Sure, but before 11-12 the emotion wouldn't have led into anger. It would have stopped on the first feeling, that's what I'm saying.
I would have felt frustration or annoyance, but the "grrrr" element wouldn't have been there.
Emotions.
- Thread starter Deranged Nasat
- Start date
Sure, but before 11-12 the emotion wouldn't have led into anger. It would have stopped on the first feeling, that's what I'm saying.
I would have felt frustration or annoyance, but the "grrrr" element wouldn't have been there.
I don't think my feelings happen in succession. Maybe I've always felt this "anger" you're describing. I certainly don't catalogue my feelings as I'm having them. Then again, I barely remember anything prior to middle school, so there ya go.
Sure, but before 11-12 the emotion wouldn't have led into anger. It would have stopped on the first feeling, that's what I'm saying.
I don't think my feelings happen in succession. Maybe I've always felt this "anger" you're describing. I certainly don't catalogue my feelings as I'm having them. Then again, I barely remember anything prior to middle school, so there ya go.
Sure, but before 11-12 the emotion wouldn't have led into anger. It would have stopped on the first feeling, that's what I'm saying.
Hmmm, allow me to make one more effort to explain the distinction I'm trying to make:
I remember when I was about 9 or 10 and first experienced other people being cruel for the sake of it. I was looking at a large moth sitting on the ground, admiring it. Two other boys my age came past, moving quite fast (this was in a school playground). I knew they hadn't seen the moth, so I politely told them to be careful, because otherwise they'd squash the moth. They stopped, looked at one another and gave an odd grin, then one of them deliberately stepped on it and looked triumphant. I was upset, or perhaps more disappointed. I asked them in my normal voice (not showing I was upset), and politely, because I was never aggressive, "why did you do that?" They looked confused, and shared another look in which it was quite clear they didn't know. This incident is burned into my memory (which is pretty good anyway), due to what I learnt from it. The thing is, if something similiar were to happen today, I'd be angry that they squashed the moth deliberately. I'd have an emotional response of distaste aimed at them, of blame, of, well, of "grrrrr", even if I didn't show it.But prior to about 11 or 12, I would not have had- did not have- such an experience.
A possibility I've considered, but I don't think is likely. My unconscious isn't very deeply buried. Things never stay down there, they swirl up (my mind is too active). I'm highly sensitive to my own mind.
What might be related to the lack-of-anger is that I am not competitive by nature. Perhaps I never developed the anger response because I never assumed a competitive climate and so had no need for it; until the experiences starting around age 11 forced me to adapt?
How can you know how deeply your unconscious is buried? Even the most self-convinced self-aware could have a truckload of repression. Sometimes, that's exactly why they think they're so self-aware.
And I would say the anger response is not learned, it's instinctual. It's an uncontrollable physiological response. If you don't feel it emotionally, my bet is repression.
Or freak of nature.
And I would say the anger response is not learned, it's instinctual. It's an uncontrollable physiological response. If you don't feel it emotionally, my bet is repression.
Or freak of nature.
I phrased that poorly, didn't I? Let's just say I'm very sensitive to my mind and I don't believe in a true unconscious, more of a semi-conscious.
From what I get from reading this Thread, I'm thinking that it's just a matter of life experience. Incidents like the one with the moth were just so far removed from your own way of looking at the world that they just resulted in bewilderment; now, as an adult who has had many of these experiences and the time to mull them over, you feel the anger because they are no longer a surprise.
Thanks for the input.
I suppose that means the feeling of anger is a result of maturity. That's a far more positive way of viewing it than the one I have at present. I'll think it over.
It seems to me that you, DN, have a fairly specific and nuanced definition of anger - not that there's anything wrong with that, but that definition isn't universal. It sounds, if I am understanding you correctly, as though for you, anger is your name for a particular degree of emotion, a degree that fits into a range of emotions. How you would describe each of those degrees, I don't know, and it's not really important, but let's say that it maybe starts with that frustration you remember feeling as a child, them moves into something else, and then gradually works its way into the "grrrrrr" feeling you've described, and then eventually into rage.
So what I'm wondering is that rather than your anger growing as you get older, what's actually happening here is that your emotions have simply become more nuanced - that is, that rather than the relatively simple, unambiguous feelings of a child - frustration or whatever - you now feel all these different degrees of emotion, and you also have developed a more nuanced way to describe them.
Most people's thoughts and ideas, after all, become more nuanced and sophisticated as they get older, partly because they are more experienced, better educated and better able to describe them to themselves and others, but also because those thoughts just get more complicated.
So why not emotions? What you feel at 20 might at its core be similar or identical to the things you felt at 5, but those feelings are more nuanced and more complicated. I mean, the way a baby loves his mother isn't the same way a toddler loves his mother, and neither of those is the same as the way a 7-year-old loves his best friend, and none of those is the same as the way a 30-year-old-loves his wife, and NONE of those are the same as the way someone loves his spouse of 40 years.
What's changed...well, several things have changed, I think. Your emotions have become more complicated - more layered. Your ability to differentiate between emotions has quite possibly increased. And certainly your ability to explain that differentiation to yourself or to other people has as well.
