The Logic of Anger

[Ingenue]

Recently I’ve been processing and grappling with anger. I’m not an angry person, nor is what I’m experiencing anything extreme. It isn’t of the “I want you to disappear off the face of the earth” anger. It’s more the “what you did to me isn’t cool” type of anger.

 

I realise that anger is, if you subscribe to the stages of break up acceptance, a natural progression towards complete healing. And for the most part, I’ve been slowly plodding along in my journey towards healing myself. As I approach my 4 month mark since I was dumped, I am flummoxed that I am experiencing this emotion.

 

I know that I shouldn’t be angry despite receiving encouragement from friends to do so. Yes, my ex of 5 years did dump me by email and yes, my ex refused to discuss in the email what he felt was problematic in the relationship opting instead to “not introduce negative ideas into the discussion” on the premise that he might like to come back and try the relationship again should his explorations not be successful. There is no denying that I feel disrespected and that the likelihood of receiving an apology from my ex who is either too clueless or careless to realise how reprehensible and uncool his actions were is slim to none. Despite all of this, I still feel that I shouldn’t be angry. Closure comes from within and only I will be able to give myself closure so why am I experiencing anger towards a person who is no longer in my life and incapable and unwilling of providing me, even symbolically, with closure? It’s illogical to be angry with someone who isn’t there and who isn’t involved in my own emotional healing.

 

For those of you who have done the anger thing, how do you deal with it, get over it and move on? I don’t like being mildly angry and despite my best efforts to be happy-go-lucky, my thoughts inevitably wind up in angry land. So I am open to any and all suggestions

[Tony T]

Truly evolved humans seldom get angry. It's hard to explain to most people but anger is an irrational emotion based on one's demand that everything happen exactly as the person wants it to happen.

 

We basically get angry when we don't get our own way...when people or events in the world move about in a fashion that's not to our liking. To demand that everybody act exactly as we desire or for the world to go forth exactly as we think it ought to is just plain crazy.

 

To get over anger, it takes acceptance of behavior and events as occurring exactly as they are supposed to. Otherwise, they would have occurred in some other way.

 

There are more appropriate and less violent emotions to express one's dissatisfaction with the world. Disappointment, frustration, sadness, etc. are more rational, don't last as long, don't damage the heart, don't alienate other people, etc. There is no payoff for getting angry.

 

If somebody breaks up with you, it may be very hurtful. If they do it in a nasty fashion, it could piss you off really bad if you let it. But never demand that someone be nice about breaking up with you. No matter how they do it, it's about them and not about you.

 

To give SOMEONE ELSE the power to make you angry is just plain CRAZY!!! It's insane. To allow people or events to dictate how you are going to make your life miserable should be grounds for your being committed to an institution. It's beyond nuts!

 

There is very little, if any, logic to anger but few people give it much thought. They just run to first base, turn red and scream or slug it out. DUH!

[popey]

Just a thought OP... maybe what you're feeling is more about you being angry w/ yourself for allowing yourself to believe he was someone he never was... someone who wouldn't treat you that way, even if he did feel you had to part.

 

And Tony... Its not like getting angry on is on my list of favs, and I'm certainly open to the idea that I may be missing some valid points against some anger. But I think you are taking a sound idea WAY too far, to the point that it doesn't even make sense.

 

Truly evolved humans seldom get angry. It's hard to explain to most people but anger is an irrational emotion based on one's demand that everything happen exactly as the person wants it to happen.

 

We basically get angry when we don't get our own way...when people or events in the world move about in a fashion that's not to our liking. To demand that everybody act exactly as we desire or for the world to go forth exactly as we think it ought to is just plain crazy.

 

Most people have a range of responses to things not happening exactly the way the want, and only sometimes is the response anger. So yes, to demand that everybody act exactly as we desire for the world to go forth exactly as we think it ought to IS just plain crazy. This does not however mean that the occasion to experience anger to something is just plain crazy.

 

To get over anger, it takes acceptance of behavior and events as occurring exactly as they are supposed to. Otherwise, they would have occurred in some other way.

 

What? That means that if your child is brutally murdered, you should not feel angry about it b/c you should accept that the murderers behaved exactly as they are supposed to?

 

There are more appropriate and less violent emotions to express one's dissatisfaction with the world. Disappointment, frustration, sadness, etc. are more rational, don't last as long, don't damage the heart, don't alienate other people, etc. There is no payoff for getting angry.

 

Why must an angry emotion equate to violence? As for "lasting longer"... not my experience. And the payoff is sometimes catharsis. the are other ways to achieve this payoff sure, but that doesn't negate the fact that the catharsis gained by getting a little pissed off can still be payoff.

