Never shows anger, and almost "too nice"

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This describes me as well. Unless I am melting down, I rarely show much emotion. I'm usually the positive and helpful one...I think because it keeps people as far from the truth as possible.

If he's anything like me it's probably a defence mechanism.

For a long time - since as early in childhood as I can remember, I always found comfort and security in being very pleasant and properly polite and obedient. Your description of that fellow is me as a child and teen.

This was a very deliberate thing - ie. amidst all the confusion etc. - as long as I was doing what was clearly the right and proper thing and was always pleasant and polite etc. no matter what then I was safe. Even if I said something that was evidently considered peculiar, as long as I had done so very politely and there was nothing wrong with my behaviour then any reaction wasn't MY fault.

I never did anything deliberately that could be at all provocative and I almost never fought back. I used to think (still kind of do actually) in terms of everyone having something wrong with THEM - after all I was doing all the right things so the problem clearly wasn't ME.

Unfortunately as I got older that went to hell because at a certain age that kind of behaviour apparently becomes peculiar. That knocked me around a lot, and if I hadn't had the alternative security of my school achievements and then later my professional achievements to anchor my "identity" and feeling of worth then I realise now that I could well have ended up a real mess - very likely non functional. I actually sort of swung the other way for a time during my early 20's where I was quite obnoxious and disagreeable at the slightest provocation.

I've come across comments by AS people along the lines that Aspies are "always totally honest" or have a high degree of integrity - and wonder if they're actually speaking of the same kind of mechanism at work.

I have this issue in public.I used to bring a Asian boy 20 bucks every week because he bugged me for it.I would never fight back at bullies.I won't get mad at my enemies for hitting me.I will harass them if they are being stupid.I will often hesitate to report them as well.

Due to my mild SAD, I tend to be pretty nice. But when I get angry I will say something quite rude. I've said some very mean things to my parents and relatives in particular, since they affect me more than other people. I've told my parents to get divorced many times. I called them amoebas/ants/idiots/stupid chimps many times. The good thing is they never take me seriously.

I don't get angry very often, and I show it even less.

I don't know about other people. but if someone makes me angry enough to act on it then they quickly learn to never piss me off again.

Question his childhood.

You can do some really embarrassing things when having meltdowns.

If he has figured that just staying calm and happy is better than angry and sad, he has probably experienced some bad things in his life or regrets after meltdowns.

I'd applaud him for controlling the meltdowns. You don't know how many people like to poke us with a stick until we snap just so they can say SEE I TOLD YOU THAT PERSON IS A FREAK!

Wooster, I think there was a lot of truth in what you wrote. There's definitely a 'phase' some of us go through in which we're thinking 'if I just follow these rules...'. Interestingly, I saw it once in an NT. I was in the Midwest in the 90's, where we'd just gotten a certain admendment passed. Almost all of the opposing (and losing) side had vacated the building, with only one older couple remaining. At the first opportunity, the husband stood up and asked in all humility, "Where did we go wrong...What did we do wrong?" The council couldn't find any actual words to let him know he/his side/the 'losers' weren't being punished...that it wasn't an open-shut situation of 'follow the rules and you'll get the results you want'. That experience really opened my eyes that following rules aren't necessarily the best thing for certain results and may even be what blocks a person from getting what they want/need. Often, one follows the rules and they're still not 'safe'. The anger rule(s) being one such example.. (i.e. don't show anger and others will keep thinking you're just so nice...)

The way anger is viewed in 'mainstream' concerns me. There seems to be this rule that anger must be tucked away, mustn't be imposed on others, that showing any anger (no matter the provocation) is immaturity displayed by someone who 'should know better'. It often seems doubly true for expectations of women. An angry woman is often (and quickly) depicted as a harpy, a pariah, a zealot, or anti-man/anti-family. The term 'anger management' connotes a process in which focus on decreasing or outright eliminating anger is emphasized.

The "never shows anger" of this thread's title reminds me very much of Adam Sandler's movie (Anger Management). His was a character that did feel anger at certain things but tried changing it (subverting it?) into something else, which often led to comical-but-also-sad actions/behaviors on his part. Not 'being in touch' with one's anger, not recognizing it for what it is, feeling inadequate of acknowledging it (maybe from not understanding that acknowledging it DOES NOT equal INDUCING or creating it), worrying that acting on it challenges those who shouldn't be challenged, and, most especially, being afraid that one's own anger will get out of one's control (that if one were to start, they'd never be able to stop)... I'm sure these are also aspects that need to be dealt with when practicing 'anger management' and the processes of 'applying' anger to certain situations. The message of 'abstinence-only' has already shown dramatic failure in another, controversial topic ('pre-marriage' sex, of course) and shouldn't really have a place here either.

Anger is an emotion that is to be experienced much like happiness. How many times has somebody in a 'Pollyanna' fashion insisted on imposing his/her happiness manifestations on you, irregardless of whether you were in any state to receive or reciprocate? Yet, we don't hear mainstream talking about 'happiness management'. Others' insistent celebratings, their demands that one should 'smile' (because aren't they smiling?), their deliberate ignoring of others' various times of grieving or healing from an injurious event...have surely brought as much (if not more) 'damage' into my life as any act of anger. Still...there remains this insistence that there be a less-than-holistic emotional life for everyone ever wanting to be considered 'nice' and 'normal'. ...too much fear of 'anger'...of only its negative possibilities (like denouncing alcohol because of damage wrought by what's actually just a percentage of those who consume alcohol)...blanket statements indicating that nothing good ever came out of someone having/feeling anger.

