In a previous post about anger, I noted that I have a hard time feeling it, let alone venting it publicly. That’s because I learned to associate anger with danger to myself; and I came to fear that, if not contained, my own anger might even make me dangerous to others. I mentioned two reasons why genuinely feeling the anger internally, and externalizing publicly, is important: if I don’t, it can manifest as sadness; what’s more, anger marks out my boundaries and my values.
I’ve been assigned a little more “anger homework” whose results I’ll share here.
First, and this is something applicable to everyone: drawing on DBT materials, I’ve reflected on another reason to “embrace anger”, at least up to a point. It has an evolutionary function. Anger belongs on the “fight” side of that familiar “fight or flight” opposition. As such, it “organizes our responses”, so that we can mobilize resources to defend ourselves. At the same time, more positively, anger is a motivator. It shows up when we are stymied, and can keep us moving forward despite the obstacles.
Harnessed appropriately, then — as the old Public Image Limited song “Rise” goes — anger is an energy.
My homework also yielded thoughts on my own relationship to anger: what tends to cause it in my own case and how I tend to react.
Surprisingly, though I do get vexed (I love that old-fashioned word!) when I myself feel mistreated and disrespected, my “triggers” don’t tend to centre on myself. Anger arises in the face of unfair and unsafe behaviour – which can include being unfair to me or unsafe for me, but needn’t. What’s anger-making are violations of the rules which ought to apply to everyone, but which this person disregards; the appearance that the person considers themselves special, and “above the law”. (Hence my well-known pet peeves about speeders, red-light-runners, cue jumpers, etc.)
Why are these my triggers? On the one hand, reverence for rules was driven into me – and I choose that metaphor ‘drive into’ advisedly – as a young child. On the other, other’s disrespect of the rules did me great physical and emotional harm.
If the unsafe and the unfair is what typically gives rise to anger in my own case, how do I respond? Not, except in very, very rare cases, by yelling and breaking things. I may use my most powerful coolheaded weapon, my discursive reason. Given the opportunity, I will “accost the culprit” – yes, that’s how, in my righteous intellectualizing, I’ll conceive of it! – with compelling premises and ironclad inferences. Take that rule-breaker. Failing that, say with respect to a long-gone speeder, I’ll compose an entire mental essay. (Yes, more righteous intellectualizing.) Alternatively, I may simply choose the silent treatment.
See the pattern? Cold abstract reason over heated emotion. Cold control as opposed to heated action. (Even the triggers are pretty abstract and rational.)
What’s the right approach, if not these? There’s a concept in DBT of “opposite action”. It shows up in aversion therapy. For instance, a person with hemophobia, whose impulse is to turn away from the merest sight of blood, is encouraged perform the opposite action of looking squarely at a few drops. Maybe even, after a time, touching blood. The “opposite action” in my case would not be hotheaded screaming in a violent rage! The opposite action, for me, would be thoroughly feeling the emotion in the body, even expressing the anger, but tempering that perfectly natural (and functional) reaction with warm compassion; and, instead of an icy judgmental attitude, a soft acceptance of truth on the other side.
How’s that for homework?