What are the root causes of being defensive and angry?
April 28, 2023 11:32 AM Subscribe
Are there multiple reasons why someone can be so defensive and angry? I think being angry is a secondary emotion, I have been told. But what are some of the multiple roots underlying reasonings for anger and being defensive? Is being defensive the root of fear and insecurity or hiding something?
You might also enjoy the anger iceberg, which directly discusses anger as a secondary emotion.
posted by epj at 11:48 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by epj at 11:48 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Usually some perceived insult to the self - criticism, rejection, attack. Also, a minimum sense of entitlement (to a right, asset, boundary etc). Yes there’s an underlying primary emotion (feeling hurt, etc) and from there you have some options - trauma responses (fight, freeze, flight, fawn) or assertive & mature communication, problem solving etc. Someone quite in the *habit* of fighting is going to have a rough time and so are the people around them.
If you want to deescalate, validation of their feelings is the quickest way (unless it’s a crisis). Validate what makes sense about their feelings (if not actual reality) and you can try DBT or “nonviolent” communication techniques. Source: did a program for loved ones of people with BPD. This approach though works with most people (neurotypical, with dementia etc).
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:59 AM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
If you want to deescalate, validation of their feelings is the quickest way (unless it’s a crisis). Validate what makes sense about their feelings (if not actual reality) and you can try DBT or “nonviolent” communication techniques. Source: did a program for loved ones of people with BPD. This approach though works with most people (neurotypical, with dementia etc).
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:59 AM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
Some things make me plain angry. I am angry about stuff that doesn't make me sad or defensive or whatever "primary emotion" is more acceptable than anger. This is not because I struggle with feeling sad or defensive or whatever. Sometimes a bitch is just eating crackers and I'm over it. I mean, even that anger iceberg says that sometimes anger is just anger.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 12:02 PM on April 28, 2023 [6 favorites]
(Also, goal frustration. And inability to tolerate frustration.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:03 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:03 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Some people are just born angry. My sister and I were raised in the same family; she fights being angry all the time about everything, and I do not. (My uncle is similar, for that matter.)
posted by sockerpup at 12:14 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by sockerpup at 12:14 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
There are as many reasons as there are angry people. This question is probably unanswerable unless you're either asking for academic resources on emotions or you've got a particular situation in mind. In the latter case, we'd need more detail.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:15 PM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 12:15 PM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, if you want to elaborate that would be helpful. There can be medical and temperamental underlying causes for individuals, sociological ones when considering entitlement, family and other interpersonal dynamics etc.
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:39 PM on April 28, 2023
posted by cotton dress sock at 12:39 PM on April 28, 2023
I can't comment from any kind of clinical perspective, but for me personally, sometimes anger arises when I am resisting another emotion, often sadness or hurt. It's like my anger arises to help me push away the other thing.
posted by rpfields at 1:10 PM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by rpfields at 1:10 PM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]
In Buddhism anger is the ego’s response to 1) being forced to endure something it thinks it shouldn’t 2) not getting something it thinks it should get 3) fixating and exaggerating on a perceived flaw in a person or object (a special case of #1).
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:58 PM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]
There are thousands of reasons someone could be defensive or angry, but I'd say a decent slice of that pie is various flavors of fear and anxiety.
Underlying conditions besides anxiety can come with a short temper too, and really anything that has exhaustion or cognitive fog/delayed processing as a symptom/consequence can manifest in frequent episodes of anger or frustration. A lot of people are walking around this world incredibly sleep-deprived from actual lack of sleep or poor sleep quality. Poor health of any kind, from brain tumors to lack of Vitamin D, is often diagnosed as a result of complaints about a marked change in demeanor or ability to cope with stress.
I also think anger can become a sort of addiction for some people, so that they're always ready to blow and they look for reasons to be angry. It becomes a means of dopamine-seeking. Most of the time people seem to get to this place by way of fear that "someone" is going to harm them or take the things they value away from them - you see this in conspiracy obsession where someone consumes hours and hours a day of shouting accusatory tension-heightening media and perseverating on the threats they've decided are all around them.
