Is It Okay to Be Angry?

▼ Timestamps ▼
────────────

00:00 - Preview
00:13 - Discord Post
01:55 - Anger is 'different'
08:18 - Anecdote about damaging emotions that aren't anger
09:41 - Develop a healthy relationship with anger
15:26 - Summary
16:42 - Questions

────────────

DISCLAIMER

Healthy Gamer is an online community and resource platform for gamers and their families. It does not provided medical services or professional counseling, and it is not a substitute for professional medical care. Our coaches are peer supporters, not professionally trained experts, and they cannot provide medical service. If you or a loved on are experiencing an emergency, please call your nation's emergency telephone number.

All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.

[TheXeeman]

"No one is owed forgiveness". words to remember

[rejectionisprotection]

I remember hearing a therapist/self help teacher say that "anger is a sign that my boundaries have been crossed".
It's time to play detective and discover what (often hidden) boundaries have been transgressed.

[tenaciousgamer]

I've experienced life differently, anger was feared but accepted. Saddness/crying was ridiculed and looked down on.

[gabrielpittman]

you should do a study on why everyone always thinks you post everything at the perfect time for them

[janco]

My father was extremely abusive. He was a sociopath and narc with a massive anger issue. I did grey rock and avoided him as much as possible. I finally escaped when I turned 18. After I left the house, his tune changed completely, but I never forgot. When the power dynamic shifts, the bully becomes nice.

[Zelphraeya]

From my experience, anger is often frowned upon as much as any other "negative" emotion. The problem seems to stem from how people are often made to feel unsafe in expressing these emotions, so those emotions end up blending into one emotion, anger. It is an emotion that causes us to take action and feel in control when we are not in control. Anyone who has been told to suppress their emotions because they are "unacceptable" have dealt with this. Men are particularly put in this position since they are often shamed for expressing their emotions; so anger becomes the go to emotion that they express in a very quick manner from the suppression of emotions over time. I like to think of it in the same way as how particular thoughts can become instantaneous when triggered by particular occurrences over time. The more they happen, the stronger the neurological link to that thought/ emotion/ belief becomes; and therefore it becomes instantaneous.

[anindependent]

Anger is the emotional response to a perceived injustice

[tannerdietz]

I’m not a young chap and I’ve been dealing with suppressed anger for many years. The best piece of wisdom I’ve received is that anger is best described as a response to defending your self image. There’s a positive feedback loop between low self image and suppression of anger that escalates into depression and extreme low confidence. You have to build your ego and self image to feel worthy enough to produce the anger to defend it.

[annaaquitaine]

This is validating because my entire life I’ve seen people react more harshly to someone acting rashly out of anger than they do to the person who instigated the outburst. Especially as kids when we’re still learning how to control ourselves. I’d get goaded until I’d snap and then I couldn’t ever talk to an adult because before they just said “talk it out” and when that didn’t work and I’d lose my composure, it’s “you shouldn’t have done that.” Even after I did learn how to regain composure immediately, it’s still “you’re too angry/you never gave the person a chance, ” regardless of how I acted before and after.

[nuncapasaran]

"Anger is trying to protect you" I really love when I make a connection like this! I've been reading into IFS therapy, where you examine parts of yourself that are stuck in an unhealthy role because of a trauma at an earlier age (I'm probably describing it wrong), in order to make friends with those parts and unburden them so they can take on healthier roles in your current life. Those parts are often stuck seeking destructive impulses to protect you. It's so cool to hear your explanation of anger in this kind of similar context.

[JVPrice]

"Forgiveness is not entitled to anyone."
This hit hard. I've had a lot of problems with family recently, and feelings of guilt as to whether or not I've been too hard on them after the way they treated me. This makes me feel a bit better

[SeiichirouUta]

"You're cute when you're angry" Someone from a former gaming guild used to say this to his gf. He once even got her to cry "in front" of everyone by making fun of her for being angry.
Having watched this video I see that he laughed about her feeling hurt. Looking at it from this point of view it makes sense that it made her cry. And why so many women start to cry when they're angry. Always baffled me - up until now. Women usually get taught/are allowed to show their sadness, but not their anger. So they show their anger by crying.
Of course I haven't thought this through properly - video was uploaded about an hour ago - but right now this makes sense to me.

[terminaldeity]

Important to remember that anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is an expression of another underlying emotion like frustration, fear, sadness, etc. Anger doesn't exist in a vacuum.

