I never allowed myself to b angry- thought I was being selfless by transmuting it into a quiet sadness. It just made me perpetually quietly sad! Here’s to unlearning. 👊
My anger is so intense, and scares me so much. I’m getting better at allowing it to be expressed in healthy ways, but repressing it for so long has turned it into something very frightening and unfamiliar.
Same. I experienced very traumatic things last year, making me lose control and lash out and scream, which i never ever did in my life, this made a horrible impact on my physical health, especially my heart. Now im living with constant fear of not being able to control myself and my emotions. I don't even know what to do about it. Because every time I've reacted to my anger, my body got internally hurt in some ways
Same. It felt like people didn’t are about the way I felt, and they didn’t understand me. I don’t know about the first part of that, but the sec part is 100% true.
@@Reed5016I ditched my high school friends recently, I was taken advantage of for years and enabled it. Also it’s telling when you’re the one initiating conversations and the other ones aren’t. I’ve had fake friends flaking on me for several years.
So accurate about women repressing anger and autoimmune diseases. Men struggle with being allowed to show sadness and vulnerability, but women aren't allowed to express boundaries and anger when boundaries have been crossed, because god forbid we're hysterical, etc. Our anger is pathologized when it is something that has gone behind every revolution for women's rights. Anger is a threat to patriarchy. So express! In a healthy way ofc ;).
This guy who had been my friend for a long time started being mean, like condescending and actually hateful. So when he pushed me for the last time, I screamed at him. He goes "You don't have to be so mad about something that happened in HS" bro was talking about me being stalked and harassed by another girl for 4 months. I just don't give a fuck anymore how people are hurt by my anger unless they actually didn't deserve me to be mad at them
By repressing and intellectualizing our emotions and ourselves in any and every ways possible. We are washing away our authentic self. We are completely ignoring our intuition and we do pay the price. We're all on our own path Irene. These break throughs are precious, these moments genuinely make me realize what the meaning of Gratitude is. I'm seriously grateful for this video because even tho I'm on my own journey currently, I found so many nuggets of wisdom in your video. Thank you so much!!❤ Edit: Working out and blasting music is still my favourite way to process my anger. I've never been so regulated than when I was regularly working out.
I was a super angry kid. Pretty early on, though, I had to teach myself to bury it. I did that for years. I remember the movie Anger Management really stuck with me. I didn't realize how angry I actually was. I kept dissociating for YEARS until a few years back. My wife and I were dating and she told me that I was "watching TV in my head" around my family. I didn't even realize I had been tuned out for so long. This was all before I figured out I was neurodivergent. Here I am at 42, finally being more present in situations. I really connected with your description of screaming in the car. That's been a huge anger release for me. Tensing up and absolutely going berserk with shouting.
When I was in jr high I learned how to death-growl because I was really into horror movies and death metal. It's great because it engages your vocal cords int the same way singing falsetto does which allow you to ful- force-scream at a low volume.
Def learning how to do gutterals is an awesome way to let out the full force of a top-of-your-lungs scream but at a volume that can be very acceptable even if you’re around people. I work in a kitchen and I do it all the time. Alongside the noise and volume of the kitchen it just sounds like an annoyed grunt. People will prolly still look at you weird, but not in the same way as screaming out loud will.
Not only did I repress my anger out of fear of hurting others, I also intellectualized it in a not healthy way. Instead of just trying to understand what caused my anger, I systematically told myself out of it by gaslighting myself and minimizing or discrediting the reasons I was angry. Like I convinced myself that it wasn't so bad in order to avoid having to set my boundaries witch was to stressful for me. I only recently realized that my main compensatory strategy to avoid being perceived negatively was to not let myself think or feel anything other than what I thought I should think or feel. Witch is very messed up. It took me six years to understand that my job was destroying me because I didn't let myself feel, process or understand my negative emotions. I was told that having a lot of social connexions and helping people was a meaningful way of living that would make good people happy, and so I convinced myself that I loved doing it even thought it was too much socializing for me and then didn't understand why my physical and mental health were falling apart.
I'm going through the exact same things right now (I'm still not sure if I have AuDHD). I have never felt angry until about a year ago when I started therapy, and even then, I didn't know what to do with the feeling, dismissed it, and my issues worsened. It wasn't until about two months ago when I started struggling with derealization and depersonalisation (as a result of ending a very important friendship that turned toxic) that I realised what I have been doing to myself all my life and was finally able to start my healing journey. It's rough. But I'm starting to accept myself and dig into the unpleasant stuff in order to listen to and understand myself better. And it was so healing to me to read your experience and feel understood. Thank you very much for sharing. It feels good to feel less alien.
It’s so freaky to go your entire life misunderstood and then finally find videos of others speaking on your exact thoughts and connections it’s such a relief off my shoulders but feels like it’s not even real life. To know I’m not the only one who thinks this way has saved my life. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences (and all other AuDHD creators) it’s helping people more than you may ever realize.
I'm AuDHD and grew up in a similar environment so this is really relatable. I learned to resent my anger because I automatically associated it with abuse. Thank you for being vulnerable with your story and speaking to the importance of allowing ourselves to feel anger ❤
Sounds like “fawning” which is usually a survival strategy from trauma. I think some autistics struggle to stop their anger coming out. Personally, anger was the only “negative” emotion I was allowed to express growing up because I was raised in a typical repressed British household. Crying or being sad was absolutely not allowed. So everything would bubble under the surface until it all exploded out in anger. I need to learn how to identify what I’m actually feeling underneath the anger and how to express it instead of anger.
