emotions.
For adult children of a parent who may have been controlling,
demanding, invalidating, or unaccepting of her child, it’s common for
anger to last a long time, perhaps years—and, for some, a lifetime. But
although anger can be helpful in terms of self-preservation in the short
term, it’s not the best bet for your long-term well-being—physical, emo-
tional, or social. This chapter will help you explore how you’re using
anger to protect yourself in some way from the hurt you experienced long
ago and maybe even still experience from your parent today. It will also
help you understand the different ways of coping with your anger, the toll it can take on you over time, and how to move beyond the chronic feelings you may be harboring.
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Anger in Families
Anger, whether by its glaring presence or by its absence, plays a strong
role in all families, but particularly in those where an adult shows borderline traits. In the DSM-IV-TR (2000), one of the criteria for the disorder is inappropriate, intense feelings of anger that are difficult for the person to control. But underexpression of anger may also be seen in those with BPD
or borderline traits. According to Dr. Marsha Linehan, a borderline
patient may also overcontrol angry feelings. “Many patients are afraid that if they do get angry, they will lose control and possibly react violently.
They also fear that if they engage in hostile behavior, overtly or covertly, they will be rejected” (Linehan 1993a, p. 356). Given the intense fears of abandonment those with BPD feel, you can see why someone with the
disorder might be fearful of expressing her anger.
Some adult children of parents with BPD recall their parent raging;
screaming; beating them; storming out of the room, house, or car;
threatening; throwing objects; name calling; and having tantrums. Others
have trouble remembering any displays of anger in their homes. Instead,
they may have experienced stony silences and heavy tension.
No Anger Allowed
Regardless of whether your parent overexpressed or underexpressed
anger, she may not have accepted feelings of anger in you. “Go to your
room until you can talk to me without being angry,” or “How dare you be
angry with me; I’m your mother/father,” may have been said by a parent
who was uneasy dealing with such feelings being directed at them. Or you
may have heard, “What’s wrong with you—why are you so angry?” or,
“You must have PMS, you’re really angry.” Your parent couldn’t accept
that anger was an understandable response on your part, and that she
might have been, in some part, its trigger.
“Anger was not an acceptable emotion in our house unless, of
course, it was my mother who was ranting and raving and hurling dishes
over some ridiculously inconsequential thing,” says Melia, thirty-four.
“We were taught to ‘stifle it.’ If we were angry, we’d get sent to our
rooms, then punished, and sometimes beaten. As a result, I was so filled
with rage, with no way of releasing the pressure, I thought I’d explode
into a thousand pieces some day.” She also recalls being humiliated pub-
licly by her mother whenever she’d try to express anger. “She’d always
find something to say, later on, in front of her friends, neighbors, or my
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85
friends that would embarrass me. Like she had to get even with me for
disagreeing with her, like she had to break me. And she very nearly did.”
Anger in a parent can be a terrifying thing for a child. Young chil-
dren need to believe that their parent will protect them, that their parent is capable and right. If a parent is angry, therefore, the child believes it must be his fault, as the alternative is unthinkable. And he begins to suppress his own feelings, turning them inward rather than expressing them.
Likewise, for the child who isn’t allowed to be angry, whose anger is
deflected by a parent (like a boomerang that comes hurtling back to you), a host of effects results, including feelings of guilt, depression, and chronic anger, all of which we’ll discuss shortly.
What Is Anger?
Despite its bum rap from your borderline parent, the media, or society,
anger is a normal emotion, one that’s often designed to protect you when
you’ve been scared or hurt. Anger can mobilize you against a pending
physical attack (imagine the adrenaline rush and burst of energy you’d get upon the realization that a mugger were chasing you); it can tip you off
that your boundaries have been encroached upon; it can help you get
what you need.
Anger can also protect you from emotional pain. Imagine your part-
ner of several years suddenly telling you he wants to end the relationship.
You’re devastated by the news. But your sadness and confusion quickly
turn to rage. “How could he do this to me? After all I’ve invested in this relationship. Didn’t I deserve to be told sooner? That asshole!”
Anger may be caused by feeling that you weren’t validated, recog-
nized, listened to, appreciated, or valued. It may be caused by feeling controlled—by another’s will, expectations, demands, rules, or behavior—or
that your boundaries were violated and your needs unmet. It’s common
for children to feel anger, for all of the reasons just stated, if their parents have trouble regulating their emotions and are self-involved and insecure.
