Channel Your Anger or Be Depressed.

While I can get mad, and have gotten mad, and, in some sense, I am always mad, I am also deeply afraid of anger. I get very, very uncomfortable when people around me get angry. When I have displayed anger and gain some distance from the triggering event, I am shocked at myself, and often may order myself to not do that again.

What I need to do, I guess, is this: when I feel angry I should stop and ask myself these questions: Why am I angry? What is making me afraid? Will a display of anger change things for the better?

If you are ever afraid of anything, it is because you have a history where similar situations resulted in pain, disappointment, or profound loss. Most of the time, IF I feel angry, it is because I am afraid. If I stop and think, I can figure out what is making me afraid. I can often recall some childhood event in which my present fear and anger is rooted.

Because my therapist has suggested that getting in touch with my anger, and GIVING A VOICE to my emotional life may have some positive effect on me, I am trying to understand anger and what it might mean to GIVE VOICE to my anger.

The suggestion (to me) is that depression may be caused, at least in part, by suppressing anger. If you can’t express anger then people will run over you, take advantage of you, and this won’t mean there is no anger, it is just that the anger is inside my brain bouncing about like a hollow core bullet. The implication is this: channel your anger or be depressed.