Repressing the anger has been feeding my depression because it got turned against me. As a teen, it also led to ED issues. Last year, for the first time I allowed myself to get angry at others and it felt GOOD. It lasted MONTHS because it was years of repressed anger coming out at once and it was so painful to deal with.
this is happening to me right now, as i’m past the point of demonizing anger from family issues. i’m very trigger happy to express it when its deserved, and it’s definitely a learning experience
Don’t let it bottle up. You’re a human being, allow yourself to be angry and express it the moment you feel it, but of course, in a productive way, love you 💛
For those not into astrology, what she is saying about being in her Saturn Return is that she is in a time of learning some very hard lessons. After getting in touch with my anger, I too now cry every time anything feels intense. Good luck with your journey. It's intense. Maybe we'll meet one day on the other side.
Without anger you become a doormat and are extremely at the mercy of others (ability to stop themselves). My home life was a war zone. I got beaten up regularly, had to watch my sister being hit as well. My anger and stubbornness were the only thing that made me able to hang on for dear life. I've been in chronic fight response for ages. I have no issues with arguments. But I had to work with my rage because a part of me was still stuck on the battlefield fighting for it's life. Reactive and locked in. Like a dog having another in a death grip. Underneath is deep deep powerlessness and grief. Tons and tons of grief. To me it's much easier to 'step into the ring' than go into that. Because it feels like i would just cry for years. And that energy is a lot lower than anger. Anger moves shit. Wild ride eh? Everyone has different layers to feel. Somatic work is great. Some yoga chest opening made me instant cry too. Be sure to be grounded enough so your nervous system can deal. Ps: Oh yeah, I did martial arts for 12 years and boy was I way more chill back then. Planning to get back into it.
For me, listening to "angry" music like metal and punk + moving my body (doing high intensity exercise) has always helped. I think listening to metal music in particular taught me that it is ok to be angry, and there are many ways to express it.
As a 28y/o afab previously undiagnosed Au/HD person, I *needed* this. I have never felt more heard by anyone, especially someone who's never met me; the parallels between what you were saying and what I've experienced were almost too much to bear. It feels so obvious now why I'm always in pain, more than anything thank you for giving me ideas and new ways to heal/cope. Take care,
This video really helped put things into perspective for me. When I was angry/frustrated/grumpy as a kid my parents told me I was being a brat, and "nobody likes whiners". Or they'd kind of laugh and poke fun at me, like it was silly because I didn't really have anything to be upset about. My whole life I've thought in the back of my head I must be a bad person because I was such a difficult, sensitive, self-centered kid, whereas my older siblings were so polite and quiet at that age. Now it's clearer for me to see that I wasn't bad, I was just a kid struggling to regulate (especially with sensory issues) and my parents didn't understand how to help me. My siblings were simply able to repress more than I could, which damaged them too. And tbh, I'm really fucking angry at my parents. Part of me hates them, even. Which is hard to admit because I'm still stuck in the old survival mechanism of suppressing my anger and trying to please and defend them so that maybe I'll be safe. It feels good to come full circle and welcome that anger, and begin to let go of this shame around it. As an adult, I can finally create the safety for myself that I was always looking for as a kid.
I’m only 9 minutes but I wanna say I’m glad you listened to your intuition to talk about this because this is something I really REALLY need to hear and immediately resonated with so thank you 🫶🏾
On point Irene. Anger is an emotion just like happiness or sadness. Finding healthy ways to express the anger is key. I've read that monks are at a high risk for diabetes. They found a link between repressing anger and diabetes. So the body really does keep the score. ❤
The method of expressing my anger that works best for me is having an angry rant. Vocalizing the specific things that are making me angry, especially in the presence of a person who understands that I am just getting it out and that it is not an attack towards them. Having someone who can witness my anger really helps dissipate it. I usually find that I have tons of energy afterwards. Mostly, my anger wants to be heard. Because of this, I am also someone who is happy to listen to someone else's angry rants. It's very cathartic.
As an autistic woman who deals with this exact same issue myself and has been getting close to this realization, I'm so glad and appreciative that you've made the connection and made this video. It should be a gem and vital resource for every autistic woman to watch. It got so bad for me that I spent a year struggling with severe dissociation and have only now come out of it and begun to connect to myself again. Being completely cut off from yourself and from your emotions and life is such a sad way to exist. I've also struggled with self-harm. This video has encouraged me to begin expressing and releasing my anger in safe and healthy ways so that I can make the next step in my personal growth. Thank you so much, truly. P.S: Funnily enough, I had the exact same experience as you. After an argument with someone where I couldn't regulate myself, I left and as I was driving home I couldn't take it anymore and started screaming and screaming.
I have a similar realisation a couple of weeks ago. This is extremely validating, thank you. I'm not sure if I'm able to word it correctly, but I'm trying. I didn't realise I was dissociating for years, it really changed the way I'm expressing myself now. I had a lot of anger in my in my feelings but I'm never able to express it. Instead I was depressed, but I didn't know how to put the way my brain works into words. I didn't know I was autistic until 30 years later. I'm chronically ill. I shut down sometimes, but it's not really what I mean by dissociating constantly - my brain was automatically daydreaming and repeating harmful memories at every chance it got. I wasn't able to focus when I sat down without doing anything, I always was in a different world when I disassociated. I HAD to watch, read, play, do anything in order to distract me from my thoughts but the act of doing this is also me dissociating. It was a symptom. Often I realised I wasn't focusing but I wasn't able to to do anything about it. One day I was in car as a passenger after I have this realisation and I tried to be in the present and I couldn't last for a minute. Not even a minute. It breaks my heart that my traumas could dig this deeply without me realising it. I thought that this was how everyone with depression felt like. It's no wonder that I'm chronically tired, by brain is working overtime.
