Anger 13 Unhealthy anger resluts

Death and bitterness have been mentioned as devastating results of unhealthy anger.. I could go on and on about the killer aspects of unresolved anger. Here are a few, mentioned briefly.

Anxiety
A young lady sat in my office, shaking. She was not afraid. Not sick. Not cold. She was angry. Having talked with her previously, I knew that her missionary parents had trained her well to bury all negative feelings: “Anger is not Christ like - stifle it.”

Rejection and bitterness, buried, began to grow. She enumerated the rejections from parents and husband. There she sat, shaking like a leaf. I had a towel in my desk. I folded and rolled it, gave it to her, and said, “This towel represents your husband’s neck.” Before she could even think of what was happening, she was grasping the towel with both hands in a wringing motion with all her strength. A couple seconds later she realized the dynamics of her action and said, “Dr. Burwick, I didn’t realize how I hated Jim.”
Her shaking stopped immediately and she began the process of resolving the angry spirit she had been carrying for years, towards parents, husband and other significant people.
Anger is the precipitator of much of our anxiety. It can also be a source for personality disorder.

Personality Disorders
The term “personality disorder” has been defined as abnormalities relating to personality traits. It usually demonstrates itself by a rigid, fixedness. Like the very rigid person who says, “No” to everything. Unresolved anger is one of many components that cause personality disorders. It is also a chief contributor to depression.

Depression
It has been said that depression is anger that has lost its enthusiasm. The intense outward feelings of rage have been muzzled and subdued, but they have gone underground, brewing their depressive stew.
There are many other causes for depression - hormone imbalance, thyroid dysfunction, side effects of some medications, stress, loss, failure, lack of sunlight, and others. However, in my experience, anger is the chief culprit.

Mental Problems
Most mental symptoms have a component of pent-up anger - obsessive compulsions, phobias, fantasies, schizophrenia and more. The list of anger related abberations would take up way too much space here. Suffice it to summarize with Dr. Theodore Rubin’s comments in his Angry Book. Briefly, he says:
“The ears receive sound waves; the eyes receive light waves that convey
messages to the brain in which is integrated information that makes us angry.
This feeling is felt by the entire body. Messages are sent out by chemical
changes in nerves so that various hormones are excreted:
heart-rate changes, the diameter of blood vessels change, and so on.
These effects in turn affect the skin, musculature, the digestive tract,
the lungs - all systems and organs of the body. Messages that are smooth and free flowing will see healthy expression; messages that are polluted will have poisonous physical repercussions.”

Recognizing anger will be our topic tomorrow.