if any of that makes sense or if it is answering your question.

 

[Warrior Chicken]

compare how I feel towards my abuse vs someone else being abused, it's two different beasts.

I also struggle with anger as a concept. I’ve tried to explore my own anger as it relates to specific trauma. Using imagery to access what emotions are there and working on shifting the massive self blame to where it actually belongs. I’d get frustrated with myself cuz I just couldn’t be angry at the other person. There’s zero connection to anger for those memories. It was recently explained to me that if a person didn’t have access to certain emotions when the trauma happened, then when recall happens that emotion won’t be felt.

As in - fight flight freeze etc - if anger wasn’t a viable emotion in the situation then it’s hard to access it when thinking about the memory.

This is still a fresh concept to me, so I’m not sure I’m explaining it well.

 

[Ecdysis]

One of the problems with "missing" anger is that it is often directed inwards, when it doesn't feel healthy to direct it outwards, at the appropriate target.

I wonder whether you struggle with self-harm, self-neglect, self-blame, etc? If so, this may be where your "missing" anger is. In that case, the question would not so much be "Why is there no anger?" but rather "Why is turning your anger inwards the only place you feel safe putting it?"

 

[Warrior Chicken]

One of the problems with "missing" anger is that it is often directed inwards, when it doesn't feel healthy to direct it outwards, at the appropriate target.

I wonder whether you struggle with self-harm, self-neglect, self-blame, etc? If so, this may be where your "missing" anger is. In that case, the question would not so much be "Why is there no anger?" but rather "Why is turning your anger inwards the only place you feel safe putting it?"

Woah @Ecdysis
That tracks for me. Gotta think on this.

 

[anthony]

Anger is not so much a negative emotion, it is a response to underlying emotion. The Iceberg Of Emotions An older post, but still very much accurate today.

 

[Torch]

For sure, I mean it in the realm of trauma work. I get irritated when Todd at work doesn't turn his data in for the umpteenth time, even though it's the same song and dance every month. If I compare how I feel towards my abuse vs someone else being abused, it's two different beasts.

This is where the inner child work could be helpful.

If it is too difficult to ‘drum up’ the anger about abuses endured as a teen, young adult, adult, etc, having the image or scene of a past or child version of yourself enduring abuse might aid in allowing you to access that anger.

Child you both is you, and isn’t, and went through the same BS regardless. Maybe if it’s not okay to feel angry for yourself, you’ll find/reconnect with your anger in the fact that child you was not protected and had to go through the traumas.

 

[Freddyt]

Anger is not so much a negative emotion, it is a response to underlying emotion. The Iceberg Of Emotions An older post, but still very much accurate today.

Almost all my "trauma anger" is well placed according to my T's.

IE: There is anger, but for the right reasons and toward the right people, therefore there is no problem with the anger. It's normal and healthy.

So letting it out, expressing it, isn't just venting all my anger, but anger toward specific things and people. Seems weird but once that anger has a place, an event, and people to attach it to it changes.

 

[PlainJane]

I don't know if any of that makes sense or if it is answering your question.

Makes sense, yes. I may have tangled this up even further. I took "differentiating between a feeling and a behaviour" as something I need to practice in order for anger to be accessable, maybe? For example, when I get heated, and my initial thought is "shit, cool down before you do something stupid and/or violent." In my boulder brain, anger=violence. Violence is bad news bears.

So, I guess my question is, how do I differentiate thought and behavior that you suggest at a feeeling level. I'm golden intellectually

There’s zero connection to anger for those memories. It was recently explained to me that if a person didn’t have access to certain emotions when the trauma happened, then when recall happens that emotion won’t be felt.

As in - fight flight freeze etc - if anger wasn’t a viable emotion in the situation then it’s hard to access it when thinking about the memory.

This is an interesting thought. Access as in the neuropathways for this hadn't been solidified or defned yet? Or access because the brain said it was unsafe or unusable? I think you've answered above but looking for little extra clarification incase I'm mindreading by mistake.

One of the problems with "missing" anger is that it is often directed inwards, when it doesn't feel healthy to direct it outwards, at the appropriate target.

I wonder whether you struggle with self-harm, self-neglect, self-blame, etc? If so, this may be where your "missing" anger is. In that case, the question would not so much be "Why is there no anger?" but rather "Why is turning your anger inwards the only place you feel safe putting it?"

I don't have any typical self harm indicators. I am adreneline seeking and take unhealthy/unnecessarry/unsafe risks at times. I could potentially see self neglect or blame though. I think "Why is turning your anger inwards the only place you feel safe putting it?" is a valid question I should apply for other emotions anyway. That's a goodn.

it is a response to underlying emotion.

I'm still being curious about anger, because there might be something to it still, but ultimately I think this is what I am looking for. The idea that if I am correctly dealing with the underlying emotion, I don't have to be angry. If it is genuinely not there.

 

[anthony]

If it is genuinely not there.

I will shut this one down now. Anger is there. Anger is real. Anger is often present. Anger sits in us. Anger exists and has purpose.

BUT

Why? Why is someone angry? Why does a person feel anger? What is anger? Can anger exist without an underlying emotion?

The last question, the supposed psychological answer to that, is no.