**Surely this is a continuation of my Psychology series where I write down whatever crazy observations I make about mental and personality… derangements (I don’t have a degree yet so ‘health’ or ‘disorders’ would be too professional, which I’m not. At all.). Actually just read for fun or if you like to overthink like me and crave for thought-provoking stuff.**
Read that title again. Now, what if I had written ‘I am depressed… and I can’t bear it anymore’? You’d have a different response to that, right? So being sad and letting that feeling eat you from your insides are alarming and should even be clinically considered, but being angry and letting that feeling eat you from your insides are not?
What I want to mainly point out in this post is that I’ve been surprised to discover that ‘anger’ is neglected by the exceptional APA (American Psycho Association, something like that :P) while ‘depression’ is well… it’s all over the place among the pages of the DSM (Bible of Psys)! Wtf?
Before you tell me, hey but there’s the Intermittent Explosive Disorder that’s all about being angry, you should reflect on the fact that it’s not called ‘Anger Disorder’ which only adds to the realisation that this disorder only focuses on only one type of anger (among manyyy)… which is poor compared to the amount of different types of depression that officially exist!
All right I may lack knowledge as well, but! I’ve done my research and I (and the point of this post) completely agree with this PhD article: Got an Anger Disorder? Not According to the DSM.
Done reading?
So unfortunately I haven’t been trained yet to keeping on proving my point with actual data and statistics and stuff psychologists do, but I’d like to describe you another type of anger that can be as mentally harmful as the ‘explosive’ one (being explicitly angry through aggressiveness and more) and depression that I’ve come to observe in my short 19 years of existence: the silent anger.
(I think I’m starting to lose inspiration in terms of names for my personality disorders, sorry, if you don’t like it.)
PROFILE OF SOMEONE WITH THE SILENT ANGER
You are that someone if:
- You feel angry in situations where people usually get depressed, like when being sick or lonely, seeing the rain, going to a funeral etc.
- Anger is the only emotion you can feel when there’s nothing else (e.g. after a great day you go to bed and roam in your thoughts… and end up with feelings of anger. Like it’s so normal for you to work that way.). As if it kinds of always lingers within you… as if it actually never goes away. Which can mean that the other stuff only hides your anger instead of making it go away.
- You are angry all the time… and you’re fed up of being angry because it tires you and it often comes at you for no reason…
- …but you can’t get rid of that dominating feeling even after you’ve tried everything!
- Anger is part of your personality and so your reactions/actions always revolve around it.
- You (think you) have an evil self. At least you’ve made one up because you still don’t want to be directly associate with so much anger.
- You often have those cringe moments when you instinctively close your eyes (or not) and see yourself destroying everything around you with any weapon of any sort, like your bare hands or fire or your piercing roars and shouts and cries.
- Yet you’ve never let yourself show off that terrific anger of yours although you want it so badly that you’re angry about that inability… because yeah you can’t do it… you’re building a wall of anger so think that you can’t even push it towards the outer world. But you’ve surely lashed out and scolded people from time to time: a little relief well-deserved.
- You still can’t bear it though… going through that anger every day… and you end up feeling suicidal.
Additional points if: you have a To-Kill list.
Now do people understand why I’m alarmed that ‘I’m depressed’ and ‘I’m angry’ don’t have the same responses? The two can stick to your skin like disease!
I think that anger is as destructive as sadness, in all the ways, not only the aggressive ones.
‘Anger management’ you tell me?
*sigh*
How can I explain it better…? It’s… it’s just not the same as being actually treated properly and taking into psychological consideration.
Anyway, just my thoughts, as usual.
An Evil Nymph.
You should look at my blog, my anger and hate has created a depression like state and I am very similar to the points you posted. I am with you, disorders are caused by an extreme emotional response, anger should be one of them, it is why i have anger attacks and not anxiety attacks. When talking to professionals they will always go back to fear, anxiety or loneliness, even if you tell them otherwise. When anger and hate remove all other feelings life can suck
I’ll check it out as soon as I can. Yeah, it’s frustrating: anger and anxiety shouldn’t be interpreted as the same thing.
When young, I feel more angry than depressed, but at my age, I feel more depressed than angry ! Anger can work both ways, hope your anger can direct you to the path that can ease or tackle the causes of your anger!
Oh that’s interesting! Yeah true, thanks!