HealthyGamerGG - Is It Okay to Be Angry?

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

Dr. K talks about anger, dealing with the emotion, developing a healthy relationship with anger, and more. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About a week ago, I stubbed my toe against a table leg. And boy, did I get pissed off. Damn that table leg. Then I kicked the table leg for doing this to me. And then I hurt more. And then I felt more angry. The despair of anger. Hi. I've heavily suppressed emotions throughout life with video games or simply by refusing to acknowledge the emotion slash pressing the mute button on it. And I've started doing a lot of work to identify and feel my emotions. Good job, friend. I'm getting to a point where I'm comfortable with most emotions, also good job, friend, and feeling them reliably, but I have a complicated relationship with anger, you and everyone else. I come from a home where anger was the tyrant that made everyone miserable, and I witnessed the effects it had on my mother and sister, which made me promise myself

never to feel angry. As you might guess, because our emotions are a mute all-s-mute-none-matter, that wasn't a viable strategy, and it led to a lot of pain for me. That pain continues with my relationship to anger today. I'm comfortable with the idea that I need anger is a healthy part of my life. I want to know more about it and how to effectively handle it when it comes up, but because of a lifetime of denying it, I'm always at a loss how to become comfortable with it. I sometimes still reflexively try to suppress it or deny it. And when I do feel it and allow myself to feel it, it's followed by guilt,

an intense self-judgment. This relationship with anger is making me feel broken and helpless in regards to the feeling, feeling like I'll be able to use it as a healthy tool it's supposed to be, and that only adds more stress on top of the negative feelings I'm already experiencing. Do you all have any guidance on this? Kind words or thoughts are also welcome. Thank you for your time. Fantastic post.

So the thing about anger is that it's different. It's different from the other emotions. we can come to accept things like sadness. Like getting in touch with your sadness is a good thing. You know, a parent who is sad is deserving of sympathy. We understand, oh, my mom or dad is very anxious about me. It's because they love me. Right?

That's the why they worry about me. They worry because they love. So if we look at all of our negative emotions, a lot of them are acceptable, except for anger. A sad parent, sympathy. A worried parent, oh, we understand. That's because you love your child. An angry parent, how dare you? And like this person, we see why anger is demonized.

Right? Because anger makes people miserable. We blame people for being angry. And so this becomes a challenge because then, like, how do we develop a relationship with anger? We can understand developing a relationship with anxiety, overcoming anxiety. It's understandable that I'm anxious.

It's understandable that I'm sad. when I turn to my friends and I say I'm having a rough day, I'm super sad today, I lost someone that I love, I'm sad. And the world is like, oh, like, let me give you a hug. But if I'm angry, how does that, what effect does that have on people around me? And if you grow up in a household where you saw the danger of anger, what happens is anger gets demonized. Right? Because anger is a dangerous emotion. It's a bad emotion. Like, oh, sure, like we can get in touch without a sadness. Oh, my God, like, let's watch it. sad movie and like all cry together and bond. Oh my God. Like I'm going to have so much

compassion and empathy for the sadness of the world and the starving children and the refugees and like, oh my God, it's so sad. It makes me so sad. Everyone give me sympathy and empathy. Oh my God. And if I'm having a trauma response because I've been traumatized in the past and I'm afraid of something that's not my fault. I deserve compassion and love. I'm afraid of this because I've been traumatized. And as I share that, I receive lots of support. But not anger. Right? And anger is kind of interesting because we also see this kind of, I'm opening a little bit of a can of worms here. But we also see in gender dynamics that anger is the one unacceptable emotion for everyone, for both genders. This is kind of interesting.

Because if someone is at work and they're a woman and they're angry, they get called the B word or the C word. It's not acceptable. Is a woman allowed to be afraid? Sure. Is a woman allowed to be sad? Sure. but is a woman allowed to be angry? No, no, no. Right? It's used as an attack. Also true for men.

I recently saw an article. I didn't look at it, was clickbait, about this guy, Andrew Tate, which I keep on hearing about, still not sure who he is. And now he's mobilizing angry men. Not mobilizing sad men, not mobilizing fearful men or anxious men,

angry men. Right? I'm not trying to get into that, but I'm just pointing out that, like, what's the word that we use? Angry men or evil men. Right?

Anger is the unacceptable emotion. I'm not commenting on whether he is or I don't really even know who he is or anything like that. I'm just saying, like, I saw this article and I've observed that when we're, even when we're trying to bash both genders, if we toss the word anger in there, it's unacceptable. Right? It's kind of interesting. So that's what makes it universal. It's not actually gender specific.

