Have you ever felt inward surges of tension, only to conclude that such feelings are futile because others don’t care about your needs?  ‘When tension mounts inwardly like this, the emotion at the root of the problem is anger’, says Ellen McGrath PhD, author of When Feeling Bad is Good.  She continues, ‘Many people fail to call anger by its name; they have a narrow, stereotypical picture of what anger is.’

You don’t have to have a volcanic temper for anger to be called ‘anger’.  Anger can be displayed in a wide array of behaviours and attitudes: irritation, sulking, frustration, critical thinking, procrastination, fretting, complaining, resentment, avoidance, impatience, withdrawal, feeling hurt, disillusionment.  When you catch yourself exhibiting one of these behaviours, particularly if you act this way repeatedly, you can be assured that anger is alive within your personality.

You are not obliged to manage your anger in disruptive patterns; you have a choice.  Ellen McGrath suggests that ‘By understanding the place of choices, you move one step closer to taking responsibility for your depression.  Your responsibility is not for the inappropriate behaviour of others but your ultimate reaction to it’.

Emotional expressions of anger are irresponsible if they are harmful to yourself and to the person on the receiving end of the aggression.  However, sometimes the communication of anger is an act of responsibility, since anger is the emotional push to preserve personal needs and convictions.  There are times when anger has its place in healthy relationships.

Les Carter, in The Anger Workbook, agrees:  ‘Depressed people usually need to retrain their minds to acknowledge that anger can at times be a legitimate emotion that should be openly expressed.’  For example, acknowledge that ‘I need to give in less often when my kids make untimely demands’ or ‘I need to remove myself from extended family members who have been unapologetically abusive towards me’.

To keep anger from festering and becoming foundational for depression, Les Carter suggests that there are three areas in which to make personal adjustments:  boundaries, assertiveness and forgiveness.

Setting boundaries

Boundaries should be respected.  Setting boundaries means letting what is distinctive about you be known, setting up stipulations when necessary and coaching others regarding the ways they can accurately respond to your needs.  For example, ‘When someone gives me unsolicited remedies for my feelings, I can explain that it is understanding, not advice, that I would really appreciate.

Being assertive

Practicing assertiveness can be defined as standing firmly for your needs and convictions, while also being mindful of the needs of others.  Assertiveness involves being forthright, while simultaneously being considerate.  It implies being open and genuine about who you are and believing strongly enough in the legitimacy of your needs that you will not let them remain unattended.  It means willingly taking incentive into your life, knowing who you are and what you believe and living your life according to your own directives.

You will know most certainly by the lack of coercion in your voice that your efforts are true assertions.  Frank Minirith says  in Happiness is a Choice that ‘Standing for truth without demanding dominance, whether or not it creates changes in others, you will notice that you feel less depressed and depleted when you stand firmly for legitimate needs and beliefs. 

Forgiving

Most depressed people are held captive to depressed emotions because they choose not to come to terms with circumstances that will never conform to their ideal expectations.  Not that their hopes are wrong.  Of course, it is not wrong to wish that a parent hadn’t abused you as a child or to hope that family and friends could accept your feelings and life choices without judging you.  However, according to Dorothy Rowe in Understanding Depression, Finding Freedom, ‘Most depressed people stay depressed not because their convictions are wrong, but because they choose to fume over problems that cannot be resolved into neatly arranged packages’.

One of the immediate consequences on acting as if you accept and value yourself is that you cease criticising and punishing yourself and then forgiveness comes upon you.  To ready yourself for forgiveness, let go of the scorecard.  Drop your insistence for fairness.  Set aside your picture of the ideal world.  Make room for the sometimes ugly truth.  Accept that some things are out of your control.

Breaking out from the prison of depression is not easy, for it requires that you not only start to act differently, but think differently.  For example, in choosing forgiveness you are not as readily thwarted by the unchanging or insensitive qualities of others; you are more aware of the indicators of your won personal stability.

(from 10 Steps to Combat Depression - by Larissa Anne)