Having 'said' all that however, I would also point out that most people who know me (even those who've known me 'well' or for a long time) consistently 'fail' to pick up what I was feeling the majority of the time. Most especially whenever I'm ill...I have had to learn to say aloud that 'I'm not well' AND to 'educate' them that my announcement is a gross understatement. I deal with pain and illness almost completely internally. Others almost never have a clue that I may have a temperature of 102, that I may have had only 2 hours of sleep because of vomiting the majority of the night, or that I had a broken foot (after my motorcycle lost an argument with a car)...since I could actually walk on it through the pain. This is also often true for emotionalities. Almost nobody has been able to forecast when I'm about to burst out with a 'Ha!" or laughter because of triumph. They don't know when I'm about to burst into tears, or that I'd just been crying literally only 5 minutes prior (my eyes don't stay red) or that I've been angry the entirety of time spent in their presence. They think I'm being diffident at times of certain compliments when, really, I'm thrilled by the recognition... Onlookers just don't realize the state I'm in. It may well be that "too nice" is having his moments of anger - it just might not be perceptible to others and he doesn't care to verbalize (and thus inform onlookers) the fact of it during or after its occurrence.

It's pretty interesting. Keep going...

I've tried on about 4 different occasions ro watch "Anger Management" but by half way thru I end up really upset and panicky and totally lost about what's going on and have to turn it off. It's something of a demon to me - one day I must tough it out - someone please tell me it eventually reaches a conclusion that makes sense.

As the quote goes: "If you've met one person with AS, you've met one person with AS."

Wooster -- it all turns out good in the end for "Anger Management". What panics you about the movie? Maybe I could help...

"Not having a mean bone in his body" doesn't really have to do with being autistic but more his personality. Some people just take the abuse that's dished out to them.

Straight up, I get emotionally "wrecked" by two things: firstly Adam Sandlers character simply is accused and attacked on the plane for doing something he just wasn't doing!! - and secondly everyone around him on the plane seems to agree that he was doing this thing he WASN'T.

The feeling I get from that situation is very much like the normal everyday process that is getting by in the world for me - ie. people reacting often very differently to how I expect them to and how I feel they SHOULD as a result of what I'm doing. It's obviously hugely exaggerated and I KNOW it's purely fiction but it sets every nerve in my being totally on edge and raw.

And from there it's just an ongoing situation of EVERYONE treating him like he has this issue that really as far as I can see he actually doesn't.

I've never really consciously analysed it as such before and now that I've been talking about it I realise I should just go to the end and check that out - so I know that it all comes out ok. Don't know why I didn't think of that sooner (facepalm).

SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE 'ANGER MANAGEMENT' AND DON'T WANT TO BE TOLD ABOUT THE 'SECRETS' OR ENDING. Thanks.

Wooster, I definitely agree that it's hard to watch Adam Sandler's character get persecuted on the airplane. Let me repeat that it does come out ok in the end. The girlfriend (Marisa Tomei) and the counselor (Jack Nicholson) characters had gotten together beforehand to set up that airplane situation (as well as some others). -- The only part they hadn't planned/counted on was the boyfriend getting tasered. ...It's a bit of rough humor, I know, and I think that scene (and some others) were deliberately inserted into the storyline to underscore Sandler's character as having great difficulty in feeling/showing/expressing anger experiencing situations in which others would quickly demonstrate anger.

Had you gotten as far as Nicholson's counselor character staying overnight at the boyfriend's apartment? The morning-after scene (in which the counselor throws/shatters a full plate of breakfast against the wall) may be another scene causing some distress (a little forewarning there), as well as scenes of the counselor insisting on the Sandler character stopping/parking his car on a traffic-heavy bridge in order to sing a story from 'West Side Story' (this would quickly make me stark raving looney...plenty of anxiety there - esp. since I've been 'rear-ended' before), pretending he's taking a gun into a buddhist monastery, coercing Sandler's character to pick up a gender-bending prostitute (Woody Harrelson, formerly of 'Cheers'), and, the worst, causing the boyfriend to think he's losing his girlfriend to the counselor.

Overall, some of us seem to need to suffer great hardships/artifical stressors (such as Sandler's character did with Nicholson's outrageous antics) before we'll admit that acknowledging and/or acting on our anger...addressing the events that are giving us clues of necessity for addressing...is crucial for successful interactions. But, once we work through it, we'll have gained a more reasonable (rational?) perspective from which to make decisions regarding anger - other people's anger and our own.

Some of my thoughts, Wooster. Hopefully, they're useful in some way... If you still haven't gotten your concerns adequately heard/met, please don't end up feeling as though I've been pushing you to watch the movie. There really are times one shouldn't push another past comfort levels/boundaries. If this is one of those times, only you can make that call.

Take care.

Thanks