And we have cultural issues in which anger becomes the only "allowed" emotion and all others are forbidden. Toxic masculinity comes in a wrapper that emotions are weak and unacceptable, except for anger because violence is the only virtue.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:43 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Underlying conditions besides anxiety can come with a short temper too, and really anything that has exhaustion or cognitive fog/delayed processing as a symptom/consequence can manifest in frequent episodes of anger or frustration. A lot of people are walking around this world incredibly sleep-deprived from actual lack of sleep or poor sleep quality. Poor health of any kind, from brain tumors to lack of Vitamin D, is often diagnosed as a result of complaints about a marked change in demeanor or ability to cope with stress.
I also think anger can become a sort of addiction for some people, so that they're always ready to blow and they look for reasons to be angry. It becomes a means of dopamine-seeking. Most of the time people seem to get to this place by way of fear that "someone" is going to harm them or take the things they value away from them - you see this in conspiracy obsession where someone consumes hours and hours a day of shouting accusatory tension-heightening media and perseverating on the threats they've decided are all around them.
And we have cultural issues in which anger becomes the only "allowed" emotion and all others are forbidden. Toxic masculinity comes in a wrapper that emotions are weak and unacceptable, except for anger because violence is the only virtue.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:43 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
Someone I love gets angry when their anxiety gets overwhelming. He turns his stress outward, loudly (but not insultingly or violently). Anxiety, stress... the anger is like a release valve in a way. Not saying it's right. And we are working on better ways to manage these reactions.
posted by annieb at 3:47 PM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by annieb at 3:47 PM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
The root of defensiveness in me seems to be... shame and fear. I feel ashamed that I don't already know the thing/didn't already do the thing/wasn't already right about the thing. I try to preemptively have everything right because for some reason in childhood I got the message that by doing everything right I could avoid negative experiences with caregivers (even though that was actually false) so my adult self still has reflexive fearful and ashamed response to the idea that I didn't do the thing/know the thing/etc. The defensiveness happens when I have that familiar feeling from long ago that I didn't do the thing right. It's an extremely automatic response to me that happens faster than thoughts. This is the conclusion I have drawn about shame and defensiveness and for me irritation (not quite anger) after quite a bit of therapy focused on this topic.
posted by latkes at 3:50 PM on April 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
posted by latkes at 3:50 PM on April 28, 2023 [7 favorites]
+1 for Anger being one of the forms that Fear uses to be expressed.
And for whatever it's worth... I used to be a host to frequent grand defensiveness and occasional bouts of obscene amounts of anger, until I was diagnosed and treated for Bipolar II disorder. It's almost funny, now, the delta between the way I am now and the way I used to be. Now there are times when I probably should be angry, but just can't be bothered to fuel the fire. I certainly have learned a lot about moderating my feelings -- and more importantly the behaviors I choose as responses to those feelings -- but it can't be overstated: lithium is one helluva drug.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 5:17 PM on April 28, 2023
And for whatever it's worth... I used to be a host to frequent grand defensiveness and occasional bouts of obscene amounts of anger, until I was diagnosed and treated for Bipolar II disorder. It's almost funny, now, the delta between the way I am now and the way I used to be. Now there are times when I probably should be angry, but just can't be bothered to fuel the fire. I certainly have learned a lot about moderating my feelings -- and more importantly the behaviors I choose as responses to those feelings -- but it can't be overstated: lithium is one helluva drug.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 5:17 PM on April 28, 2023
I was asking myself the same question recently. The question was something like 'why do I get angry?' or 'what does being angry solve or why is being angry a solution for whatever is in front of me that is ostensibly the cause or trigger for that experience?'
