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Your anger as part of your individuality vs. social harmony

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youcameandchanged
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31 Jan 2019, 11:22 am

Has anyone else had this problem? As I said before, I only learned how to control my anger at an age when my personality was already halfway set so I think of my anger as part of my individuality. But of course social harmony dictates that I need to control it. Any good idea for a balance?



KingExplosionMurder
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31 Jan 2019, 11:27 am

Anger can be hard to control but i find channeling anger into activities I enjoy is really helpful. Stimming could help too.
Doodling is very very helpful, even if you're not the best as drawing, doodling a lot of patterns and stuff or drawing on myself with washable ink or paints helps me calm down, and helps me focus on something fun.



kraftiekortie
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31 Jan 2019, 11:40 am

People just don't like to have somebody else's anger turned against them if they are not the source of the anger.

Anger is a pretty big part of my personality as well---but I've learned not to employ anger, unless the other person deserves it.



littlebee
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31 Jan 2019, 1:03 pm

Great topic! By my understanding anger is a reaction and not part of one's individuality, but I guess this depends upon how a person defines individuality. To me a true individual is someone who is not triggered into various reactions, including 'positive' ones, but who is harmonized both within himself and with the outside world. understands the dynamics his own physical/emotional/mental functioning and is able to consciously to make, create, do. I cannot say I have reached this level of myself, but your message is helping me focus my attention toward doing so.



HighLlama
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31 Jan 2019, 2:17 pm

littlebee wrote:
Great topic! By my understanding anger is a reaction and not part of one's individuality, but I guess this depends upon how a person defines individuality.


The ability to anger can be a healthy part of individuality, even though anger itself is transient.



starkid
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31 Jan 2019, 10:38 pm

I don't understand why you need a balance between those two things. Controlling your anger seems to have nothing to do with whether you see anger as a part of your individuality.

Do you mean that seeing anger as a part of your individuality makes you want to not control the anger? If that is the case, looking inside yourself for motivation to control your anger may help. Figure out how controlling it benefits you. How does social harmony benefit you? If it doesn't benefit you, maybe you need to try some different social situations. Also remember that just because some trait is an important part of you doesn't mean you should indulge that trait.



AprilR
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01 Feb 2019, 10:38 am

I don't think righteous Anger is a bad thing so i don't actually try to control it. I just repress it around people since i have to protect myself as i'm the one in the minority. Righteous anger and hate are part of my personality too however and i'll take some of my grudges to the grave.



youcameandchanged
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21 Apr 2020, 7:35 pm

youcameandchanged wrote:
Has anyone else had this problem? As I said before, I only learned how to control my anger at an age when my personality was already halfway set so I think of my anger as part of my individuality. But of course social harmony dictates that I need to control it. Any good idea for a balance?

Like I was trying to say, when I learned there were reasons to control my anger, my individuality was already halfway set. Also, there's the aspect that when I learned to control my anger, it was also at a time that society taught me to control every aspect of my individuality. Now I know that this was excessive, but it's also a sad fact that society had a point that not every aspect of the real me should be allowed to be expressed. I hate being fake, but I guess it's needed sometimes.



youcameandchanged
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21 Apr 2020, 7:40 pm

To quote myself:

youcameandchanged wrote:


This song reminds me of a very specific problem of mine about how I changed so many things about myself to fit in. And these passages remind me of my dilemma about how that may actually have been necessary.

"I had to make them changes, I hope you understood
You see for every bad, I did a ton of good
But you was underground, and I was mainstream
I live the life now, that we would daydream"

In childhood, I had a bad temper. And I didn't have a trauma or an overlying issue that caused it, I was just like that. Sad to say, but if I never wanted to fit in this much, I would have seen no reason to control it. I shudder to think what kind of person I would probably be by now if I wasn't blackmailed into controlling my temper. Would I be like this one woman who beat up a kid last Halloween and all that she could say about it was a nonchalant "I was just letting out some steam"? 'Cause that was my old mindset. I only started to care about what people said when it turned out there were reasons to.

"But you was underground, and I was mainstream"

I personally interpret that as "You weren't adaptable, but I was." I developed a fake self out of trauma and as I said above, I strangely believe there were some benefits to it even though it was otherwise a bad idea.