23/07/2023
Anger is an emotion of self-protection. It may involve an effort to prevent injury or specify a boundary. It is also a common response to having been threatened, hurt, or scared, or to the person who caused it. Anger can escalate to rage when the threat is extreme or when assertions of "Don't!" or "Stop!" are not respected.
- Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype (Emotions and Trauma: Anger and Rage).
The outrage or irritation we naturally feel about various aspects of life and culture is exacerbated when there were repeated incidents of disrespect, harrowing, neglect, or high ambiguity in childhood. A person thusly injured is sensitized to further injury and utilizes all defenses to avoid them. Gross losses of power, meaning loss of certainty that we are worthy of care, respect, and concern, cause extreme sorrow and angry childhood vows to, once grown, never allow oneself to be harmed like that ever again. Additionally, if a woman was raised to have fewer positive expectations than others in the family, with harsh restraints on her freedoms, deportment, language, and so forth, her normal anger is likely to escalate over issues, tones of voice, gestures, words, and other sensory triggers that remind her of the original events.
- Babette Rothschild, The Body Remembers: The Psychophysiology of Trauma and Trauma Treatment (Bringing in the Healer: Climbing the Mountain).
Art: Mathilde Oscar, The Cry
