Anger is a normal and very human emotion. But few people have been taught how to effectively express and manage anger. Instead, we learn how to deal with anger by our parents’ role modeling, and by how our parents reacted to our own anger growing up. We may have been taught to rationalize our anger away, blame or verbally attack the person who “made us” angry, or withdraw and avoid the other person—and our anger—altogether.
In a healthy family, the parents accept anger as a normal emotion that needs to be discharged. But in a family where anger is taboo, those feelings can’t be expressed. If someone grows up in that type of family, they may develop a habit of internalizing their anger. Or they may react by outwardly expressing it in destructive ways—maybe through an explosive temper or through passive-aggressive behavior in which they express anger by being critical, sarcastic, judgmental, or oppositional.
