Inability To Deal With Anger May Turn Into Severe Depression: How To Get Good At Confronting Problems
Many of us think of sadness, low energy, and isolation when we hear the word "depression." Yet behind the many sides of depression lies a surprising emotion: anger. Severe depression may not always be about sadness; it may result from anger that's unable to find expression, and this causes us to feel despair when we consider everyone and everything that irritates us.
In the video, "Why We May Be Angry Rather Than Sad," The School of Life explains there's a theory that if we could understand our disappointment and rage more intimately, we could "regain our spirits." In other words, if we're able to keep better tabs on the origin and nature of many of our feelings, like anger, we're able to accurately identify the causes or direction of our annoyance.
Read More: How The Human Brain Keeps Anger At Bay, Protects Heart Health
"Understanding has an established habit of trailing far behind feeling. It isn't just around sadness and despair that we're strangers to ourselves," according to The School of Life.
This raises the question: "Why do we lose touch with our anger?"
This traces back to what we were taught in childhood; it isn't very nice to be angry. Anger tends to distort our image as a kind and sympathetic person to others. It may also be an uncomfortable feeling to be furious or vengeful toward people we still love and who have made sacrifices for us.
Or, perhaps we have been hurt by something that is often dismissed as being "small." We have learned not to pay attention to these "small" things, because they negate our image as being strong and slightly above petty injuries. Yet, this still doesn't show us how to confront problems that anger us.
The School of Life stresses we're bad at getting angry because we haven't seen examples of successful expressions of anger around us. The word "anger" is associated with destruction and danger. We haven't learned the art of controlled and cathartic conversation.
Therefore, the way to deal with this sort of depression is to realize we need to mourn. This mourning allows us to turn sadness into a specific hurt, or an identifiable source for our pain, like a parent who wasn't there for us. Now, the idea isn't to go out and confront these people, but rather, confront our feelings and ways of thinking about what has happened. This can decisively change our mood.
It's OK to show anger in a constructive way that will allow us to get to the root of the problem, and eventually out of our depression.
See Also:
When Getting Mad At The Workplace Can Actually Be A Good Thing