So we demonize anger because anger is the opposite. of compassion, compassion is like a good thing, right? We sort of like put those two all, like, kindness are angry. Kindness are angry. So what happens, it's really tricky, because how do we develop a healthy relationship with this thing? Because anger isn't like the other emotions. Even Freud sort of talked to, he has a lot of really interesting stuff to say about anger.

And one of, I think this is his theory, that depression is anger turned against the self. So when I'm very depressed and I'm like, oh, I'm terrible, I'm not a good person. person, people deserve better, you know, people would be happier if I didn't exist, all these kinds of thoughts. That's all hatred against the self. And so oftentimes what I've seen as a clinician is when people are depressed, what it actually is is anger at its root. Freud was really brilliant with that observation. So when we don't deal with our anger, it manifests in all kinds of weird ways. It can sometimes manifest as depression. It can sometimes manifest as explosions, right? Which once again, then we blame ourselves.

Because we explode at someone because we feel too much anger we've been suppressing it. It's not really working out. Explosion. And then we blame ourselves. Oh my God, I got angry again. I lost control of the anger.

Do we blame people for breaking out crime? No. Do we blame people for having a panic attack? Some people do, and that's devastating. How dare you have a panic attack? We may perceive some things around those negative emotions like shame or weakness. Right?

That's fair. none of our emotions get vilified the way that anger does. So how does one start to develop a healthy relationship with anger? I'm going to give you all one really simple answer. Works really, really well. I've used it a ton. So let's start from the top. The first thing is to acknowledge that anger is different.

Different for a lot of different reasons. Societally, we're taught now as we become more in touch with ourselves emotionally, as we start to accept that crying is okay for both men and women. As we start to accept that anxiety is a problem, people suffer from panic attacks, people suffer from trauma. We have a lot more compassion towards those emotions. We don't have compassion towards anger. Blame.

We blame people for being angry. And furthermore, a lot of times the reason that we blame people is because we see the damage that anger causes. Other emotions cause damage too. I once worked with someone. is going to be somewhat of a chimerical person who fell in love and fell in love with someone

who wanted to have a child. And they thought, when two people are in love, the nicest thing that you can do if someone wants a child is to bring a child into this world. A child that is born of love between two people. It just turns out that the two people weren't married and that they were married to other people.

But it was love. And love conquers all. And love is a good emotion. Giving into love and bringing a child in this world is a start, It's a source of love. It's a wonderful thing. Except one of them had kids with someone else and was married.

Right? But we don't think about love as a bad emotion. Like love is great. Like love conquers all. Love conquers even your prior marriages. And love conquers like the responsibilities that you have towards your existing children. Love conquers all. But societally, we don't look at that, right?

Like you look at all of your movies. And love is a force for good. And the villain is angry. anger is always a part of the villain. So we vilify anger. So understand this within yourself. Now, how do you develop a healthy relationship with anger? So one really simple thing you can do.

Start by understanding that all emotions exist for a reason. So if you can't forgive yourself for being angry, because that's what a lot of people will try to do at the very beginning. If you can't be compassionate, understand that emotions are information, first and foremost. and start by asking yourself, what is the anger telling me? What is the anger saying? Because if we don't want to judge ourselves for being angry, we have to understand it. We have to listen to it.

It doesn't mean follow what it wants you to do. Listening to it means literally listening to it, or not, I guess, metaphorically listening to it. It doesn't mean following its direction. Because anger, like, why have human beings, all human beings are capable of exhibiting anger, feeling anger. Why is this conserved through human evolution? It's because anger is a useful emotion. And the place to start if you have a judgmental relationship with anger is with information and understanding. So oftentimes, anger manifests as a sign of something like disrespect.

So as you start to feel angry instead of suppressing it, ask yourself, you know, what am I angry about? What is the anger telling me? And then you may find something that's really, really important, which is that, oh, I'm being disrespected. Or I'm being treated unfairly, or I feel like I'm being treated unfairly. And that's really, really important because I want you all to consider two situations. One is where you suppress the anger, and you are being disrespected. And as you suppress that, what's going to happen? You're not going to address the disrespect.

