I find anger a very difficult emotion to access (and I differentiate anger from outrage, which i would describe as the feeling of being furious over outside injustices). I just don’t know how to access it in a way that feels not-terrible, so I just internalize it

If you’ve had experiences of not having agency or being disempowered in your life, maybe you know what I’m talking about? That thing where your anger only makes a situation worse and it is truly not in the best interests of your survival to express it

As I often tell my therapist: I am not good at being angry. Even with people who care about me, I very quickly lose ground because I just don’t have the skills to maintain it. And it’s so much easier to redirect it internally, apologize, modify my behaviour, move on

And I rationally know that anger is good and healthy and that people who have been traditionally marginalized should learn how to harness it or whatever! But personally, nothing triggers my fight or flight faster than me being angry or (worse) someone else in the room being angry

It’s just .... I can be angry, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t make me feel more in control. It usually makes a conflict go off the rails. And I don’t know how to work with emotions that can’t change a situation for me.

Also I was told so often that I was unreasonable/crazy/over-emotional that having this big overpowering feeling was just more shame-inducing than anything else. It was just so much easier for everyone (me included!) to process it as “I’m the bad, crazy one for feeling this way”

And then if people expressed dismay for my negative self-talk, that just reinforced it. Again, I was the bad/crazy/over-emotional one, and here was the evidence, and everyone was angry at me for not being whatever I was supposed to be, etc

I know men have their own crosses to bear when it comes to gender and emotions, but I’ve often wondered what it would feel like to be someone whose anger is so often validated instead of being treated like a dismaying aberration of character

And something that has been really honed for me by socializing online # is that most of the people who pique your anger? Are working through their own stuff and don’t deserve it. And the ones who stoke in on purpose? Crave your outbursts and somehow thrive on them

So restraining myself, questioning if I really want the possible repercussions of reacting that way, wondering if I’m just giving some asshole what they want, etc, has really continued to shape how I experience anger as an adult

I always try to be nice, to see where someone is coming from, to honour whatever they’re going through, etc. But you know what? Sometimes people walk all over that and it makes me angry