I have so much repressed anger and frustration. It seemed like all the NT’s around me were able to express that, but not me. I had to be on my best behaviour to be accepted. I realise now that I struggle extremely with setting boundaries - I just don’t, and isolate instead. It feels so lonely living this way. I feel like I don’t have the “right” to express my boundaries because I’m a fundamentally broken person. Sighs.
Dont internalize boundary issue so much often we expect outcomes inconsistent with reality which deepens pain. Most ppl who violate common boundaries, do it systemically and pathological ly, to one degree or some other. I’m saying this to say the presumption is there is an assertion method that will result in your boundary being accepted by others this is wrong. Ppl who are going to violate your boundaries do so bc of there behavioral precedents, become incompatible
Ugh, my whole life since puberty!!! I was bullied in school, and the anger from that time still haunts me now as a 35 year old. I still haven't released any of it properly, but I find that listening to aggressive music (I'm mainly a metal-head) helps... I discovered that for myself in my teens. One more thing I like to do when feeling intense anger is punching the air while holding a dumb bell in each hand! That or using a rowing machine at the gym. Buuut going to a live metal concert beats all of them :3 I grew up in a veeeery calm family, and anger was a hostile emotion to show, so I repressed it in order to not scaring or upsetting people around me... Even the ones that made me so angry. I became unhealthily calm on the outside and constantly anxious on the inside. Thank you for talking about this, Irene
Dude, this is probably my favourite autism related video on this platform. The relatability, the rawness... I love it. This ones gonna be close to my heart
I love this topic! Very timely for me. 54 yrs of anger repressed into my body and now I have MS. I really need to get a grip on this problem. It's literally destroying me.
As the oldest child in my family I was so concerned with being the peace-maker that I was made to feel like I couldn't let myself feel anything. I was never in sports but I felt a similar sort of release being involved in singing groups and theater growing up. It's been really great to rediscover those creative outlets in adulthood because music has truly always been the main thing that has made me feel seen. ❤
That's true I can kind of express my anger through music even if it is suuuuuuuper repressed. I was parentified by two parents who could not self-regulate so I always had to be the regulator for them and that created a lot of unhealthy patterns.
Audher here as well as Survivor of childhood abuse and currently becoming an Art Therapist. This video essay came at a perfe t moment when I'm writing my current essay on Disenfranchised Grief and it's sibling Anger
I just started the video but i have been recently diagnosed with autism after being diagnosed with OCD (somatic and existential subtypes) & a dissociative disorder a year and a half ago. My narcissistic and emotionally abusive relationship with my ex had triggered a lot of mental health issues while also shining light on my autistic traits, which encouraged me to get tested for it. I built up a lot of resentment towards my ex throughout the 2 year relationship and I also witnessed my parents' domestic abuse. All of the childhood and romantic relationship traumas formed my avoidant attachment style and triggered a freeze trauma repsonse. My brain learned to disconnect from my environment and body during stressful periods. However, the DPDR (derealization/depersonalization) symptoms just created more anxiety. I constantly suppressed my emotions and trauma, appearing fine and numb on the outside but I was interally screaming and panicking. It really is unhealthy to keep things bottled up as you mentioned because the harmful stored energy can manifest as physical illnesses, imbalances, and negative projection. I am grateful to come across another autistic person that notices the correlation with autism and dissociation. This topic is rarely discussed. ❤
I SEE you, I feel you. All of this, my parents were angry, and I didn’t want to make it worse. Never wanting to express anger has been incredibly harmful.
I highly highly recommend the book On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen. She talks about how this is a struggle for ALL women due to being forced to *not* be angry and most women do not know how to process their anger and it comes out in other ways. Of course, this is wayyyy more for us with asd. When I read the chapter on Wrath, this was the epiphany that I had as well. You're not alone.
I recently started a full time job at an elementary school where I work specifically and more intensively with kids who have autism, adhd, or other neuro-divergent proclivities and your content has helped me a lot in my own understanding and in practice ❤
I have so many thoughts! I’m having the same discovery during my Saturn return. I just discovered I have a dissociative disorder (I’ve noticed a lot of audhd people have as well And I suspect it’s bc of the topic of this video + the trauma of no support and maliciously masking) and the first this to come up after somatic therapy was anger. I screamed for a long time the very next day. Once I did that I realized all the pain and tension I was in. I hear you and this video made me feel heard every single part. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ I also wanna add we did what we needed to survive- including the suppression.
I often feel guilty for expressing anger, and think that "I'm a nice person, I shouldn't get angry at people, that makes them feel bad, and it isn't really their fault." I notice that I'm starting to do that intellectualizing thing, focusing on "Ok, what am I feeling, why am I feeling it, this isn't a good emotion, let's find out where it's coming from and make it stop." I needed the reminder to let it out - this applies to other things too, not just anger! Guilt, shame, anything that I dislike, I tend to repress. Thank you for talking about this.
