Anger: How Can It Be Safe?

[littlelostchild]

So I have had some negative experiences with people expressing anger toward me. Mom raged at me and dad promised to drown me if I told anyone about the abuse ( he illustrated the point by pulling me under the water in a pool while threatening me).
My T says that anger isn't dangerous. He wants me to provide evidence for and against the statement: Anger is dangerous. Can anyone help me with evidence against? Can anger actually be neutral or even a good thing?

 

[Ronin]

I think it is important to realize violence isn't anger.

Abuse isn't anger, either.

They are actions, and while they often come connected with that emotion, it's not always.

So, anger: Can you think of any times it's helped you protect yourself, someone else, someone else protect you, and such?

I'd have plenty of those associations; anger as an emotion sparking the righting what's wrong, /helping/ someone else.

Anger as a prompt for action, where the action is helpful and necessary at the time.

Being angry with the state of things and fixing it to the greatest possible measure.

 

[mamachick]

Yes, anger is the emotion, not the behavior. When someone violates our boundary, we may get angry. That gives us the opportunity to assert ourselves, to set a boundary to protect ourselves from further injury, or to protect others from injury. It is what we do with the anger that that can be destructive.

example: You are outside with your 4 yr old while they are playing with a ball in the yard. The ball rolls into the street and they automatically run after it. You automatically shout STOP in an angry tone. They stop and run to you frightened at your response. You are not really angry at them, but feared them being hit by a car passing by. You hug them and are shaking. Fear caused your anger (anger is a secondary emotion). You have told them many times to watch for cars and not to run into the street. The interpreted response of your voice shocked them (not moms usual tone of voice) and scared them. This natural response did impact them. If this child is raised in a loving home without rage, this is not going to cause them some trauma. They may remember it before running into the street again. Your anger is a good thing.

example: You love your job and are the best at it, but are passed up for promotions. A recent promotion was given to a relative of the boss. You are hurt, which causes anger. This has happened before and you are fed up. You could go unleash on the boss with your anger and that would be negative expression, or you could accept your hurt and feel the anger. The anger could be the motivation that it takes for you to find a company where you will have better opportunity. Further, your anger may cause you to search yourself to see how you have accepted this in the past and assert yourself, possibly communicate differently at your new job to avoid be passed up again. It can help you to discover your own role in your life as it plays out.

 

[Eagle3]

I agree with the above posters, anger is usually what spurs me to action to change an unsustainable situation. If I didn't get angry, I wouldn't try to change things that need to change. That includes both circumstances and the way people interact with me or each other. I have learned to be angry with behavior, but I don't respond in the heat of the moment. I take a few minutes to calm down and properly assess the situation to see the best approach to change things. But if I weren't angry, i wouldn't WANT to change anything!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I also agree that anger is a fundlemental emotion, reference: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/inside-out-the-movie-wow-what-did-you-think.63559/page-4#post-1043655 on how i see anger along with joy, sadness, fear and digust being like primary colors and all other a mixture of them. That entire thread (and the movie) is wonderful at seeing how emotions work and work together.

Anger + fear keep you safe. Anger also allows you to stand up for yourself.

I also agree that violence and abuse is a whole other level where action and behaviors play a part, as well as often an end result in mind. Anger is emotion, point period. It is not a behavior. Behavior can go along with it but thats a choice. The emotion is there for a reason and should never be denied.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I always (and still do sometimes) feel that if I express anger, it will lead to abandonment...so I have a problem expressing negative feelings.
I learned that "anger" is sort of an "umbrella" for other feelings, such as frustration, hurt, betrayal, disappointment, and for me, my anger has always turned inward and "fed" my depression. It still does.

It is a necessary emotion, part of what I call the "rainbow" of emotion. Without even one of the colors, there isn't a rainbow. It's how we handle the anger that makes it right or wrong. Anger can be a protection response, or a response to being unfairly treated.
I hope this helps a little?
AKJ

 

[Friday]

Anger can't hurt anyone. It's actions that hurt people.

***

If someone calmly beats the shit out of you, gets off on beating the shit out of you, or beats the shit out of you in a rage? In all 3 cases you've still gotten the shit beaten out of you, regardless of what the other person was feeling about it.

Same token, someone can be in a towering rage and use the gentlest voice, and touch, and kindness despite -or even because- of how angry they are. Or someone can be super duper happy and be using the gentlest voice, touch, & kindnesses.

 

[Freedomfighter]

So I have had some negative experiences with people expressing anger toward me. Mom raged at m...