You will continue operating in that situation. As you continue operating in that situation, you will continue to be disrespected. As you continue to be disrespected, you will continue to squash down the anger. And your life will not improve and you will suffer through. every minute of it. And the more angry you feel because you push it down and you continue to get disrespect, the more you're going to beat yourself up. And the more you beat yourself up, the more you will allow yourself to be disrespected. It's going to be a vicious cycle in the wrong direction, which is exactly why anger explodes because we suppress it. Right? And we sort of know that suppressed

anger explodes. So anger is a useful form of information. And as we listen to our anger, as we start to recognize, okay, where are you coming from? It starts to build a healthy relationship with it. Because now you're not judging it. You're not squashing it down. You're not giving into it and letting it explode. You're listening to it. What is the information that you're trying to give me? And oftentimes, anger is a response to hurt. Right? So if you think about what's the most basic form of anger that people, a reliable form of people that anger experience, it's when they get hurt. it's a protection against hurt so if I like you know

I'll give you all a great example so about a week ago I stubbed my toe against a table leg and boy did I get pissed off damn that table leg and then I kicked the table leg

for doing this to me and then I hurt more and then I felt more angry right so like if you all have ever gotten angry at an inanimate object. I think there's like a great subreddit about the stupid people fighting

things or something. Right? Like where you get angry at it and like, think about that. It doesn't make any sense. It's not the table legs fault. But it's a natural human reaction when we get hurt to feel angry. And if you want to understand how baked it in it has nothing to do with other people,

it's all just the way that we're wired. All you got to do is stub your toe. And you'll see how anger is a response to hurt. So once again, Again, ask yourself when you're feeling angry, how was I hurt? And get to the source of that. Because what tends to happen when we see these abusive, angry households, what's usually happening is those parents that are abusive or angry or explode aren't in touch with what

the anger is telling them. And so they displace that anger onto other people. They don't acknowledge their own hurt. So when I've worked with people who have things like diagnoses like antisocial personality disorder, which is kind of like sociopathy. Or when I've worked with people in jail, when I've worked with criminals, what I tend to find is that a lot of them are angry. And the reason that they're angry is because they've been hurt in some way. So if you want to develop a healthy relationship with your anger, start to ask yourself about how have you been hurt? What is the

hurt that underlies this anger? Because anger is just a source of information. We're not saying embrace it, we're not saying love it, we're not saying because you're not ready for that. that yet. The first step for 99% of people that I've worked with is to understand what anger is trying to tell them. And hopefully you all know this very simple principle that when someone is heard, when someone listens to you, when someone feels heard and listened to, the emotion goes down. And then you'll be able to develop a relationship. You'll be able to control it. Even then, controlling really isn't the goal. Living with it is the goal. But it'll decompose. press at some, and then you'll start to form a healthy relationship with anger.

And you'll start to realize that your anger is only looking out for you, just like all of your other emotions, right? We have these emotions because they're evolutionarily advantageous. So if you want to build a healthy relationship with anger, really, really challenging because society treats anger, unlike all of the other negative emotions. It's the only emotion that is almost universally demonized, vilified. Right? And even if you look at these movies where, like, the hero is on his quest for vengeance, or she's on her quest for vengeance, when a hero or heroin is on their quest for vengeance, what do they do at the end?

They forgive. Compassion. Anger doesn't take it all the way to the end. It's always compassion at the end. So we treat anger differently. It's the only thing that we don't allow ourselves to feel. It's the only thing that we judge ourselves for feeling. And so if you want to start to develop a healthy relationship with anger, start by asking yourself,

where is this coming from? What are you trying to tell me? Because all emotions are sources of information. There are ways that your brain processes different experiences that you have. As you start listening to it, and we're just going to be curious, right? We're not giving into it because that's too dangerous. We're just going to listen to it. That non-judgmentalness, that listening, that communication is what's going to form the foundation of building a healthy relationship with anger. So someone's asking about stoicism. So let's talk about stoicism for a second. So I'm not an expert on stoicism. Like I've read meditations, my Marcus Aurelius.

I've been told by other people that Marcus Aurelius is not the best stoic philosopher. I'm not an expert on philosophy. But I think the key thing about stoicism, at least from my understanding of it, is not in the absence of feeling it. It's in the control of the reaction to it, which is exactly what the Buddhist and Hindu tradition say. Right? So this is where, like, if you look at these Eastern philosophies, they don't, emotions are a part of life. It's in our reaction to it that we succeed, is good or bad. So virtue is not in an absence of feeling it. It's not, the goal is at numbness, right? So if you look at like Eastern perspectives, the goal is acceptance. It's not denial, which is what suppressing anger does.

It's about accepting your emotions. So I think Stoicism is basically, I want to say it's a very similar. It's sort of acknowledging that you're allowed to feel that way, but not letting that thing control you, and you retaining control of the emotion, as opposed to the other way around. So how do you deal with other people's anger, even if it's not aimed at you? My reaction is typically fear. So that's a great question. So how do you deal with anger in other people? My reaction is fear. So the control that you should exert is in your reaction. So, and this works, in a sense, really well, although it's very scary. So if someone is being angry with you and they're behaving with you inappropriately,

how do you manage their anger? You don't manage their anger. You manage your own fear. So what happens when people deal with other people's anger is they walk on eggshells. Oh, no, I don't want to make them angry. I don't want to make them angry. And in doing so, you breed bad behavior. because when they get angry, you accommodate.

