Recovery4Me
MyPTSD Pro
Why Women Don’t Get to Be Angry
When men get angry, their power grows. When women do, it shrinks.
gen.medium.com
Being born into the Baby Boomer Tribe, I was socially, culturally and disciplined accordingly concerning how ‘nice ladies’ expressed theirselves. Anger expressed within my geographical and economical level or area was simply taboo and the village concept reinforced their status quo.
That was over 60 years ago. However, this core imprinted theme is sometimes still prevalent among others’ expectations of how I should feel. Not even the issue of choosing correct behavior of acting on it : simply others‘ stating it is not OK for my body to show the chemical reaction or my voice to be tense. To which I addressed the following day, “I will not apologize for reacting normally to an abnormal situation.“ It is OK for women (or anyone) and those of PTSD to feel anger- it is how we choose to act on it that counts.
Yes, I may feel anger more intensely in the moment, but anger is just another emotion not my mantle. I found acceptance within myself to feel full spectrum, to live not being afraid that my anger was ‘bad’ or dangerous but a healthy indicator that something might change. Feelings are not facts but they are ours, truly ours alone. So I wanted to take a moment to offer an article for women and anger... so that maybe stuffing our anger (and becoming depressed) or being afraid to have a feeling (for we might loose control or be not nice) stays where it belongs- in the past.