 

To give SOMEONE ELSE the power to make you angry is just plain CRAZY!!! It's insane. To allow people or events to dictate how you are going to make your life miserable should be grounds for your being committed to an institution. It's beyond nuts!

 

Ok, so you seem to only take issue with experiencing anger in response to things in the world, but not to experiencing other emotions. So if you express dissatisfaction with the world with frustration, disappointment, sadness, etc (as you stated above), that's appropriate. But if the emotion is anger, then you should be committed to an institution for giving that power to others?

[Trialbyfire]

Anger is a truly useful emotion. It's strong and unbreakable if you can harness it towards a positive goal. Within the context of your break up, focus it towards despising the ex, not to internalize it as a form of victimization of "she done me wrong". When you do this, you turn that anger towards yourself, although that can be useful to a degree if you use it to smack yourself around and promise never to do it again.

 

After my ex-H cheated on me, I went from a red, killing rage to cold, white rage. After I had accomplished the damage that I had set out to do, I had difficulty turning it off in that I still hated him and the OW. When I realized this, I turned to counselling and slowly got myself out of it, to the point now, I can turn anger on and off like a light switch.

 

Part of it was also the clocking off of time, where I fell out of love with the ex-H, so it stopped mattering. At present, we're civil and even in minimal contact, although I discourage it to an extent because I don't much like who he really is, under the surface wit and charm.

[Tony T]

If getting anger is productive for you and gets you where you feel you need to go, by all means knock yourself out. As for me, I do everything I can to avoid negative emotions. If someone I love is murdered, it serves no useful purpose for me to be angry with the perpetrator. What good does that bring? The soul is only at rest when there is forgiveness.

 

I certainly understand why this makes no sense to you. That's OK!

[popey]

What? I didn't say that it doesn't make sense to me that you may find forgiveness to have utility for you, and anger to not. I said all the things that do not make sense. Like responding to others w/ emotion is perfectly fine, but if the emotion is anger THEN you gave up your power to them. Or that IF someone murders, it is b/c they are behaving as they are supposed to. etc... So I'm not sure what it is that you think you "certainly understand" does not make sense to me, because your comments do not respond to what I clearly stated do not make sense to me.

 

ps... I didn't know that frustration is a positive emotion.

[Ronni_W]

Anger is an equally logical and illogical emotion as happiness, or anything else we might feel. (Though one can make a case that ALL feelings, by their nature, are the opposite of 'logic'.)

 

On the "negative" side of the emotional spectrum, your angry feelings are simply trying to message that something is 'off', internally. Could be that forgiveness is lacking (self-forgiveness or forgiving the other), or empathy or whatever other "positive offset", is lacking.

 

A common notion is that anger is an attempt to cover/deny/ignore sadness. So, could be that a small part of your 'whole' is not yet totally accepting of the loss, or the finality of the loss, or whatever. (Acceptance is lacking.)

 

As TBF said, anger is necessary to transform injustice. Anger shows up when we perceive an injustice; a situation in which we feel helpless. Anger doesn't mean violence or hatred. It just means, "I'm not okay with this. I don't like how this makes me feel. I will try to change this."

 

When it comes to feeling angry, it's really just about working our way over to the other side of the spectrum...where we feel happier and more serene. People are agraid of anger, I suspect because they've come to equate it with violence/destruction/hatred. But all on its own, anger is not that. Anger needs someone (or a group) to decide to act violently, destructively, hatefully. But love needs such a decision, too, for it to become malformed.

 

Hugs, and best of luck.

[Geishawhelk]

ps... I didn't know that frustration is a positive emotion.

 

Every emotion is either Positive or Negative, depending on how we address it, channel it and use it.

Turning it within and harbouring it, is negative. Turning it outwards in a safe way, is positive.

 

Anger, however, is very difficult to utilise effectively, unless we use it as a spur to "fire us up" to change things constructively....

 

It is said that Anger is like picking up a hot coal with your bare hand and hurling it at your enemy.

You might miss anyway, but look who always gets 'burned' first?

 

Anger itself may not always be a Negative Construct.

it's how we permit these emotions to manifest within us that will determine whether they will ultimately be beneficial, or otherwise.

 

Because whatever the deal, whatever the trigger, whatever the emotions,

We are always in Control of Us.

 

All these excuses or admissions - "I lost control, I couldn't help it, it just happened, he/she MADE me...." are utter tosh. That's merely abdicating responsibility and handing control to someone - or something - outside of us.

 

Yes, I agree, there will be triggers, things that push our buttons.

 

It doesn't matter.

 

Whatever it is, can't get inside our heads unless we let it. And if we give it access, we weaken ourselves, and hand over the remote to someone or something else.... and so they hit replay over and over again.....

Until we take back the Control.....

[Trimmer]

I think it's important to distinguish between the feeling of anger as an emotion, and choosing a behavior that stems from that anger - "acting out of anger," or "using your anger."

