Thread: Tell me about repressing anger

I'm easy to anger as well. I also repress it a lot. For example today some lady told me I should alway have my dog on a leash, I said it was fine because they are not agressive dogs, and she snorts back at me "it doesn't matter". I wanted to flip on that bitch but I just said "uh huh". It angered me that I didn't rage on her, or have something clever to say back. I spent the next 30 minutes convincing myself that I made the right choice, to avoid unnessary conflict. I relaxed myself with various methods and felt somewhat better.

Depression develops by repressing anger, and letting yourself carry the load instead of displacing it where it belongs. Depression leads to anxiety, and other mental sickness as well as physical sickness. For instance, ever since I've had anxiety problems, I get heart palpitations from time to time. Never had them ever in my life before I started getting anxiety.

So you should take the advice of your psychologist, and displace the anger anywhere but yourself.

Grasshoppa is a wise man
I'm the sort who inflictsthe anger on myself (physically). It works, but it's not the healthiest of methods. My pdoc (shrienk) tells me to convert the energy as well: Exercise, listen to music, write a poem or story, draw, journal etc.
It helps *sometimes*. But when the rage is TOO severe, only instant gratification will suffice.

Like Grasshoppa, I too have anxiety problems and had heart palpitations until I started taking meds. Meds have helped control all my problems, including the anger.

If you're having fantasies about doing harm to your tormentors, you COULD be asking for more problems in the long run. Some fantasies can be useful. You get it out of your system and you're done with it. But if you find yourself dwelling on the fantasies or coming back to them long after the grievance, then you're deffinitely repressing your anger and you should look into a healthy outlet.

Not only can repressed anger lead to anxiety and depression, it can also lead to MORE anger and eventually to high blood pressure.

I've pretty much repressed anger since I was a kid, and as a result I've been depressed for the bigger part of my adult life. So I guess it's better not to.. Though I don't think you necessarily have to rage against the person causing your anger, just find some kind of outlet for it instead of letting it build up inside you.

Thanks everybody. Ill look to fix some things

I dunno...you seem fine to me. I mean, if the anger just kind of dissolves away, and you aren't noticing any bad side effects, I see no problem. I'm the same way. I prefer not to get angry at all if it can be avoided. More than anything else, I see no reason to. I just...don't let things bug me, I guess. I've been happy and cheerful for 17 years, and 99% stress-free the whole time. Life's too short to waste on negative emotions. I've never had this feeling of bottling up rage or stress, and I haven't gone postal on anyone yet.

I dunno...whatever works for you. If you're just very mellow by nature and you're not keeping everything bottled up, then there isn't anything to fix.

a lot of people look at anger as something to either "bottle up" or "let out" when really those are just analogies we've given it so that we can more easily perceive the concept of anger. Just because you don't let it out doesn't mean you're bottling it up. That term is used for when people turn their anger inward. You can simply let your anger go. The reason humans actually get angry is - and I know this might sound weird at first - because they want to. Don't shut that down right away, if you really think about it, you'll understand. Why do people dwell on things that make them angry, or even the anger itself? It's because of all the emotion that just makes you feel.... something. And for some reason, we believe that when something happens to make us angry, we should feel something. But really we don't. You can really just let your anger go if you can just stop focusing and dwelling on the emotional effect it gives you.

but, like everything in life, this is easier said than done