The Anger of Depression

It has often been written that depression is “anger turned inwards” and as such that depression stems from the inability to effectively express anger.  I’m no psychologist or psychoanalyst, but I do know things about depression and about the anger that comes along with it.  Which came first, the chicken or the egg?  It’s difficult to say personally and from what I have read it seems difficult to tell from the outside as well.  But anyone who has ever been depressed or on the receiving end of a depressed persons’ anger can attest that it is a topic worthy of some attention.  It’s the first topic to accompany anger in any Google search…

 

Perhaps you didn’t even know the person venting their rage was depressed, or maybe you being depressed cannot see the anger you feel for what it is.  And what is it?  Personally I have come to find that my own anger seems to stem from the alienation that depression can cause one to feel.  It is difficult to imagine that anyone understands how you feel.  And if I’m being quite honest there is a sense of condescension when someone attempts to relate when you can sense quite plainly that they don’t have any idea what you are going through.  Like a parental figure patting you on the head as a child and telling you “,this too shall pass,” it just seems like a borrowed and canned response.  That is to say that from the inside this is very much what it feels like.  Depression is very isolating and causes very ruminative type thoughts that only isolate the mind of the depressed further.  When you feel like no one understands you and that you are alone it can be very easy to become angry.  So tell me, did the anger appear only after the depression began or was the anger part of that circular thinking that got you here?  I’m sure many depressed people couldn’t tell you, especially while in the grips of depression.

Depression is like a cocoon.  Initially you feel shielded from the hurtful and anxiety provoking things in the world and you may relish in it.  But after a time you realize too late that the cocoon is also keeping out the good feelings that you so desperately want and need from those around you.  The anger is the outer portion of the cocoon, perhaps not a cocoon but something harder like a chrysalis.  It deflects.  It is a mechanism for keeping people at bay and keeping them from seeing that anything is wrong with you.  Something is wrong with me. Because something is most certainly wrong.  But you can’t tell anyone, no one can know.  You can’t be different, you can’t be weird unless it’s that quirky attractive kind of weird.  But by the time I realized that I was pushing people away it was like an automated response that I didn’t know how to turn off.  I don’t know how to turn off.  I have been labeled a bitch many times because I so successfully shielded the very deep depression I was experiencing.  I am experiencing.  I was trapped and unable to escape. I am trapped.  The small attempts of loved ones telling me to , “keep my chin up,” sounded so cruel and fueled my angry and alienated feelings.  To be true they still have that affect on me.  No one could see how I felt.  I want to hide. I started wishing I had some physical affliction that they could see, so I would have an “excuse” to feel depressed.  This only made me feel more and more alienated and increasingly angry.  It still does…

 

 

Something that I try to remember on this most recent attempt at recovery, for there have been many, is that every time that I come out of it people are there and understanding and scared but at my side.  I try, and without much success I am sorry to say, to remind myself that those around me simply don’t know what to say because they don’t actually know what I am going through.  I try not to let those hopeless thoughts creep in when I realize that in all likely hood they never will understand.  I try to be grateful when there are people still waiting on the other side for me.  I feel ashamed of my anger because I know that it is there.  I try not to let the shame drag me back down.  It’s a constant struggle of circular thinking.  I try not to let the thought of this being my life forever make me angry and hopeless.

My point is, compassion is our friend.  Show it and be merciless in your compassion.  You never know what someone is going through.  And for all of the people in my ranks….be merciless in your compassion, to yourself, forgive yourself and the people that love you who only wish they could help you but don’t know how.