What I came up with is maybe I'm not really angry at all. A lot of what we call emotions are really models of behavior we replay. Something comes up that is disturbing, unusual or challenging. The model of 'angry' is a handy go-to for a response. Really a learned reaction that isn't based on the situation itself as much as acting out the model as a general rule of behavior for situations that feel challenging in some way.
Flushed face, raised voice, hostile demeanor...these are all physiological reactions that we associate with or model when in the 'angry' mode.
My family modeled 'angry' for me quite a bit. Basically I have an unconscious map in my behavior that 'angry' is a type of physical modality that proves useful....except it usually is not useful at all, it's really just an unconscious reaction to some form of challenge. Could be anything really, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Knowing this, I can begin to separate that model of 'angry' from what is actually happening and basically just look at the situation and not respond to it other than through awareness. Just be there and not let the model not take over.
posted by diode at 6:31 PM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
What I came up with is maybe I'm not really angry at all. A lot of what we call emotions are really models of behavior we replay. Something comes up that is disturbing, unusual or challenging. The model of 'angry' is a handy go-to for a response. Really a learned reaction that isn't based on the situation itself as much as acting out the model as a general rule of behavior for situations that feel challenging in some way.
Flushed face, raised voice, hostile demeanor...these are all physiological reactions that we associate with or model when in the 'angry' mode.
My family modeled 'angry' for me quite a bit. Basically I have an unconscious map in my behavior that 'angry' is a type of physical modality that proves useful....except it usually is not useful at all, it's really just an unconscious reaction to some form of challenge. Could be anything really, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
Knowing this, I can begin to separate that model of 'angry' from what is actually happening and basically just look at the situation and not respond to it other than through awareness. Just be there and not let the model not take over.
posted by diode at 6:31 PM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]
My therapist helped me recognize that I get angry when I or others are threatened or attacked, treated unfairly, abused, etc. To me it’s a legitimate primary response to injustice . So defensiveness would be a natural companion to anger in that situation.
posted by alicat at 7:02 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by alicat at 7:02 PM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]
some anger is just magnesium deficiency
posted by Jacqueline at 8:40 PM on April 28, 2023
posted by Jacqueline at 8:40 PM on April 28, 2023
I can't tell whether by "someone" you mean a specific person and situation you have in mind, and want to understand, or whether you mean "people in general".
posted by fabius at 5:02 AM on April 29, 2023
posted by fabius at 5:02 AM on April 29, 2023
Anger is not always a secondary emotion. Its job is to let us know our rights or boundaries (or the rights of people we care about) are being threatened or violated, and to give us energy to change the situation.
If someone is deliberately stomping on my foot even after I have asked them to stop, then anger is a perfectly valid primary emotional response. The Civil Rights Movement and other social progress is based on anger, a realization that the situation is unfair and unjust and an energy to push for change.
It can be secondary, i.e. a way of masking a different emotion. So can any other emotion. The idea that anger is always secondary and never valid on its own seems to be spread by people who are not comfortable with their own anger (which describes a large percentage of therapists).
Anger can also be triggered by situations that aren't actually threatening of our rights, of course, or can be unproductive in the sense of wanting to destroy rather than fix. But it's not inherently misplaced, secondary, or destructive. It has an important purpose.
posted by lapis at 7:43 AM on April 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
If someone is deliberately stomping on my foot even after I have asked them to stop, then anger is a perfectly valid primary emotional response. The Civil Rights Movement and other social progress is based on anger, a realization that the situation is unfair and unjust and an energy to push for change.
It can be secondary, i.e. a way of masking a different emotion. So can any other emotion. The idea that anger is always secondary and never valid on its own seems to be spread by people who are not comfortable with their own anger (which describes a large percentage of therapists).
Anger can also be triggered by situations that aren't actually threatening of our rights, of course, or can be unproductive in the sense of wanting to destroy rather than fix. But it's not inherently misplaced, secondary, or destructive. It has an important purpose.
posted by lapis at 7:43 AM on April 29, 2023 [3 favorites]
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posted by phunniemee at 11:41 AM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]