So what I'm wondering is that rather than your anger growing as you get older, what's actually happening here is that your emotions have simply become more nuanced - that is, that rather than the relatively simple, unambiguous feelings of a child - frustration or whatever - you now feel all these different degrees of emotion, and you also have developed a more nuanced way to describe them.
Most people's thoughts and ideas, after all, become more nuanced and sophisticated as they get older, partly because they are more experienced, better educated and better able to describe them to themselves and others, but also because those thoughts just get more complicated.
So why not emotions? What you feel at 20 might at its core be similar or identical to the things you felt at 5, but those feelings are more nuanced and more complicated. I mean, the way a baby loves his mother isn't the same way a toddler loves his mother, and neither of those is the same as the way a 7-year-old loves his best friend, and none of those is the same as the way a 30-year-old-loves his wife, and NONE of those are the same as the way someone loves his spouse of 40 years.
What's changed...well, several things have changed, I think. Your emotions have become more complicated - more layered. Your ability to differentiate between emotions has quite possibly increased. And certainly your ability to explain that differentiation to yourself or to other people has as well.
To the OP, you could've asked your question more directly and be better understood.
At any rate, emperically speaking, younger children seem to have some problem with empathy. I guess that's not an emotion itself, but feeling the emotions of other. However, I'd say at all but the very youngest ages (say less than 2), a complete lack of empathy would be a problem.
As for real emotions, love, hate, anger, jealousy, etc., I think the normal child will have all of those. What it takes to trigger the emotions and the child's ability to control them is what seems to differentiate them from adults.
If you know a child who is lacking an emotion, that's not normal and should be checked into. I suspect that all of your flowerly language for what amounts to a simple question is really that you just want to know if a specific child is normal or not. If that's the case and it's your child, take them to be checked out. They should be experiencing all emotions even at a very young age.
Mr Awe
At any rate, emperically speaking, younger children seem to have some problem with empathy. I guess that's not an emotion itself, but feeling the emotions of other. However, I'd say at all but the very youngest ages (say less than 2), a complete lack of empathy would be a problem.
As for real emotions, love, hate, anger, jealousy, etc., I think the normal child will have all of those. What it takes to trigger the emotions and the child's ability to control them is what seems to differentiate them from adults.
If you know a child who is lacking an emotion, that's not normal and should be checked into. I suspect that all of your flowerly language for what amounts to a simple question is really that you just want to know if a specific child is normal or not. If that's the case and it's your child, take them to be checked out. They should be experiencing all emotions even at a very young age.
Mr Awe
Oh, believe me, I know how unreliable memories can be.
I know it sounds improbable, and I'm not saying 100% I'm not mistaken, but I really believe this and I'm wondering if anyone can support it, or if there's some other explanation.
Well, alright, now I read why you're asking. Believe me, if you've experienced annoyance, jealousy, frustration, then you've experienced anger. Anger plays into all of those. You're normal. You may not get as angry as others but you have experienced anger.
Also, reading one of your later posts, those emotions don't preclude anger. They're build on the same foundation. You do experience anger. You are just giving anger a super strict definition so you can rule things out and say you hadn't experienced.
Alright, I've read yet more of this thread and will tack on additional thoughts. I see what's going on here. Basically, at around 12 someone really pissed you off and you acted violently. You were ashamed and now trying to justify it somehow. There are 2 most likely scenarios. Both straight forward.
1) You simply did not experience anything prior to that incident that pissed you off that much. No prior negative stimulus of that magnitude. You got angry before but it was dwarfed by this incident. You thought you were in control before but it was more due to a lack of exposure. It's a life experience thing.
2) You keep things bottled up. You experience anger but you keep it underwraps. So much so that you don't think that you even experience anger (although you clearly do). You give it such a convoluted definition to continue the illusion that you don't experience anger. However, one extreme incidents builds up so much pent up anger that pressure causes it to burst out in an act of violence.
I don't know which it is. It could be a mix of both. I'm leaning towards #2 based on your comments in this thread. If you think you haven't experienced anger, you are mistaken. Instead, it seems like you're repressing it and even redefining anger to maintain the pretense that you don't experience it. That's my guess since you asked.
Mr Awe
Last edited:
Oh, believe me, I know how unreliable memories can be.
I know it sounds improbable, and I'm not saying 100% I'm not mistaken, but I really believe this and I'm wondering if anyone can support it, or if there's some other explanation.
Well, alright, now I read why you're asking. Believe me, if you've experienced annoyance, jealousy, frustration, then you've experienced anger. Anger plays into all of those. You're normal. You may not get as angry as others but you have experienced anger.
Also, reading one of your later posts, those emotions don't preclude anger. They're build on the same foundation. You do experience anger. You are just giving anger a super strict definition so you can rule things out and say you hadn't experienced.
Alright, I've read yet more of this thread and will tack on additional thoughts. I see what's going on here. Basically, at around 12 someone really pissed you off and you acted violently. You were ashamed and now trying to justify it somehow. There are 2 most likely scenarios. Both straight forward.