For many people, it’s easier—preferable—to feel anger rather than
sadness, hurt, jealousy, shame, or other emotion. Anger compels you;
there’s energy in your anger, unlike with other emotions. And that energy gives you a sense of confidence that you can act to change your circumstances. Think of a time when you were saddened by something. Did you
feel energized, driven to act? (More likely you felt tired, listless, driven only to the couch or to bed.)
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How Anger Works
Although anger seems like a volatile, unpredictable emotion, its gen-
eration actually has a predictable cause-and-effect dynamic, as you can see from this formula we created, using concepts from When Anger Hurts
(McKay, Rogers, and McKay 1989).
Antecedent Stress + Current Stress + Indirect Stressors + Trigger Thoughts = Anger Antecedent stresses include your childhood experiences with your
parent or other experiences you’ve stored away that influence your inter-
pretation of current events.
Current stresses are painful emotions, unmet needs, or threats that
you’re experiencing in the present.
Think of indirect stressors as aggravating factors not directly related
to the stimulus or current stress, but still influencing your reaction to it: extreme heat or cold, hunger or low-blood sugar, lack of sleep, hormonal
fluctuations, pain, lack of physical activity, frustration, or overstimulation (too much noise, too large a crowd, and so on).
Add trigger thoughts, that is, cognitive sparks that act as a catalyst,
to the mix and your stressors combine into a hostile affect (McKay, Rog-
ers, and McKay 1989). Common trigger thoughts include the following:
7 I don’t deserve this.
7 But that’s not fair.
7 You deliberately set out to hurt me.
7 You knew better and you did it anyway.
7 You’re such a
jerk.
Are there others you can think of?
What you do with anger is a choice, however. No, you can’t remove
antecedent stresses (though you can rethink how you interpret them), and
you can’t remove current stresses (though you can also rethink your interpretation of them). But how you fuel anger is a choice. You can minimize
indirect stressors by taking care of yourself—eating when you need to eat, getting enough rest and exercise, removing yourself from taxing situations and learning how to manage them when you can’t simply leave—and you
can change your trigger thoughts so they don’t ignite the waiting kindling.
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STOP AND THINK: Reframing Triggers
In this exercise, based on concepts from McKay, Rogers, and McKay
(1989), are several examples of how you can recast your trigger thoughts
into beliefs that won’t induce anger:
. “I don’t deserve this” becomes “I’m free to want what I want, but
others are under no obligation to provide it to me, particularly
now that I’m an adult.”
. “But that’s not fair” becomes “Neither of our individual needs is
more important than the other’s. (There are few objective stan-
dards when it comes to fairness.)”
. “You deliberately set out to hurt me” becomes “Despite how
appearances may seem, I really don’t know all the motivations of
others; I’m not a mind reader.”
. “You knew better and you did it anyway” becomes “Knowing
better doesn’t mean others will necessarily do better; it all
depends on what needs and motivations are the strongest at the
time.”
. “You’re such a jerk” becomes “Labeling a person based on a par-
ticular action falsely implies that that’s all there is to him or her,
and that’s rarely, if ever, the case.”
What are some of your own trigger thoughts? Can you think of
some ways to reframe them so that they no longer spark a blaze?
STOP AND THINK: Fiction and Fact
When it comes to anger, myths and beliefs abound. Which of the fictions
below are your own? Which are widely accepted as truths by society?
. When you get angry, it means you must be overreacting to some-
thing.
Fact. When you get angry, it may mean you’re responding quite
normally to a stimulus.
. If I ignore my feelings of anger, they’ll go away.
Fact. Like any other emotion, ignoring anger won’t make it go
away. Feelings need to be acknowledged, accepted, and worked
through, unpleasant though it may be (at least for a while).
. If I express my feelings of anger or irritation, it means I’m
self-centered or difficult.
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Fact. Maybe some people will think you’re self-centered and difficult if you get angry, but that doesn’t change the legitimacy of the
emotion; it doesn’t mean you should stifle it based on what some-
one might think.
. If a family member or friend makes me angry, I should just let it
pass.
Fact. We’ll discuss different ways to address anger later in this chapter; for now the shorter answer is that just letting it pass
doesn’t serve anyone well.
. Revenge is sweet.
Fact. Vengefulness only leads to further resentment, and often—
maybe even surprisingly—guilt.
. Expressing anger is akin to losing control.