Thanks for covering this topic Irene you are always ahead of the curve. As a clinical mental health counselor I work with clients who are Neurodivergent especially immigrants. I've noticed women who repressed their anger chronically once they become mothers or reach menopause, the anger is almost uncontrollable.
I relate to this video so hard, there's so many emotions I realized I suppressed because it was a defense mechanism and I've been trying to relearn them again. Anger is one of the hardest ones to feel, since I just never feel angry. Or choose not to, or logic it away, I dunno. It's so unnatural that it feels like I'm pretending to be angry sometimes. But if I could re teach myself to feel sadness and cry again, I can do this too some day. It helps reminding myself that anger happens when injustice occurs (to yourself or others) and should be used as a motivating tool. I wish everybody the best of luck on their self discovering journeys. ❤
17:55 I think it's the most complete summary that can be made of the relationships issues of many of us here, and intersects with delay processing, or with problems accepting our own intuition (it's easy to fall into rationalization and ignore bodily sensations)..
This is so relatable. Thanks for this video. I've repressed it a lot all my life. I'm still learning how to use it in productive ways, because I too have internalized it and not used it to remove me from unsafe situations, setting boundaries and just have swallowed it all.
I have a lot internal anger issues and now I have my autism diagnosis is so crazy knowing that masking has a HUGE part in myself about repressing my emotions and my anxiety and how this clap back bc I feel so resentful about myself not able to standing up for me and my feelings
Screaming in the car is so relatable. I personally have favorite stretches of road where I know there won't be many other cars or people, so I can scream at the top of my lungs. Its really the only place I can without worrying someone. It is so cathartic!
About breaking the cycle, there is a therapy called "modal therapy", which is about identifying modes in your psyche and letting them talk, e.g. your inner hurt child, or your happy child, your healthy adult, your punitive adult and so on. In modal therapy, you sit on chairs, impersonating those modes of yourself. Another way to get that insight, that the repression of anger is passed on to your child, is identifying, that this is what your punitive adult mode or others might've done to the child modes, in a try to protect it from emotional and physical harm. Its really eye opening, im glad you had that realization :) it can be really hard to find that middleground between over managing your inner childs emotions, therefore repressing them from feeling it and leaving your child on its own, abandoning it. The approach you name, giving it tools it the best and healthiest option in my opinion, i am proud of you that you have come to this conclusion I'd also love to hear about your relationship to autonomy (havent watched the video fully yet, maybe that is another thing that is also talked about)
Always identified as an angry person and easily moved to tears (for release), still it's a dysfunctional relationship with anger as I struggle with setting boundaries. Super weird to hear people tell me, that they see me as a calm and relaxed person, as I struggeled to stay calm while upset until some years ago which lead to a lot of built up guilt. Maybe that's what I'm suppressing, my calmness and that's why other people see it more than I do. Very interesting to see the perspective of someone who struggeled to express anger. I occupied myself with psychosomatics quite a lot when I was younger, so I know chronic pain stems from repressed anger. Psychosomatics also helped me release some of my issues and get to know me better. Glad you had those realizations!
I've also found that driving around to scream in my car is the best way to let loose safely. I relate to many of your experiences with somatic self-care and moving through stuck emotions. I commend you on your healing journey!
I'm sorry that this is a difficult topic for you to share, but I greatly appreciate that you have. Thank you 💙💙 It sounds like you became the diplomat to ease the situation, to be able to see to your own needs. I think parts of the goal for healthily experiencing anger, can be staying calm like you shared,, in some situations. But also being able to express it, so you can learn where is a good place for you to sit with it. Sometimes it needs to come out, so that you're able to move past it. Sometimes it can also lead to really good things like being able to look for a way to move forwards, understanding each other better, making connections you couldn't see before, from what you've said it could also in some ways be seen as self care and many other things. A little like when a piece of land is crushed through some kind of destruction, then seeing flowers sprout from it in the middle of all of that destruction. ♋ I think kids don't stop to think about whether what they are going to say or do is appropriate, because they haven't learned the ways of being/ restrictions that adults have. They just feel/do/ say whatever is happening for them in that moment and get it out. There's no malice in it, no motive, other than that's what is happening for them
My brother and father were violent. And my mother threatened to have them have them harm. And I am so sorry, for what you have been through.. 🫂🫂 and yes we are not to be angry when your privacy, your boundaries or belittled, mocked etc. It’s painful. As painful as it I am happy for to start your healing at 28 b/c it’s horrible to only recognizing it later in life like me at 44yrs old.
For the past couple weeks, I've been browsing through videos to better myself. This is exactly what I was looking for. I didn't know what I was feeling until I saw the title. Thank you!
It’s so so hard internalizing anger and all the emotions. I’ve messed up so much and hurt so many only now realizing stuff. Thank you for sharing 💞👊🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Literally pausing the video to write this. Been realizing within the past year I'm prob audhd, and recently had a horrible week where I was regressed most days and so, so angry at everything! I resonated so hard with what you just said about holding in your anger and not taking it out on others, but then you suffer silently. I feel I've done that my whole life and so when I was feeling that anger recently it was so loud and violent I didn't know how to deal with it other than scream as loud as I could into a pillow. It was a me who I haven't seen before, and it scared me. I feel like I've somehow lost a connection to my anger, as well as other aspects of my being (my body, my voice) due to masking my whole life. I'll be continuing my healing journey, and thank you for making your videos, they've really helped me learn about my own autism and mental health.