1) You simply did not experience anything prior to that incident that pissed you off that much. No prior negative stimulus of that magnitude. You got angry before but it was dwarfed by this incident. You thought you were in control before but it was more due to a lack of exposure. It's a life experience thing.
2) You keep things bottled up. You experience anger but you keep it underwraps. So much so that you don't think that you even experience anger (although you clearly do). You give it such a convoluted definition to continue the illusion that you don't experience anger. However, one extreme incidents builds up so much pent up anger that pressure causes it to burst out in an act of violence.
I don't know which it is. It could be a mix of both. I'm leaning towards #2 based on your comments in this thread. If you think you haven't experienced anger, you are mistaken. Instead, it seems like you're repressing it and even redefining anger to maintain the pretense that you don't experience it. That's my guess since you asked.
Mr Awe
Well, thanks, but I don't agree. I know full well I experience anger, I'm saying I didn't prior to age 11-12. Since about 14, I've been angry in a low-key way most of the time (though on the surface I'm fine. I'm almost always polite and friendly in person, smiling, etc, because I don't want to upset or offend people (and I like people
). People often know me for many months before I have one of my brief episodes and angrily rage (though never violently, because except for that one incident when I hit someone at 12 I'm not violent). These episodes post-date age 11-12 though. My mother confirms my strong belief that prior to that I certainly never showed anger, and I do not believe I felt it. Frustration, annoyance, etc, I of course felt sometimes (though not as much as other people), and if you want to call that the same as anger, okay. But to me it isn't (which is why we use a different word, no?), because the aggressive, beligerant undertones aren't there. I don't like anger because it is not a normal response for me. It is a symptom of the damage I've taken, no different from a scar or a neurosis, and to be frank I want it gone. I'm sorry, this must sound quite irrational, but I was fine without anger before and it causes me problems now (how am I to be on a continual basis the polite, friendly, intelligent person I pride myself on being when every four or five months I have a flip-out?). There's no pretence I don't experience anger. I certainly do now. But I didn't. And I want that me back.Yeah, I didn't think you'd agree. That's why I think you're repressing it. There might well be deeper issues at play. But, I think it's likely that you're bottling the anger up and it boils over every so often. Or, maybe you just have a temper.
But, really, people should not be seeing you rage after knowing you for even several months. And you think that is normal?
To me it sounds like you don't understand your anger, and haven't tried working through it. Instead, you're trying repress and define your way out of anger.
Two questions, why are you angry on an ongoing basis now? What is it that makes you angry?
Mr Awe
But, really, people should not be seeing you rage after knowing you for even several months. And you think that is normal?
To me it sounds like you don't understand your anger, and haven't tried working through it. Instead, you're trying repress and define your way out of anger.
Two questions, why are you angry on an ongoing basis now? What is it that makes you angry?
Mr Awe
No, I'm not. Why do you keep saying that? How is saying "I'm angry in a low-key way much of the time" defined as repressing or denying my way out of anger? I've just acknowledged it clearly.
Because it doesn't seem like you understand it or want to understand it. You just want it gone. Nothing against wanting it to be gone. But, it's just not going to vanish without you attempting to understand and resolve it. Just trying quash it is repressing it. That's why I keep saying that.
So, why are you angry on an ongoing basis? What is it that keeps you angry?
Mr Awe
So, why are you angry on an ongoing basis? What is it that keeps you angry?
Mr Awe
No offense my friend (I really do appreciate your input
), but I've spent an awful lot of time and energy trying to understand and resolve it. I do in fact understand it very well and I have come to the conclusion that resolving it would require circumstances that aren't at all likely to happen. So, I'm giving up. I'm trying a new approach, which is to abandon my attempts to incorporate these new feelings into myself productively and instead try to recapture whatever it was that prevented me experiencing them before. This isn't repression- I don't believe in trying to deny or bury things and my mind is such that it wouldn't work anyway, I believe- it's an attempt to heal. It may be somewhat cowardly, but my latest rage plus my recent conclusions have convinced me my previous strategy is no longer viable. Ah, that explains why you are so desperate to believe that you didn't experience anger before 12. You did! You state that you experienced other feelings that share the same foundation as anger. If you think that you didn't experience anger as well, you're just deluding yourself.
You experienced anger. It probably wasn't as intense as the later anger and, hence, it was more forgetable. It's just that the new anger is both more recent and more intense that your childhood anger. Plus, you really want to believe that there is a pre-anger state that you can take refuge in.
You cannot return to a state in your childhood that did not exist. Instead of this wild goose chase you should do something practical, such as anger management or other counseling. I say this with the best of intentions with no insult intended. You should do this for your own good.
Mr Awe
You experienced anger. It probably wasn't as intense as the later anger and, hence, it was more forgetable. It's just that the new anger is both more recent and more intense that your childhood anger. Plus, you really want to believe that there is a pre-anger state that you can take refuge in.
You cannot return to a state in your childhood that did not exist. Instead of this wild goose chase you should do something practical, such as anger management or other counseling. I say this with the best of intentions with no insult intended. You should do this for your own good.
Mr Awe
Similar threads