Are you a minor? Seriously, if I were a child I would want to get adopted out of such a family.

My father is trying to drown me mentally, no doubt about it. Just listened to his phone messages (which I delete right away), as soon as I delete one, the next one plays too, so I have to delete that one too.
I am coming to grips still with what happened to me as a child, remember vividly that my brother was terrified of the water, terrified of learning how to swim, terrified crying in the water in the swimming pool. Remember my dad being there, furious with him because he was afraid.
I was mentally abused and physically, not to the point of actual physical lasting damage. The mental damage will always be there, will never heal, it is not like casting a broken leg.
My dad was involving me in sexual abuse as a small child, I acted out after that with my younger brother, remember that during those instances that children often repeat what parents do. Was not too concerned, but now after the death of my mom (my dad unquestionably brought her into the grave) I think about many things. Always thought despite everything that I had a happy childhood, but my mom was very loud and always yelling and my dad was usually the reason, not wanting to take any kind of responsibility, pretended to be a dumb little child so he could not be blamed for anything, including the abuse on his own children.

Also I think now that my mom must have known about the abuse that my dad gave to me and my brother, because he is so weak mentally that he can not sort things out in his mind himself, he is so weak he has to tell someone about what he does because he would rather make others feel guilty about his mistakes rather than having to deal with his own faults. I have made plenty of mistakes too, but I have the mental strength to admit that without burdening others, alas sometimes I admit it is difficult and on some problems I chew mentally on longer than on others.
I was only 15 when my mom called me a slut after finding out that I was interested in a boy. Had never ever had any kind of physical contact with the opposite gender at that time, but now in retrospect I think this was due to the influence of my father, literally him convincing her that I sinned, you know how those predators are, they blame their sexual criminal acts even on very young children. My mom must have been influenced by that.

Right after her death I elevated her into sainthood, and I know this often happens when someone passes. I still love her of course but now I am wondering if I left some things out, meaning coming to terms with the fact that her life was very different from mine and that if I would have turned to my mom with my abuse that I would most likely have seen a very ugly reaction.

I am now thinking more clearly about past family problems, realizing that my parents had a very troubled life, it seems like a swamp that my father now wants me to drag into continuously.

I can not let that happen and it surprises me how much strength is needed to ward off vicious predators, even the ones from my own family.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

I agree with so many others who've written above: anger is an emotion, and it comes to teach us that something is very wrong. Generally, anger comes when an important personal boundary has been crossed.

Now, you may have confused anger with violence, because when your parents got angry, they also became violent. But the two are not the same thing. Anger is purely an emotion, while violence is an action. Anger is safe while violence is not.

Ben

 

[Powder]

Anger is an emotion. All emotions are neutral. They are neither good nor bad.
Emotions do not force people to do things.

Often people do whatever they desire and release an emotion at the same time. This conflates the two. But the emotion had little or nothing to do with it.

When I want to blame my husband for the stress I am feeling, I start to verbally blame him, and then the pent up anger I have been holding for my whole life, just gets unleashed.

Emotions get stuck being unprocessed, and then when someone activates an action system by choice or is cued or triggered into the action system, the emotions stuck associated with it comes out.

This happens with abuse.

It is not a normal or healthy way. It is the way of someone who is a head case whose wires are all messed up. Your parent hit the gas and the horn also blew.
Now, you have this notion that the gas pedal has something essential to do with the horn, but it has nothing to do with it in most people's cars (metaphor) or psychology.

Unlearning takes time and trust. It takes years of watching those around you hit the gas (maybe feel anger) without harming anyone to see that it's not "normal" at all.

Your parents were just super f*cked up.

That's the truth. Anger is not a bad emotion.

 

[mamachick]

Rage is beyond anger. When I think of rage, I think of extreme and often violent anger. Rage can lead to violence but it is not necessarily violence. Rage is unmanaged anger. When we process and manage our anger, it does not have to lead to rage. We often say a person "is raging" which makes it a behavior and no longer just an emotion. I think many of us on here must feel adversity to raging.

Also, I do think women are stereotyped for getting angry, which makes many of us fear being angry.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Rage is anger at it highest intensity. Adding intensity to an emotion doesnt change that its an emotion.

I have blind rage explosions. Blind as in seeing red, dont know what im doing or saying until its over. Im never violent, ever. Not once have a layed a hand on anyone and i rage explode about 3 or more times a week.

Violence is a behavior, and a choice. You choose to behave in a certian way, or not.

Emotion & behavior, two seperate things.