Fact. It depends on how you choose to express anger. Certainly,
it’s possible to lose control when sharing your feelings. Think of
the person who starts screaming before he’s tried to talk or the
person who stomps out of a room and slams the door. That’s los-
ing control. But there are other ways to express anger, including
writing or talking, that don’t involve such extreme measures.
. If the person who wronged me sees me so angry, she’ll realize the
effect she’s having on me and change.
Fact. Don’t count on it. People have to want to change. And they have to have the capacity to change. Thinking that your feelings
can have so much influence is just setting yourself up for disap-
pointment and hurt.
What are some other fictions you’ve heard about anger? Are there
others besides those listed above?
Write a statement that changes the fictions into healthier facts.
The Many Faces of Anger
When you think of anger, you may envision someone yelling,
screaming, threatening, and generally making a scene. But not everyone
shows anger that way. Someone who is shy or inhibited might express her
anger by withdrawing or being irritable. Someone who is laid-back in tem-
perament might show his anger by not living up to a commitment he
made.
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Beth, thirty-five, was not a yeller. In fact, she prided herself on
always remaining calm in confrontational situations with her borderline
father. Whenever she was angry with him, she’d walk away and withdraw,
then ruminate, first thinking critical thoughts about him and how he’d
wronged her. Those critical thoughts would then center on her and her
shortcomings—in not dealing with him effectively, in not being more
understanding and compassionate of his diagnosis and his problems, in not being able to stand up to him like she’d wanted to for years. When her
therapist asked her one day whether she thought she was angry, harboring
resentment, she was astonished. “No, the last thing I am is an angry person.” But as her therapist pointed out, she was indeed angry, and it had
been simmering for years, since from the time she was quite young, Beth
was taught that good girls don’t raise their voices or “talk back” to their parents. She’d never been allowed to express her anger, and so it presented itself, as her therapist noticed, in frequent and damaging critical thoughts.
Anger can be expressed in many, seemingly surprising, ways. As you
read the following list, see if you recognize any of these expressions of chronic anger in yourself:
7 bitterness
7 comparing yourself to others and feeling that they have it easier
than you do
7 critical thoughts, about others as well as yourself
7 feeling inwardly annoyed and frustrated when someone doesn’t
understand you
7 thinking of your rebuttal when someone is trying to talk with
you, acting defensively
7 guilt
7 impatience
7 muscle tension
7 difficulty letting go of past resentments
7 difficulty listening and taking someone else’s viewpoint into
account
7 persistently feeling life isn’t fair
7 sarcasm
7 dread
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Surviving a Borderline Parent
7 irritation
7 shutting down when upset with someone
7 speaking insensitively to others, perhaps feeling guilty about it
afterward (or not)
7 an attitude of “whatever,” or “so what—I don’t really care.”
STOP AND THINK: What Anger Looks Like
Write down the names of three to five people who are close to you.
Think about an incident or two when you g
ot angry with each of
them. Try to remember what the antecedent stresses, current and indirect
stressors, and your trigger thoughts were.
How did you express your anger toward each person? Did you
respond in any of the ways listed above? Do you see any patterns in your
responses? Did your expressions differ with each person, for instance,
“My mother—I usually end up snapping at her. I say something like, ‘We
have to end this conversation,’ and I hang up. Once some time passes, I
feel so guilty, I call her back. The whole time, I realized just recently, my jaw and hands are clenched and my stomach hurts.”
Now go back and consider each of the stressors and trigger
thoughts. How might you reframe them to lessen your anger response?
Coping Styles
While expressions of anger may have infinite variety, they usually
rely on one of five coping styles: denial, passive, aggressive, passive
aggressive, assertive.
Denial
Someone who denies his anger may think things such as, “I’m not
really angry, I’m just a little upset right now. But it will pass.” Coping with anger by suppressing it, however, leads to growing feelings of resentment and even physical ailments like headaches, stomachaches, and sleep
problems, since the anger is turned inward rather than acknowledged and
expressed. Sometimes a person denies their own feelings and projects
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91
them onto someone else. For example, they may say (in an angry tone),
“I’m not angry; you are.”
Passive
Those who cope with anger passively shy away from any sort of con-
flict, so fearful are they of upsetting or offending others. They have a hard time saying no, so they tend to end up obliging others halfheartedly but
with a smile, then feeling helpless and frustrated inside.
Aggressive
Those who cope with their anger aggressively want to make others
pay for their misdeeds, or perceived misdeeds. They want to blame and
punish, and they don’t shrink from doing it in an in-your-face manner.
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