THE SILENT ANGER OUTLET
Communication is a huge part of anger management. It can either make your anger worse or better help you to manage it appropriately. Within the umbrella of communication are various forms, or ways, people tend to communicate. The one that appears on the surface to be the most socially acceptable and less obvious is passive aggressive communication. This happens when someone holds in their anger, does not discuss the problem and ends up trying to “get back” at the other person in manipulative and indirect ways. Often times, the behavior can go unnoticed and thus becomes easy for the person to deny having an issue or the behavior.
Passive aggressive behavior occurs when you do whatever you can to hurt and undermine someone without outwardly doing anything aggressive. Passive aggressive style is one way of expressing anger and it ends up hurting relationships.
Passive aggressive behavior is often so subtle that sometimes we don’t even know we are doing it because we often times do not acknowledge ourselves as being aggressive. We may have a self righteous feeling of “I’m not doing anything wrong here. This is normal and I’m just going about my own business.” Since outward aggression is not generally socially accepted, passive aggressive behavior is all too common. It allows us to act out our angry feelings without ever acknowledging we are angry, without taking responsibility and without ever having to confront a person honestly face to face.
For example, we may be fighting with our spouse or be embroiled with them in a power struggle. We manifest passive aggressive behavior by doing simple things to irritate them like leave the toilet seat up, neglect to do our dishes, or forget to call them to let them know we’ll be late. None of these are outwardly aggressive, but we know it will piss them off, which is exactly what we want. Yet we may or may not even be aware of our passive aggressive intentions.
So, what does the passive aggressive person do? They confront the issue appropriately, talk about what is bothering them, communicate their needs openly and clearly and develop assertive communication skills, which is something that can be learned in anger management classes. Here is a simple formula:
1: State the facts
2: Say how you feel
3: See through the other person’s eyes and
4: Ask for what you want.
April Tominelli MS
Daybreak Counseling Service
19831 Yorba Linda Blvd. Suite D.
Yorba Linda CA 92286
www.daybreakservices.com
twitter.com/angryinla
855 NO ANGER
855-662-6437