 

Truly evolved humans seldom get angry. It's hard to explain to most people but anger is an irrational emotion based on one's demand that everything happen exactly as the person wants it to happen.

Anger may be irrational in purely intellectual discourse, but it has served an incredibly important function in the 'evolution' of our species, where fear (recognition of danger) triggers anger, thus providing a host of physical stimuli that support the impetus for the "fight" response when "flight" is not an option. It was a crucial survival mechanism, the vestiges of which you still see today in the common situation where anger is a secondary product of fear, especially when combined with surprise.

 

So someone may be convinced that they are more "truly evolved" than the rest of us, but I bet if someone else came up behind that person and pinched their tricep hard enough to really hurt, the immediate emotional response would be anger, even it were immediately quenched right away with a superior level of intellect and evolution.

 

The superior evolution doesn't prevent you from getting angry - although it may help to cover it up and control your behavior...

 

We basically get angry when we don't get our own way...when people or events in the world move about in a fashion that's not to our liking. To demand that everybody act exactly as we desire or for the world to go forth exactly as we think it ought to is just plain crazy.

You can still acknowledge feelings of anger without having to choose a behavior or even an outlook that stems from it (e.g. demanding that everybody act, etc....) So while it may not be rational to demand something of the world, it is not "just plain crazy" to be experiencing feelings of anger.

 

There are more appropriate and less violent emotions to express one's dissatisfaction with the world. Disappointment, frustration, sadness, etc. are more rational, don't last as long, don't damage the heart, don't alienate other people, etc. There is no payoff for getting angry.

I can see your point if you are talking about crafting behaviors and reactions out of these different emotions. In our modern world, there is seldom positive payoff for acting out of anger.

 

There is very little, if any, logic to anger but few people give it much thought. They just run to first base, turn red and scream or slug it out. DUH!

While I agree that anger is not based in logic (that would defeat it's evolutionary purpose) I believe that to deny its existence or its reality, or to suppress it as "irrational and crazy" can be just as damaging as anything. I've had great success fully acknowledging it as a normal human feeling, exploring it to figure out where it is coming from and what is causing it, and then using all of that to help me move forward in constructive ways that are not grown directly from the anger. Where I had trouble for a long time in my life was in NOT acknowdedging it, in suppressing it because it wasn't "logical."

 

Recently I’ve been processing and grappling with anger. I’m not an angry person, nor is what I’m experiencing anything extreme. It isn’t of the “I want you to disappear off the face of the earth” anger. It’s more the “what you did to me isn’t cool” type of anger.

 

I realise that anger is, if you subscribe to the stages of break up acceptance, a natural progression towards complete healing. And for the most part, I’ve been slowly plodding along in my journey towards healing myself. As I approach my 4 month mark since I was dumped, I am flummoxed that I am experiencing this emotion.

 

I know that I shouldn’t be angry despite receiving encouragement from friends to do so.

I wouldn't encourage you to "get angry" as a technique, any more than I would encorage you to suppress it. It is what it is; if you are experiencing it, acknowledge it as natural, explore it, use it as one of the tools to understand yourself, your loss, and your grief, and you can come to know it and defuse it without allowing it to take you over. Why add another layer of inner tension (why am I angry, I shouldn't be, I need to fight this...) to the already unresolved anger? Come to know it, recognize it and disarm it - by recognizing and acknowledging it, you give yourself power over it.

 

Yes, my ex of 5 years did dump me.... my ex refused to discuss in the email what he felt was problematic... on the premise that he might like to come back.... There is no denying that I feel disrespected.... my ex... is either too clueless or careless to realise how reprehensible and uncool his actions were.... Despite all of this, I still feel that I shouldn’t be angry.

Why not? Again, I'm not encouraging you to make yourself angry if you are not already, but why suppress it and deny it if you are feeling it? Allowing yourself to feel it is the first step to disarming it. No, you don't have to act on it, you don't have to choose behaviors that are motivated by it - you can still be rational, while feeling the anger.

 

Closure comes from within and only I will be able to give myself closure so why am I experiencing anger towards a person who is no longer in my life and incapable and unwilling of providing me, even symbolically, with closure? It’s illogical to be angry with someone who isn’t there and who isn’t involved in my own emotional healing.

Perhaps because you are grieving a loss, and that can feel like fear, and fear can generate anger.

 

For those of you who have done the anger thing, how do you deal with it, get over it and move on? I don’t like being mildly angry and despite my best efforts to be happy-go-lucky, my thoughts inevitably wind up in angry land. So I am open to any and all suggestions

Personally, I did it through some counseling, but everyone's mileage varies on that one, even as far as being willing to try it out, and I understand that. I was grieving the loss of a relationship that involved a marriage and 2 kids, so I did a lot of talking, and bounced back and forth from grief, to fear, to anger, to just plain sadness. It helped me to talk about it, and eventually (but gradually) it all fell into place, and now while I still carry some grief with me, I know it and understand it; thus it doesn't scare me any more, and thus it doesn't generate anger any more.