I think I've been trying to put this into words for months now. It's also really hard to look at something that kept you alive but now is hurting you and shift
Thank you so much for making this video. Myself and many of my loved ones are neurodivergent and have CPTSD and consequently have a really messed up relationship with anger - whether from repressing it constantly or repressing it and then boiling over and expressing it in unhealthy ways. This has been really helpful and validating. I actually sent it to all my roommates after i got about 20 minutes in. Thanks for being so open and vulnerable and being willing to speak on this earlier than was most comfortable for you. I think this is really something many of us deal with and need to hear. Thank you so much. You're lovely, and I appreciate you. 🖤
I also flip into extremely calm mode in conflict like you described and I’ve built resentment towards my partner that he expresses his anger in his tone and body language during arguments. It felt selfish that he wouldn’t also repress what he was feeling and speak without emotion. This video has made me consider my resentment may actually be towards my own emotional blockage and a jealousy of expression.
Oh, goodness, Irene...that's a lot to process and go through. About five years ago, I had a similar but different experience that unlocked something. On my way to deliver some food, I was feeling some _intense_ self-loathing over a missed social opportunity when suddenly...I switched positions. I was on the receiving end of the anger. I kept crying and had much difficulty stopping crying between the two deliveries I had. I was unfortunately no stranger to angry outbursts towards others when dysregulated (still happens at times, but I've seen so much progress in myself), and I could see how it ended up hurting them. I had no idea just how much damage I was doing to myself internalizing my anger...much less how much of my anger was internalized from the traumas I endured or caused. I'm so glad for you that you're growing and learning in this way. Grateful as always for what you've shared. EDIT: Rage rooms are also a thing! They're spaces you rent out to break things in with safety equipment on. I haven't been to one yet, but I really want to someday. EDIT #2: Okay so I clearly didn't watch far enough into the video before putting the first edit 😂
I'm only two minutes in and I'd like to say that, no matter where this video goes, I am glad that you felt inclined to discuss this and follow your intuition- the way you described your abstract thoughts and difficulty with articulating them really resonated with me. I have that problem too, I need a LOT of rumination time to be able to explain something to someone, even if I understand to begin with... thanks for making me feel like I'm not alone! Thought I was just crazy... I am certainly not built like everyone else around me, neurologically speaking... I am working towards getting a diagnosis right now. But as a mid-20s woman the doctors don't really take me seriously, it's frustrating. Anyways thank you for your perspective.
I am genuinely so happy that you had this breakthrough, Irene. I remember watching some of your old videos, when you were stating your opinion on anger and how useless it was and feeling sad for you, because one of the first things I learned when I started practicing mindfulness was that all emotions (good or bad) are valid and serve a purpose and that you can't suppress one of them without also numbing down the others. I ended up with extreme alexithymia due to repressing several emotions but, because I have aphantasia and a memory disorder, I can't process things in the same way as you do. I learned to allow myself to cry when I feel like I need to cry and I've slowly been working to be able to name what emotion I'm feeling, but I'm not able to trace my traumas back to their origin, so it's harder for me to process and heal. But it seemed to really have clicked for you and I'm crossing my fingers that this will have a positive impact and that you can live a more fulfilling life moving forward. We both carry a lot of childhood trauma and you deserve better. Thank you for sharing.
I swear every time you post it is always so timely for things going on in my life. Just the title had me feeling seen, thank you for sharing so many vulnerable topics with us ❤
thank you, from the absolute bottom of my heart, for taking the time to make this video. as soon as you expressed how you viewed anger all of your life, i cried. i cried on and off throughout this entire video. i got up and moved around when you brought that subject up. everything about this video has opened up so much for me and i am once again tearing up while typing this, haha. thank you, again, for what you do. i can now now move forward because of you. you are truly a light to behold
Omg! Okay so I'm also autistic. I'm 29 now, but I felt the same way. I never understood anger. I also grew up in an abusive home. I also have chronic pain. I could move through the feeling fo anger to the underlying feeling so quickly. Over time I just realized I was betraying myself by never validating my own emotions because I was so worried about regulating someone else. I'm also spiritual. Spirituality helped me connect to my emotions easier in terms of philosophy. I don't want to argue about it. When I finally unlocked my anger, it was explosive a bit. I didn't go off on people exactly but my boundaries were sort of slammed into place. I ruminate hard as well. But I couldn't regulate my anger at all. My therapist had told me it would come back. It took me a year to regulate my anger. But I think that my relationships are much healthier now that it's balanced. I never got to have anger as a kid. My emotions were never allowed to come out. I married someone who I had to regulate and man.. I'm just much healthier now. I feel likebi had to break so many relationships to rebuild them in a healthy way where I was being respected. And I am so sad about how I let myself be treated because I was strong to be calm. Eventually my anger balanced back out. I do have to be a lot more clear with my genuine emotions. Dancing and breathing exercises help my system the best. I scream sing in my car too and I have playlists for that. And I also workout quite a lot. ☺️ I make art and I write poetry too and that helps process my emotions. Goshhhh. I have lupus. An autoimmune disorder. I got diagnosed at 20 so I can't really say when that happened. We have so much in common. 💀
This. Is incredibly helpful!! I didn't even realize I've done this before. I also had a similar mentality taught to me growing up. As the oldest, I always felt like I should've stood up for my siblings more. But it was a similar situation of "you don't get involved unless you want the punishment too". I'm gonna try and implement this more!
