Is sadness or anger more difficult for you?

[CoffeeCat]

It seems like many people are in one of two camps: 1.) Anger is a lot easier for them, and sadness
is really tough for them to feel, OR 2.) Sadness (which may be manifested as depression) is a
more tolerable than feeling anger. Anger is scary and avoided at all costs.

Which camp are you in?

In my case, I'm really good at anger. I was angry my entire childhood and was pretty good
at expressing anger. I don't think there was a lot of substance behind that anger--I would
just explode or go into a rant---without really understanding why. Anger felt like energy
and kept me moving.

Sadness, on the other hand--I find completely debilitating and paralyzing. It's the emotion
that's buried underneath all of that anger. It's where the lost, little girl is. She was
buried long, long ago--in the recesses of my mind--and her pain is almost intolerable. I
hope I can get to it, somehow. It's just so hard.

Does anyone relate?

Does anyone find themselves avoiding anger or sadness; or do you feel that you're better
at anger or sadness?

:hug:

[Ariana Celeste]

1. I can handle sadness much better.

I scare myself when I get angry.

I've been almost constantly depressed since I was 9 years old. I feel more 'me' when I'm depressed, I guess, if that makes sense. I'm a scared, meek little thing most of the time, I keep to myself and I try not to get in anyone's way. I've learned to pretty much deal with the sadness. Anger on the other hand, I never really learned how to deal with it constructively. I used to take it out on myself (haven't cut in over 4 years), my walls, my doors, whatever I could grab and throw at the wall. Or I would drink it away. And then get sad again, where I was comfortable. So I try my damnedest to avoid anger when I can, but if I get into a mood... just leave me the fuck alone and I can get over it faster.

[DemExpat]

2. I grew up sweet, timid and depressed.

After 6 years of therapy that repressed sadness (and fear) was transformed into insights and some anger (which I never experienced as a child!) - an anger that I still feel with me most of the time just under the surface.

So I've known both of them - the sadness years and the angry years.

Anger isn't always comfortable, but it IS more galvanizing than sadness and depression, so I feel it helps me deal with life in a more active manner. :crazy:

I hope that by the time I die I can be more accepting and surrendering of my more negative life experiences.

:hi:

DemEx

[EFerrari]

3. I think I'm a recovering placater so sadness and anger aren't as difficult

for me as uncertainty or the ensuing anxiety.

But I think I avoid anger like the plague although, since I grew up in a family of Central American extraction, the rules for expressing emotion are a little different than they seem to be for more "mainstream" families. (Does that makes sense?)

There does seem to be some original sadness under the anger, though and I'm not really sure what that's all about but have a suspicion. My grandmother lost her mother when she was four and so, her own mothering seemed to be emotionally distant which had consequences for my mom and her sibs. Especially with respect to mirroring and validating. I notice that many of us in my generation chose emotionally unavailable partners without noticing that.

I notice that many in my generation (first cousins are practically sibs in my family, all 200 of us, lol) are closer to our kids than to our partners and we all seem to be cat and dog people -- something there about displacing and compensating.

:hug:
:grouphug:

[Christian30]

4. Sadness...

Much, much more difficult than anger. I'm Irish-Catholic so I was raised to convert my fear to anger and let it fly!

I've been having a hard time with this lately since I've been working with a therapist to lessen my anger and anxiety but beneath it, of course, is sadness.

[EFerrari]

6. Welcome to DU, Christian30.

So, is that conversion a Catholic thing? That happens in my family,too.

[Random_Australian]

5. Well, I currently fall into neither of those two camps.

It has taken a long time to feel emotions, and at no small cost to myself. Still they are algorithms to me, to be used when needed. There is a problem though - my mind is too variable.

I'm left with a series of choices, five realistic ones to be exact.

First, I can write the various sets that make up my emotional reactions into one of the four 'stable' alternatives, each with their own, and what choice I make will influence how I feel about anger and sadness. That said, from what I know of things, I do relate to what you say, a lot. I guess I fear sadness a little, but I will get to that later in this post.

If I were to choose the first of the four, I would follow rules to a T, and generally be very kind and gentle. In that case, I would fear anger the most. (That is, emotionally I would be extremely responsive to other people's emotional states and mirror them - that is, feeling sympathy more than empathy)

If I were to choose the second of the four, I would venture into a world where I would feel so little pain. So little. The way of doing that is changing the reactions I have to the feelings of others and put them completely out of whack - such that I couldn't care or would even like it if others suffered. However, I don't want to choose this one, but if I did, then I would fear neither anger or sadness.