[ReddAngry]

I’m here to say thank you to this community. In just a few weeks of watching and reading, I feel like I have made significant progress in understanding myself and why I take certain actions.

I’m even starting to think about a career change into mental health help because of how much of an effect you all have had on me.

Thanks Dr. K.
Thanks everyone!

[Zetos]

Watching my parents fight so much and nothing get resolved made me really shun anger as an emotion. You always hear things too like don't let your anger get the best of you. I'm starting to think anger in itself isn't a bad emotion, it's how you act on it that's either good or bad. Hurting other people is never okay, speaking up for yourself is.

[train_cam]

Whoa, how are Dr.K's videos so darn relevant always ?!
I was literally going through anger issues and discussing them with a friend.
Sudden bursts of rage while jogging in the morning.
Even joined brazillian jiu-jitsu to try to burn off some steam!

[Outlawsrevenge]

Holy shit, this was the most important thing I needed to hear. I am a survivor of childhood emotional abuse. My whole life I held endless amounts of anger at my father. But I wasn't listening to the anger. When you said anger is a response to being hurt, I just broke down. I was hurt so bad, even though I was an innocent, good, happy child. I eventually learned to constantly be on guard and to do everything possible to not make my dad angry. I lost that happy child, and was always on the defensive to keep myself safe. I believed I was bad, and that hurts too. I think I found why I get so angry. Because I don't want to ever hurt like that again. Thank you.

[anonymouse]

When I was a little girl, I struggled a lot with anger/outbursts mainly stemming from all the different sh*t I internalized from the environments around me. Then I was told to “control” my anger, not how to deal with it and openly communicate in healthier ways. So I learned the ways of becoming passive & manipulative. Lemme tell you: neither is healthy. I hate that our society thinks passive anger is okay, or fueling our sense of ego thru flaunting our success& pushing random ppl down along the way is another acceptable form of anger. Ostracizing is yet another still common form.
Just bc it doesn’t involve screaming, yelling, or physical fighting, doesn’t mean that it’s a form of anger that’s healthy or okay for humanity. Passive anger can also be very damaging. IMO, as someone who has been putting more focus on how to actually deal with my anger in recent years, so many of us need to learn to put words to our feelings.
I know what it’s like to have the type of anger where everything goes red. The older I got I dealt with this by hiding in my room and distracting myself with Youtube, or if it was too overwhelming I just coaxed myself to sleep until I was in a depressive state. I would say, if you don’t trust yourself to be “safe” around others when you’re angry, it’s totally fine to go to your room. But don’t hide there forever. Journal to put your feelings down, and don’t shame yourself for them. Don’t control your feelings; let them occur. Just bc you feel like hurting someone in the moment, it doesn’t mean you’re actually going to hurt them. Ask yourself: what did they do that provoked me? Why do I feel this bad?
My therapist taught me another good technique, esp for ppl in my past that I hold grudges against bc they hurt me so bad. Put a chair in front of you and imagine that person is there. Say all the mean things you wanted to say to them but never got to. Or speak your truth. Maybe record yourself, and it may even give insight into whether the situation was really as bad as you thought. I mean maybe it was, but each day you can reform the things you wanted to say into something that makes a lot more sense. Actually this is a good way to learn how to properly speak up for yourself.
Let’s not forget that as bad of a connotation anger gets, that it’s necessary and has served to do good also. Anger is the reason for social reform; anger for injustice. It’s the way we deal with that anger that can turn into a bigger problem.

[tabby]

This is validating, I also come from an angry family and for a couple years I thought I needed to get rid of my anger to grow as a person. Long story short, I eventually came to the conclusion that anger is useful to have and we probably evolved to utilize it. This was by no means an invitation to being always angry again, but it helped me view anger from a survivalistic pov, and identify that fear and anger are 2 sides of the same coin.

Another similar concept is my relationship with creating expectations. You see a lot of resources say that creating expectations is a bad thing, but I'm coming to understand that it might also be a survival mechanism that has very applicable uses, and you'd only be doing yourself a disservice by trying to rid yourself of it. But like anger it can be used destructively

[ViiZiiOnZ]

This is awesome. As someone who was just yesterday in a situation where I was vilified for my anger, I knew deep down that the anger was telling me something and that it was a valid emotion. Getting called "toxic" and immature for expressing my frustration at being disrespected did not help, but I knew that there was value in what my anger was telling me. It was telling me "it sucks to be disrespected" and that sometimes when life throws you bad lemons, you don't have to be grateful for them.