6 minutes into the video, and I HAVE to say this. The way you get emotional and your voice cracks when you talk about yourself, happens to me the same way. I blamed myself for feeling self-pity and victim- mentality when that happened. But really it's just the pain that I never allowed to be expressed. I find a sister-like image in you and I am eternally grateful for all your information and stories you share. 33 and still can't understand why I'm dysfunctional af, but you help. You help me see why. 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you so much for this video. I finally have the missing piece of why I've been so emotionally inhibited. My anger builds up inside and I carry this resentment that i never express. And finally giving myself permission to express it is so freeing. I feel more alive. You're so beautiful.
I do this, too, and it's been a trainwreck. What you say about passing it on to your kids is true. I'm struggling with my Autistic daughter's anger now. I'm so grateful for your honesty and your video. It gives me a sense of hope for our relationship and our futures. Thank you!
Reading through a couple of the comments it looks like some others have also said thank you for listening to your intuition because seriously... I can not thank you enough... This is so huge for me and has helped me better understand what it is I am going through and trying to understand. Please keep listening to your intuition!😂 Thank you! I am recently going down a rabbit hole of self discovery and could not be more grateful for your content! Thank you so much!
Also, just starting to watch the video now. Your description of downloads made my jaw drop. That’s exactly how it feels when I’m trying to figure out how to verbalize a complicated thought. It’s like a collection of visuals, memories, and resonances between them that’s almost impossible to articulate unless somebody is sitting with me, letting me work through it verbally for a while.
Im late diagnosed AuDHD. I went through the same as I grew up. I was never allowed to express my anger in front of my father. my father used to beat my older brothers up for the things they had done. My mother was not able to protect us. we just had to quietly observe his yelling and beating without saying a single word. I didn't realize now, through therapy, that I haven't been able to know how to express emotions, and when my emotions came out, it was extreme. Didnt know how to release them. Thank you for posting this video!!!
Thank you for sharing. It's challenging to talk about these things with others. Anger and violence are so normalized within me that I'm stone cold when it comes to it. But because I experienced so much violence in my childhood, I don't dare to start anything or even engage in anyone who tries to get a rise out of me because I know the harm it does. I get angry, verbally, only when I'm too tired and vulnerable to keep the skin thick. It takes a lot of willpower for someone like me to ease that, who radiates the energy of war most of the time.
This resonates with me so much. I've recently discovered this about myself. I have been working through letting my emotions out and not trying to intellectualize everything. I realized that I often dismiss my own feelings as less valid to understand other people's feelings and that makes me angry but I've always hated anger so I internalize it and my negative thoughts are aimed at myself. I immediately started crying watching this video.
I feel so so much better with allowing myself to really feel anger, and to acknowledge reasons why I am angry instead of trying to talk myself out of it like I always had. Because I have a lot of anger, and all of it has been so deeply pushed down and repressed for my whole life. Almost 28 years and the past few months I not only let myself express it but I genuinely feel and absolutely understand where it comes from. I was always doing that somatic release of tensing and baring my teeth… and I was constantly, constantly shamed for it. I refuse to let people tell me not to do that anymore.
Thank you so much for discussing this. I really struggle with letting myself feel negative/strong emotions in general and just repress automatically, and in particular whenever ive "given in" to expressions of anger like screaming or hitting pillows ive immediately felt disappointed in myself and essentially scared of myself and my own reaction. It basically reinforced that it "wasnt safe" for me to feel my anger...this video is definitely a wake up call for me....while ive been working on feeling my feelings, true anger has not been on the list.
Thank you for sharing this raw beautiful authentic gutfelt experience. Blessings to you! You are so inspiring young lady. I’ve just TURNED 60 and am getting diagnosed. Thank you for the hope. Thank you for the honesty. ❤
i'm so grateful that you uploaded this now and i really hope that it wasn't too overwhelming for you. i've been experiencing incredibly intense anger lately and i've been searching for ways to deal with it without just suppressing it. extremely intense anger is something i've dealt with for my entire life, both in myself and others, and my natural instincts are to (privately) punch, throw, and scream, but i always feel so guilty for allowing myself to express any of that. i am female too and it's definitely connected. but lately i've been feeling called to allowing myself to feel all of the extreme emotions i have without judgement and to let myself healthily get them out however i need to. 12:00 i was literally just journaling about this yesterday. i've become so accustomed to immediately calming myself down and essentially numbing myself throughout my entire life, especially the past several years, that i've become almost entirely unable to utilize the emotions that i feel and take necessary action with them. often the calming is for good reason, because i want to avoid a meltdown or a panic attack, but it's become so constant that any swell of emotion can trigger overwhelm in me. 26:48 and much of what i've been feeling lately is tied to realizing that i'm autistic and rethinking my entire life and everything that lead me to where i am now, and it all really is a long and intense mourning process.
Oof, I feel this. It took my therapist pointing out that I intellectualize my feelings because home and certain family members were never a safe space. Something I've started doing is saying out loud "feel your feelings." Just the act of saying it, I'm giving myself permission to feel it. It can look like crying, punching the air, or, in one instance, screaming. I'm so glad the TH-cam algorithm pointed me to your channel.
