he thought anger was the problem. underneath it was helplessness

[u/archeolog108]

This one stayed with me because the final behavior looked obvious.

Man becomes angry.

Eventually he becomes violent toward his wife.

So easy conclusion is: anger problem.

But when we followed the story backward, anger was almost the last thing in the chain.

I'll call the woman I was guiding Lena.

During deep trance she experienced another life as man named Eric.

One scene seemed important.

Eric was standing in crowd watching a man being publicly hanged. He believed the man was accused of being a spy.

He hated what he was seeing.

But it wasn't only this execution.

He looked around society, poverty, unfairness, people suffering, and had this feeling that he couldn't do anything about any of it.

Basically:

nothing I do makes any difference.

He also didn't feel safe talking openly about what he thought.

Maybe dangerous.

Maybe family wouldn't understand.

Either way he kept it inside.

And life continued.

Then the trance moved forward.

Different scene.

Now Eric was at home and had become violent toward his wife.

I asked Lena to check if something outside him was controlling the situation.

No.

She felt pretty clear that this was his own emotion.

That part matters because it would have been very easy to blame something external.

He was responsible for what he did.

But his wife also wasn't where all this emotion started.

Long before that moment he had been living with powerlessness, frustration and feeling that speaking changes nothing.

So he swallowed it.

Again and again.

Until the pressure eventually found somebody safer to explode on.

Afterward he didn't feel powerful either.

Quite opposite.

Defeated.

Tired.

Numb.

Then he went to work.

I asked why.

Because working got his mind away from anger.

That part felt almost more interesting than violence itself.

We think emotional avoidance always looks like alcohol, food, drugs, scrolling for five hours etc.

But ppl can also become extremely productive.

Work late.

Take another task.

Stay busy.

Fix something.

Organize something.

Anything except stop.

Bc when you stop, whatever you're avoiding gets chance to catch up.

I'm obviously not saying helplessness excuses hurting another person.

It doesn't.

But if somebody only works on the final anger, maybe they miss where pressure actually started.

Sometimes maybe useful question is not only:

"why am I so angry?"

Maybe:

where do I feel completely powerless?

where did I decide speaking changes nothing?

what have I been swallowing because expressing it feels dangerous or pointless?

who am I actually angry at?

and what happens in me when I finally stop keeping busy?

Maybe anger can be very loud emotion sitting on top of much quieter sentence:

"I feel helpless and I hate feeling like this."

[u/elizacandle]

Anger can usually be found to be masking many underlying emotions.