 

This is a much more healthy outcome than when I was just trying to suppress my "irrational" anger - I'm telling you, if you just swallow it down and hide it away somewhere, it will manifest itself somehow, eventually.

 

If getting anger is productive for you and gets you where you feel you need to go, by all means knock yourself out. As for me, I do everything I can to avoid negative emotions. If someone I love is murdered, it serves no useful purpose for me to be angry with the perpetrator. What good does that bring? The soul is only at rest when there is forgiveness.

Do you - can you - grieve? In your paradigm, it doesn't seem like that serves any purpose, either, so is that also a "negative emotion?"

 

And again, my premise isn't that she should "get" or "make herself" angry as a coping mechanism, but that if she has anger, she can acknowledge it, explore it, and disarm it, but that suppressing it by simple force of will (or evolution? ) is not as beneficial in the long run.

[Ingenue]

Just a thought OP... maybe what you're feeling is more about you being angry w/ yourself for allowing yourself to believe he was someone he never was... someone who wouldn't treat you that way, even if he did feel you had to part.

 

Deep down it’s a compatibility issue and I understand the rationale for the break up; I just don’t condone the method it was done with. But that is in the past and that is the reality I’m processing. As I’ve thought about it, perhaps Popey is correct. Perhaps I am experiencing anger at myself for misjudging the integrity of my ex but more importantly, I suspect I am angry at myself because I have allowed this break up to affect me more than I would like. Today is officially 4 months to the day that my ex dumped me. I thought that by this time, I would have already moved on with my life. But I have not moved on completely and I am probably angry that I’m letting him “win” because I am not completely myself yet. I’m not ready to date. I’m not even thinking about dating. I’ve implemented a strict NC rule which has helped me immensely, just perhaps not as much as I would have liked. I think I am angry with myself because I wasted 5 years of my life with this man and because obviously, I’m not as emotionally resilient as I’d like to perceive myself to be.

 

Anger is a truly useful emotion. It's strong and unbreakable if you can harness it towards a positive goal. Within the context of your break up, focus it towards despising the ex, not to internalize it as a form of victimization of "she done me wrong". When you do this, you turn that anger towards yourself, although that can be useful to a degree if you use it to smack yourself around and promise never to do it again.

 

Trialbyfire, you're absolutely correct that I need to refocus my anger. I am thankful that the anger I'm experiencing is not a white rage. It's just a blip from my usual visage that occasionally surfaces in the "hmmm, not cool" sort of feeling. I need to harness whatever feeling I have and direct it to more useful pursuits.

 

I wouldn't encourage you to "get angry" as a technique, any more than I would encorage you to suppress it. It is what it is; if you are experiencing it, acknowledge it as natural, explore it, use it as one of the tools to understand yourself, your loss, and your grief, and you can come to know it and defuse it without allowing it to take you over. Why add another layer of inner tension (why am I angry, I shouldn't be, I need to fight this...) to the already unresolved anger? Come to know it, recognize it and disarm it - by recognizing and acknowledging it, you give yourself power over it.

 

Trimmer, you’re right that I need to allow myself to experience the anger, not act on it mind you, but to experience it as a valid emotion.Only by experiencing it and learning about it will I be, as you so eloquently state, able to disarm it.

 

When it comes to feeling angry, it's really just about working our way over to the other side of the spectrum...where we feel happier and more serene. People are agraid of anger, I suspect because they've come to equate it with violence/destruction/hatred.

 

Maybe I have conflated anger with violence and in so doing am reluctant to experience for fear of that strange, unknown emotion. Suppression will not do me any good.

 

Anger itself may not always be a Negative Construct.

it's how we permit these emotions to manifest within us that will determine whether they will ultimately be beneficial, or otherwise.

 

I think deep down, I am angry at myself more than my ex. I think part of my problem is my unwillingness to acknowledge that I am experiencing feelings of anger. As I’ve previously stated, I’m not an angry person, nor have I acted or engaged in behaviour that stems from anger. In this break up, I’ve considered myself the bigger person by not becoming histrionic to the ex and by taking the high road. When I received the email break up, my ex offered a phone call and I declined it thinking what was the point. I realise that I need to be less harsh on myself. I must stop beating myself up mentally for not being completely healed by 4 months. I need to stop scheduling how quickly I will get over this break up and stop setting unrealistic goals.

 

Anger doesn't seem so scary when you understand where it's coming from and what to do with it.

 

Thanks all for your sage advice