So the right way to deal with other people's anger is to actually not be controlled by your fear. And if someone says something inappropriately, whether they're going to blow up or not, you face them with strength. You don't face them with fear. You say, hey, I understand you're angry right now, but what you're saying is completely unacceptable.

You need to tone it down a notch. If you need to go take a walk, go take a walk. I care about you. I love you, but your behavior is completely unacceptable. You want to do it calm. You don't want to give on to your own anger. You don't want to give into your fear. You don't want to admit mistakes that you didn't make.

That's how you deal with other people's anger. And the interesting thing is there's like tons of research on this, on boundary setting. And there's even a book on borderline personality disorder called Walking on Eggshells, which talks about how when you are dealing with people with BPD, the more boundaries you allow them to cross, the worse, the behaviors and the explosions and things like that become. So like dealing with other people's anger is about setting appropriate boundaries and not reacting to your own fear.

Now, there are a couple of important caveats to this, which is that you may exist in an environment where you can't set boundaries. And there's an inherent power dynamic. Right? So like if I'm like 15 years old and I have an abusive parent who gets really, really angry and I try to set boundaries with them and it just doesn't work because they're physically stronger than I am. They have financial control over me and things like that. That's a really challenging situation. You'd be surprised, though, at how far that can go. Right. And it's even saying something like, I understand that you're my dad and you hit me because you think you can.

I do not think when you hit me, it makes you a good parent. I do not think. You know, it teaches me the right lessons. I'm really curious, what are you trying to accomplish by doing this? And that's the kind of thing that if you tell to a parent may make them angry. But if you manage your tone properly and stuff like that, I have seen progress in those kinds of situations. Because oftentimes parents aren't evil, right? They lose control of their anger. And like even pointing out to parents that what you're doing hurts me, do you understand that? Is that your intention? is your goal to try to hurt me. So, like, these are hard words to say to people in power dynamics,

but, like, sometimes that's what you've got to do. And if you can't do that or that's unsafe, then unfortunately, the only thing is, like, bide your time or seek, like, you know, safe haven resources. I'm not suggesting that you challenge someone who has a power dynamic over you. But if you're asking what the right answer is, that's what I think the right answer is.

Sometimes you've got to be smart about it, right? It's like biding your time until you can leave the house and then never look back. How do you deal with anger once you've become independent? You do not let guilt win. That's how you deal with anger once you become independent, if you've been dependent on someone who's angry with you. Do you all understand that? You bide your time, play it safe, don't challenge them, and then GTFO.

And once you GTFO and they no longer have power over you, their tune will change. come home for Christmas. No, I'm not going to do that. Why are you mad at me? Because you've been physically abusive. That was in the past. It still hurts. I'm sorry.

I'm confused. What are you expecting that to do? When you say I'm sorry, what effect do you think that that has? I'm curious, when did you start to become sorry? Like, for the years that the abuse went on, did you feel sorry? Uh, yeah, of course.

Then why didn't you do something about it? Uh, it was hard for me. Okay. The damage is done, right? Like, don't let, like, this is the other. I know it's kind of, we're moving off topic here, but how do you deal with anger? You don't give in to the other emotions, whether it's fear or guilt or anything like that. I'm feeling angry just talking about it because I'm thinking about all the people.

So this is like good, right? So now I'm feeling angry and we're going to meditate in a second. I'm feeling angry because I've worked with a lot of people who are in y'all's shoes who have been in unfair power dynamics. And it makes me so angry that those people were taking advantage of. And so I'm listening to that anger and I'm using that to help me speak. Because if you're out there and you're listening to this, like, I'm speaking for you. I don't even know if that makes any sense.

Right? And anger isn't a negative, it's not a bad thing. And if you've been treated unfairly and you feel angry about it, there's an unfair power dynamic, like, I do believe that if you act in a right way, you will get some degree of peace and closure. And sometimes that peace and closure means severing a relationship with someone. Having that person want a relationship and then slamming the door in their face. And then you're going to feel guilty, and then you're not going to give into that.

And you're going to tell yourself that, like, it's okay for me to feel guilty, but this person does not deserve a relationship with me. They had their chance. Well, I'm sorry, like you should forgive. Let me explain something to y'all. No one should forgive. Forgiveness is not entitled to anyone. Forgiveness is purely at the discretion of the aggrieved party.

No one is owed forgiveness.