The level of general ignorance about psychology is daunting, so I will explain further.
Everybody experiences anger. Some people find legitimate ways of releasing it. Others, however, were socialized from early childhood into believing that anger is not something they should ever allow themselves to experience. So they repress and often erect their incapacity to become angry into some kind of a moral badge of honor. In reality, however, all they do is drive themselves into a variety of severe health issues.
How do you recognize a person who represses anger? They nag, criticize, and are very controlling about small things. They are bothered by insignificant details of the actions, speech, clothes, manners, etc. of others. When something bad happens, they keep their emotions under control and act heroically. They repeat the phrase, “I never feel angry” often. When you meet a person like that, you need to know that this is a future stroke patient right there.
If you recognize yourself in this description, I recommend that you try to remember how your family members reacted to your anger when you were a small child. What did they say to you? Were you allowed to experience all of your emotions freely whenever and wherever they came to you? I promise that you will find your answer in those early childhood memories.
Clarissa's Blog 
I wonder if there’s any medical truth to people who repress their anger manifesting it through verbal tics, like Ned Flanders’ “Howdily doodily”? I’ve seen a couple of people who are very controlling do that in addition to the behaviours described above.
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Inanimate objects often draw my ire, especially when things are not working as they should be (or how I was expecting them), but I don’t really remember the last time I was angry at a life and blood person. Sad or frustated because of one, but genuine anger? Hm.
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That should have read: “Sad or frustated because of one yes, but genuine anger?”
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You sound like my husband. The only things that get him enraged are our (many) computers or other electronic devices, when they don’t do what he expects them to; hub doesn’t seem to get very upset about people or their actions, ever. He says something along the lines — can’t control other people, so what’s the point of getting mad? Electronic devices, on the other hand…
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The difference between electronics and human beings is that electronic devices are deterministic in their behaviour. You do a and b and the result is x. That hardly works with human beings.
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So he learned to channel the anger into legitimate directions. Good for him!
Is there a workplace in existencve whose copy room isn’t papered with warnings not to assault the copy-maker? 🙂
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Shit.
Okay, once one remembers, then what? Especially if one is going to go visit those same people next week for four days of Holiday Family Togetherness?
Beta blockers? 🙂
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I hear you. Alcohol in small doses drops BP like a ton of bricks. I know people who don’t even consider visiting a family reunion while sober. 🙂
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And this repression of anger — indeed the sense that it is forbidden to express anger — is what I mean by traditional femininity.
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Here my culture comes into play. 🙂 We reserve that for men.
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While I agree with you that repressing anger may lead to a person acquiring allot of these negative personality traits you mention I always thought that ability that certain people have to
“When something bad happens, they keep their emotions under control and act heroically.”
Was a rather positive trait, in the sence that they may keep their emotions under raps while whatever bad stuff is going down but afterwards they can let it out and say “God at the time I was okay but looking back now that was really messed up and it really made me feel scared/ angry/ panicked etc”
If a person continued to act like it was no big deal after said bad thing had happened then would that be where the repression came in?
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I do have that character trait. Nobody has more self control than me. It’s a positive trait, certainly, especially so far as other people are concerned. One does not bother others with one’s issues. If taken too far, it does lead to the bottling up of a lot of negative energy, though. Clarissa and I have slightly different views on this, because I suppose my culture took this aspect of self control to extremes, whereas most cultures do not. Complaining to others about anything at all was not permitted in my culture. People resorted to more extreme postures, like revenge on others — especially inter-generationally. But complaining in a passive pose was culturally and socially unacceptable.
There are always hidden costs, is what I’m trying to say.
Here is more on my culture and how it formed me: http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com/2011/12/identity-and-choice-are-ideologies.html
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Thank you Jennifer I’ll be sure to check that out
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I think my reluctance to feel anger is at the root of many of my issues, but it doesn’t manifest in the same way you describe. It’s more like I have an epic explosion disproportionate to the situation because I keep my anger repressed until it overflows. Also, a lot of times I direct the anger at myself because I feel guilty for the anger. I can be critical, but I try not to express that. Plus, I had a very critical parent from whom I probably picked up this habit. I periodically explore my memories because some of my issues do stem from how my parents treated me as a child. I won’t go into detail about that here, as I have my own blog for that, ha. 😀
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> Were you allowed to experience all of your emotions freely whenever and wherever they came to you? I promise that you will find your answer in those early childhood memories. <
imho there are different approaches and one of the secrets of "maturing"/being "adult" is to find out what works for her or him in order to work out what went wrong (in the past) and weed that out and envision/live step-by-step what she or he wants to be "in the future".
actually i do not believe in over-/analyzing nitty-witty-details-incidents. instead i e.g. am grateful that for the past 3 years i had the time/leisure to dedicate my "spare time" to meta-analyzing whatever dysfunctional schemes in the past led me on (thanx interwebz).
using the baggage-picture : sorting out, discarding and continueing "my journey" with loads of less-baggage. and that includes e.g. absolutely no-contact with toxic people of/from my past.
(i am aware there are no soc. recipes when it comes to soc. applied psychology.
for me this is an ongoing, somehow "creative pro-cess", comparable to my professional life and also cooking 😉
so i found that i can "self-heal myself" in a relatively patient, self-accepting way with a renewed curiosity in and for my/life. oy, complex topic in my op but what isnt if trying to live honestly and authentically.
e.g. if i now feel angry/frustrated i feel free to look at my emotions and choose how i can deal with them without 1. hurting others and 2. without hurting myself.
somehow a lot of times i usually goof-myself and use that energy for e.g. either laughing about myself or going for a walk or …
on soc. repressed-anger/emotions : i think/experienced that e.g. a lot of people being angry at/with others are trying to camouflage their own insecurities by being angry/aggressive (as sign of soc. authority) and thus imitating strength.
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Human psychology is very strange, indeed the more I learn about it. Repression, for instance, is a very strange mechanism. I had previously supposed that one would be able to somehow mentally sense when one was repressing something. I know I can sense it physically in some ways, because I start to feel bottled up and my body erupts with various minor symptoms, indicating that not everything is in its proper order. I had thought that mental repression must feel the same way, which would be more in line with physics. One would have to have the sensation of pressing something down mentally, in order to effectively repress.
That turns out not to be true at all. Repression doesn’t feel that way. One can empty one’s head of very much that would cause concern and have ideas that are generally nondescript. My blood pressure gauge registers this mode of behaviour as severely stressful. By contrast, I would have assumed that to think about stressful ideas is likely to raise the blood pressure. However, my blood pressure gauge registers focusing on what is bothering me as the lowest stress activity of any. From these home experiments, I now understand that trying to distract oneself from whatever produces anxiety may not feel stressful, but causes a huge amount of stress. It’s better simply to register that one is stressed.
Likewise, humans have another weird faculty for projective identification. Anyone who projects a negative identity into somebody else will not feel stressed by this action. They’re losing a burden on their psyche. Meanwhile, the person whom they’ve projected the nefarious identity into will feel tremendous confusion and anxiety.
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