Is It Ok To Get Angry At Other People?

[Pencil]

You can't make anyone learn.

I disagree, you can.

When my daughter acts in a way towards friends that is not acceptable, it won't help if I tell her that her behaviour is not acceptable - it will make her feel attacked, or misunderstood, or .... any of a number of things. What helps is if I take her mentally through a parallel situation in which the roles are reversed: 'Imagine you are playing at X's house, and X did .... '. Only when she can look at the situation objectively can she look at her own behaviour and emotions objectively. The same thing happens in teaching. The same thing happens in therapy.

 

[Pencil]

f somebody gets angry and takes it out on another/others,

What do you think should happen?

 

[Philippa]

I think that people are all evolving at their own pace, and some people will have greater stubborness than others when it comes to being able to see and accept that their behaviour isn't ok. But telling them it isn't seems ineffective. Again, it's the way language is used, and how we communicate our feelings that will impact the other person for good or not.

It's like telling a meat eater that killing animals is bad and that therefore they are bad...or a smoker, who knows it's bad for them but just because you've annoyed them they will keep smoking in your face as a defiant gesture.

Learning to communicate effectively can be like walking through a minefield of defense mechanisms. It takes a lifetime to learn how to have enough patience with yourself and others and to speak with just the right tone and just the right words, so that you don't set someone else off or make them react in the opposite way.

 

[Mayday]

What I can't understand is the attitude that it is acceptable to angrily rant at a specific person or group of people. Or that it is ok to do that and that it is justified for them to do that. 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.

If everybody felt that way, it would be back and forth and never-ending. The person getting angry obviously doesn't feel that it's ok for others to hurt them (otherwise they wouldn't feel anger) so what makes it ok for them to hurt others?

Unless you or someone you're protecting is in physical danger, is it ever ok to express anger directly towards others?

Like a few people have already mentioned, there are healthy ways to express anger. However when you add in stress, difficult upbringings etc...there's a lot of room for things to get misinterpreted or for offhand remarks to cause offence where none was intended.

Like most people who've been in abusive relationships/upbringings...I'm way to familiar with having to "walk on eggshells". Sometimes I really don't like online communication for this reason, because I've been caught before saying something that I didn't think was offensive but it was interpreted differently than what I intended. It's so tricky.

There are definitely times where it's entirely appropriate to express anger directly to someone. It can be hard to decide that, especially if something someone has said or done has really hit a nerve.

There was a thread about mothers day and how it is unpleasant when your mother was abusive or neglectful. It was going along fine, everyone being very respectful and giving their opinion or experience...then some person came on that had never posted before (and hasn't since) about how "mothers are all sunshine and love, and I love my mother and mothers day, oh joy etc....". That really, really pissed me off. I looked at it. Got all angry and ranted inside my head. Then I left it, because I thought, just leave it alone. But then it kept bothering me, so I posted in there and basically told that poster to F off. For which I got a warning, which I have no complaint with because that's totally justified and I was breaching the rules. However I felt A LOT better for having expressed my anger. Although, it was inappropriate of me to do so in the way that I did, I felt justified I guess because that person had not just offended me, but had likely caused hurt to those that had shared their personal experiences.

 

[Mayday]

Also another thought, is that I grew up in a family where it wasn't appropriate to express anger directly, so everything was passive aggressive, or nasty in a way that was hard to prove, so that you knew they were doing it to be hurtful but couldn't prove it. Because that's what I learnt, that was how I also responded when I was angry...it's been hard to learn new ways to respond. What drives me is that I don't want to be like THEM. So although I make mistakes and mess up, I do try to learn from it.

 

[Philippa]

Yes, I've had similar experiences online mayday. A few years back I had a few people on a forum I was on telling me i was directing anger at others, when I honestly didn't think I was angry, or wasn't aware that I was feeling angry. I had people accusing me of delighting in hurting people as a result of this, when i was perplexed at how I'd even hurt anyone given that I was not even angry to start with, but they interpreted my bluntness or annoyance as being sadistically trying to hurt them. It was very frustrating. These were all sensitive "spiritual' types.

 

[Philippa]

I grew up in a similar way, with a lot of passive aggressive behaviour from my mother especially. I have been called out once before for passive aggressive behaviour after I was being harassed by a whole group of people for venting, which I thought was perfectly natural, but which they found 'negative' and therefore not evolved or aligned with their spiritual aspirations. When I am treated this way is when passive aggressiveness tends to rear it's head, but usually I do not resort to that.

 

[Mayday]

I think there is an online version of "road rage" that kicks in.

 

[Mayday]

I had a couple of experiences in online communities (not this one) where I have been called nasty names and had my integrity attacked, even had personal threats etc...In both cases, there had just been misunderstandings, but there are people out there who get very possessive of "their" turf, so to speak, and it can get very irrational and surreal.

I have to say, this forum has been the best, in terms of very little of that kind of behaviour. Perhaps it's because Anthony's an Aussie :P (she'll be right and all that...)

 

[Philippa]

There can be. There can also be a sort of ganging up that happens when one person is perceived as being angry. All the people who don't like to admit that they are also angry deep down start projecting and brow beating and shunning.

Yes, this forum seems to be the best. I've hardly seen much in the way of real conflict of brutal behaviour here. People can really get worked up elsewhere though, you're right. I had one american guy threaten to shoot me in the face...come all the way to Australia and shoot me in the face, all because he didn't like my opinion about something! Surreal is the word. I've also been accused of being racist...for asking someone if he was jewish. Just for asking what culture he was from made me racist!

 

[anthony]

I watched a documentary on anger in society a while back, and what resonated was that society is progressively becoming angrier. We live all crammed together, noises annoying one another. We drive in traffic that stresses us, we have deadlines, commitments, feel we need to be available and connected to the world 24hrs a day, and well... we're imploding basically, by the end of each day. Our sleep as a result, as society as a whole, is becoming less. The bodies natural stress mechanism to remove stress from the prior day, is good sleep. We wakeup angry, then we do the same thing, day in, day out... and thus we as society are progressively becoming angrier. It will be quite practicable to state, if you made it through a day without getting angry at someone, then you've done extremely well.

We are our own worst enemy in relation to societal stress.

 

[Lionheart]

I think there should be anger management classes taught in public schools to help address the problem of societal anger, perhaps in a "life skills" class as a mandatory requirement. I don't know how women are socialized when it comes to dealing with anger but males seem to be woefully ignorant of any positive coping skills, but this is just my 2 cents.