My anger is a quiet disquietude. I mostly seethe in a silent anger. In some cases, my silence was the loudest scream. It would make some people change for the better. Other times, it was like expecting the other person to drink poison. People can make you mad because they are stubborn and stuck in their ways. Perfectionists and know-it-alls bother me, for example. There were many situations when I wanted to not repress my anger, but I stayed neutral or stoic. I thought it better to keep the peace, even when I wasn't at peace. I have rare moments when I speak my mind and exactly get to the point, making sure I'm understood and respected. I always remind myself that people like that are not worth the heart attack. Surround yourself with people, places, and things that don't remind you of or give you anger. Sometimes, you can't avoid people that make you angry. Remember, they don't dictate your day or happiness. You choose that for yourself. Do your best, come home, and move forward. Let them be right (even when they are wrong) and be happy. I don't always re-wild myself, but I keep my younger days of flailing, running, and being goofy close to my heart. I also avoid toxic positivity. Another way I express my anger is by turning it into something productive. My work speaks for itself and I'll never have to yell because of it.
TLDR: thank you for sharing, I really is appreciated 💛🙏🏾, you don’t have to read everything I wrote, I’m sorry it was so long 😭 Firstly, I just wanna say, I’m sorry you suffered like that as a kid. I can relate to many things you said, I too, was always concerned with being the anchor and feeling like I help the situation from getting out of control by not expressing my anger. I too, intellectualized what I was feeling, and I was constantly being overly considerate of others because I didn’t wanna feel like I’m a bad person. But, I hate how that always left me so miserable inside. I was bullied as kid, I was abused as kid, I was sexually abused by my sister as kid, at first I thought it was ok as long as it was me who suffered, but I also noticed how easy of a target I was. What made me change tactics was seeing how vulnerable I made things that I cared about, and I also feared that I should never be with a girlfriend because I wasn’t able to protect her, and on top of it all, I have a very manipulative mother who exploits somebody who’s considerate of her. So I decided to stop intellectualizing my feelings, I stopped wanting to be the anchor. I was sick and tired of being bullied, I didn’t like putting the things I cared about at risk, and I wanted to protect the girl that chose to have feelings for me. I got into a lot of trouble when I decided to be defiant, and funny enough, I’m somebody who felt unintimidating, even at 6’5”, but people started claiming I’m so scary and I should be ganged up on. But what I’m happy about most of all, is being able to regulate the emotions going on in my body, and knowing that I’m allowed to be cathartic in my music-listening sessions without feeling like I’m choosing to be angry at my music instead of people. I’ve helped out a lot of other people, in a way that I didn’t expect, and I promote healthy circles around me, which makes me feel so proud, because nobody deserves to be bullied or put down or never be heard, we all matter equally.
These videos are so healing, Irene. Thank you for posting them! Everything you said in the breaking the cycle section was like taken straight out of my journals. Everything you said I have also said and its such a relief to see another beautiful, deep, capable, person who also thinks and feels like I do.
Thank you for this video! There is definitely a connection between the behaviorism that discriminates against dysregulation and the behaviorism autistic people endure. Especially with a housing crisis and more and more crises and disasters taking place daily and continually there’s both nowhere safe to be dysregulated (angry anxious etc) and more and more dysregulating us. Under the current systems of harm, that harm is exasperated by a culture that comparmentalizes dysregulation to specific spaces or times because someone will always lack access to them under the current systems of harm. As an AuDHD social emotional educator, I would say we really need to be supported even when we experience dysregulation in any space while also interrupting harm and injustice. People need deescalation tools. Expressing anger and violence aren’t exactly synonymous though. I always start from a place of remembering any of us can be angry to the point we are violent, cause harm or abuse someone when our values conflict with those around us enough.
As someone with autism, I sometimes get angry whenever I argue with my dad who says mean things to me, blaming my mom, etc. I am trying to keep it under control by telling him not to start a fight, but it has become too much to the point where I just want to leave my parents house. I am trying to focus on the positives like my summer internship, my daily chores, and even writing in a gratitude journal to help me cope with the stress of life.
I am feeling so much clarity right in this second. I am so tired of internalizing other people’s anger and sadness. And being so repressed. I want out! At least I want to declare right now that I am done repressing myself in fa,ily situations and otherwise. In this moment of clarity I am no longer embarrassed or afraid to declare how mistreated and unsupported I have been. , without being afraid of people thinking that I am crazy or that there is something wrong with me. Because there is not anything wrong with me….. unless we are going to make a list of everything wrong with every single person on this planet. But I don’t think like that. N.
I went to therapy when I was young, before I knew I was autistic and my therapist said that I should show my anger, because apparently I didn’t… oh well, now I’m THE ANGRY WOMAN😂
I am almost 45. Not dealing with my traumas and anger was coming out as dissociation. I even experienced a conversion episode. It was so scary. I recently had a breakthrough in therapy. I knew that I was only hurting myself by not expressing anger, but I did not feel that I was allowed to release anger. Anger is something I feel all over my body. It makes me sick to my stomach. Why would I want to feel that? Who cares if I am angry? Is it going to make a difference if I get angry? My answer was always no. I am actively trying to release my anger...even if it isn't always released in the best way. I need the practice. I have held in so much for 40-odd years. I am still learning.
