Individuals who struggle with repressed anger often say, “I never get angry!” because they are unaware of their anger. Anger is a universal emotion all humans experience, typically in response to situations that are perceived as upsetting, stressful, or unfair.
/ɪmpəˈtəbəbəl/ Other forms: imperturbably. If you're imperturbable you are not easily upset. If your goal is to be imperturbable, then you can't let things bother you or get you stressed, confused, or angry.
But never getting angry is not a healthy goal. Anger will come out regardless of how hard you try to tamp it down. The true goal of anger management isn't to suppress feelings of anger, but rather to understand the message behind the emotion and express it in a healthy way without losing control.
People with repressed anger may find that they rarely feel angry, but experience chronic lethargy and numbness. The problem is that whilst the process is largely unconscious, it takes a lot of energy to suppress and re-divert anger.
The long-term physical effects of uncontrolled anger include increased anxiety, high blood pressure and headache. Anger can be a positive and useful emotion, if it is expressed appropriately. Long-term strategies for anger management include regular exercise, learning relaxation techniques and counselling.
The mental health conditions most often associated with emotional numbness are depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Emotional numbness can also come up in some dissociative disorders, which are connected with a personal history of trauma.
Alexithymia is not a condition in its own right, but rather an inability to identify and describe emotions. People with alexithymia have difficulties recognizing and communicating their own emotions, and they also struggle to recognize and respond to emotions in others.
Intrusive memories
Recurrent, unwanted distressing memories of the traumatic event. Reliving the traumatic event as if it were happening again (flashbacks) Upsetting dreams or nightmares about the traumatic event. Severe emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds you of the traumatic event.
Symptoms of Unresolved Trauma
Lack of trust and difficulty opening up to other people6. Dissociation and a persistent feeling of numbness7. Control issues, to overcompensate for feeling helpless during the traumatic incident8. Low self-esteem and feelings of worthlessness9.
Trauma is not physically held in the muscles or bones — instead, the need to protect oneself from perceived threats is stored in the memory and emotional centers of the brain, such as the hippocampus and amygdala.
Adults with ADHD consistently report challenges with emotional regulation, including significant difficulty in regulating and reframing emotional context. Whether in the present or projected into the future, their experience is that emotions are something that happens to them.
A study including 100 ADHDers found 41.5% had alexithymia. They found a link between alexithymia and ADHD impulsiveness (Kiraz et al., 2021).
Shutting down emotions can be a normal part of human experience, as a coping strategy in stressful situations. Under high stress, it allows your body and brain to protect itself from perceived threats or harm.
It's not an uncommon experience and it's called anhedonia. Simply put, anhedonia is when you lose interest in the social activities and physical sensations that you once enjoyed. It's a symptom of many mental health conditions, including depression, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
People who live with repressed anger do not know what their anger feels like and make statements like, “I never get angry” because they are unaware they are feeling it. People have repressed anger because of situations where they felt upset, stressed, or like they were being taken advantage of.
Lower Back: Anger
If you sit in frustration, the lower back is a common place for storing repressed anger. For relief, learn to articulate frustration constructively and address conflicts with others.
The human emotions are the most feared aspect of the self, as individuals are reluctant and unprepared to manage them. Managing feelings is like trying to hold water in the palm of your hand. They are illusive and deceptive. A decision made under emotional stress and strain usually impacts emotions negatively.
When Introverts become angry, they tend to hold everything inside, hiding their anger from others and even from themselves. Or at least this is what most people think. In fact, this idea is more myth than reality. When Introverts become angry, they may try to repress their feelings.
One opposite of angry is calm. Keep calm and carry on. You're very calm under pressure.
Nonmedical terms describing similar conditions include emotionless and impassive. People with the condition are called alexithymics or alexithymiacs.
1. Irritable, testy, touchy, irascible are adjectives meaning easily upset, offended, or angered. Irritable means easily annoyed or bothered, and it implies cross and snappish behavior: an irritable clerk, rude and hostile; Impatient and irritable, he was constantly complaining.
Myth #1: Empaths do not get angry.
Although many empaths are typically good-natured and, thus, uncomfortable with their anger, it is an important emotion. In some situations, the heightened anger experienced by an empathic individual is data that something unfair is occurring in a relationship.