If I were to choose the third of the four, the adrenalin rush would be incredible. What I would do, all I have to do to obtain it is set the triggers for emotions to be emotions themselves; thus I would probably become angry, and then successively more angry. This burns up so much of the mind's abilities that I would fear neither anger or sadness, as I would not be that conscious.

If I were, as I hope to do, choose the fourth of four, then morality would be defined by algorithm, and emotions to be triggered as necessary to change how other people think, all to move toward a certain goal. A good one, as it were. It involves everyone bieng pretty content and so on. If I were to be this person, I would not like either anger or sadness, unless they were appropriate for the situation. In fact, I would not want to feel any emotion at all if it were not appropriate to the situation.

Finally, the fifth choice comes from all that I have done to rid myself of delusion and hallucination; barriers I call them. The ability to find things that are not real and reject them from my mind. Well, not quite. To find things that line up with what I have specified earlier and reject them.

This is what I was talking about at the start of this post - why I fear sadness. I only think about something when I am sad. Something I very rarely talk about.

What is it? You may ask. I'll tell you. It's the ability to take the big block of stuff that lists all the things that are not real, and replace it with the real world. Reality, as I perceive it, would be rejected and could no longer find me. I would be all alone, yes, but in a world were no-one is lonely, a world made entirely of my mind, a world that would be so calm, so peaceful. Stress would not strike me, hurt would not reach me. I'd float in a non-existent world in a non-existent ocean, marvelling at soft, featherlike wave crests dappling in the imaginary sunshine. A peaceful world, a beautiful world. And all I have to do to reach it is let go.

All that has ever stopped me is the hope that one day, in this world, I can be happy. Not a facade, not a pretense, but actually smile and actually mean it.

In my saddest times, it is like all hope has gone. I stop talking, I can barely remember who I am. I go through the motions - as I am compelled - of a life, but there is nothing but a walking husk, a painted smile on a dead man's statue.

And that is why I fear sadness. I will deal with it in time, I know. I have before, and although I dread saying this, I will have to face it again. And again. And again. I am not melancholy though - in fact, this post has saddened me enough to set off an automatic response to stop me from sliding. A brief and practised sense of invulnerability, and now I am normal once more.

I can win. Time and again I will win. But I only have to fail once, and I lose everything.

[TZ]

7. I have problems with both really...

However the anger is probably more destructive to me personally. Because I tend to lash out at those closest to me and its cost me some friendships and come close with some others. The sadness is hurtful only in that I tend to close others out of my life because I don't want to deal with it. I seem to have some issues with both anger and sadness currently and actually this thread caught my eye because I will be spending time with my family this weekend and I am stessed enough to have a hair trigger and could lash out angrily if they say the wrong things this weekend. As much as I have missed seeing them, I am kind of dreading the visit this weekend too.

[EFerrari]

8. Hey, turtlesue. Do you have a plan for yourself if you get stressed

out? :hi:

[TZ]

9. Well actually I found out something yesterday..

That between the mental and physical fatigue I just don't have the energy to get truly mad it seems right now. One sister was a no show to a cookout last night and my other sister who was hosting the cookout got really mad and took it out on me. I felt angry but couldn't work up enough energy to yell back (in the past that kind of behavior would have caused a very loud and nasty shouting match, probably ending up with me storming out). My dad took his time getting to the house too, spending a lot of time at a casino in his way in, and I was annoyed because my family knows I am not well and that the 50 mile drive to my sister's house was the longest drive I have taken for awhile. And my temper wasn't much helped by not being able to eat until 8:30 last night when I hadn't really eaten all day. I figure if I didn't blow my stack with all that went down yesterday I probably am okay. Its ironic that being sick is actually good for my temper...

[EFerrari]

10. I hear you. My family does everything at the last minute

which I don't like / hate / wish they wouldn't do that. I managed to catch a cold this weekend so now the cook out on Monday is optional for me, not mandatory.

Families. Can't live with them and can't live with them. I myself have to plan ahead for the chaos or I will surely have to deal with it with no plan.

[AZBlue]

11. I've dealt with the anger. It's the sadness I can't kick.

I've gotten to a point where I'm not angry for no reason and when I am, it's a healthy normal response that dissapates very quickly. I'm not one to hold on to it or hold grudges.

The sadness is something else though.