Thank you for bringing up this topic! I can relate so so much. I wasn’t allowed to show anger during my childhood, it was always dismissed as irrelevant and „improper” emotion. Also 2nd thank you for the greatest possible follow up after my today’s discussion with the therapist ❤
i had a similar experience as you growing up, but i didn't develop this peacemaker mindset, i just detached myself from the situation entirely and stopped caring about my parents fights, that as a 6-7 yo child, so now it doesn't even has to be anger just whenever there's a situation that requires a emotional response from me my face goes blank and i can't even hear my thoughts or understand why i am supposed to react or why someone else is reacting so emotionally. the idea of expressing what i feel makes me so uncomfortable, i can only do it when i'm alone, and when i'm angry even if i release that in private i feel a sense of shame and embarassment afterwards, i think it's the emotion i'm most averse to and this video made me realize that. it doesn't really bother me to have a low response, but it's hard to have people close to me thinking i'm unable to feel anything or that i don't care, it damages my relationships, and i know i can learn to be more open but didn't know where to start, so thank you for talking about it, it's incredibly helpful for ppl out of tune with themselves. i really appreciate the work that goes into organizing(?) these thoughts, especially as it's not easy for yourself to put all that in a way that's understandable to us, ty so much
I wanted to share, in case this helps others. I’ve been painting for a couple of years and recently got this strong desire to express myself through illustrative journaling, mapping out some of these overlapping and conflicting parts and wounds. I started with original attachment wounding, walked through all sorts of complex and simple traumatic experiences, placing them on an accurate timeline and highlighting all the opportunities adults had to help me but simply didn’t. All the undiagnosed medical, education and employment, relational woes. The gaslighting and willful ignorance in society. Writing that story in a picture book format through the traumatism survival lens has been painful but helpful expressing some of the anger.
I’ve never related to another person’s experiences as much as I relate to yours. This is my biggest challenge in life as well. I’m a trans woman who went undiagnosed as AuDHD until 30 years old when I was *unofficially* diagnosed by my therapist who is herself diagnosed and focuses on social work for neurodivergent people. The combination of masking my emotions and natural self-expression both as an autistic person and a feminine person was extremely damaging in a way that will take me years to heal. I’m a year and a half into this process and it’s changing everything. I finally understand. And I continue to grow in understanding of what it all is and what it all means.
Whenever I get to the point of screaming and crying my head is always empty and quiet. It's peaceful and calm in my head but on the outside I'm a hurricane of emotions like everything that I was holding on to are released in the moment.
I relate so much. I learned at a very young age that anger was dangerous it hurts people so its not safe to express or even feel. Lots of violence in the home and lots of feeling like i had to tailor my emotional expression to be worthy of love. It can be so hard to tell what's the autism and what's the trauma and what's the trauma of unsupported autism. Honestly your videos where you're open to exploring things you may not fully have words to explain feel so relatable and i feel so seen seeing you process in a way that feels really familiar. That kind of vulnerability is probably very uncomfortable and I genuinely appreciate it. Your realization about parenting actually made me see how I'm being so much kinder to my children by teaching them to safely express their feelings rather than supressing them, and i now have the very sad question of why don't i show that kindness to myself? Why do i see their anger as valid and worth expressing and not my own? Like I've separated their experience of anger as something different. Lots to think about.
I’m doing a project for my last year of design university, and I recently found out I’m likely audhd, and I’m likely alexithymic. I want my project to be a resource for autistic people with Alexithymia to express themselves other than verbally, but rather, visually. Communication doesn’t have to be verbal. This video came up at a very good time. I also grew up with a highly highly reactive and angry and passive aggressive and blaming mother. My household was so chaotic and disorganised and completely disregarding proper expression of emotion other than the manifestation of anger. My parents always invalidated my feelings, or ignored me, or yelled at me. This caused me to have immense hypervigellence, avoidance, numbness, anxiety, and suppression of emotions. I thought I had to have a tough skin to go through life, with the added difficulties of being audhd. This shit ruined my perception of myself and my connection with others. I want people to be able to express themselves freely. I’m in a relationship now and it’s so hard to allow myself to be angry because they are very sensitive as well, and I never ever want them to feel bad. I also feel the need to be calm and be a mediator and compensate. I downplay my own experience for the benefit of others. I hate how I get so overwhelmed when I’m stressed that I literally either break down or I go numb, amd I can never identify how I feel because I alway suppressed my emotions and people pleased. When I was younger I was a lot more expressive of my anger, but it was not good for me or others. I have control over it now, but I’m trying to do it in a more healthy way rather than repressing it. I’m learning to be more honest and get other people to understand how I feel when I’m triggered (which happens a lot). This video was very relatable, thank you for your content.
I resonate with this video so much. I have repressed my anger and trauma for reasons very similar to you and it has done me so much harm. I genuinely believe it’s the reason I have developed fibromyalgia at the age of 26.
I've always been a bottler and used to have isolated meltdowns at home that went largely ignored, but eventually bled outwards in adolescence; DBT taught me enough somatic emotional regulation to control my outbursts, which is supposed to be better for fostering and maintaining relationships, but I theorize that because interpersonal conflict has been such a key component of my emotional state for so long, I don't know how to feel anything without it, which is now getting in the way of connecting with others at all :) Yay!
Ugh. This is so true. This hurts me and kind of activates the anger in me too. I grew up with a covert narcissistic mother. This is something so real that I have to deal with and I’m slowly learning how to express it without imploding. I am half Chinese. And I am learning I believe in AuDHD. It sucks so bad.
This is your best video, EVER. Gonna have to rewatch a few times to make sure I absorb it all. Irene, THANK YOU. I use bo staff and contact staff to transmute my anger and other 'undesirable' emotions, but the advice you laid out in this video is really going to help me, I believe, focus in on the emotional transmutation as a priority in a really big way. Much Love.
Thank you for posting this. It was an emotional roller coaster, but worth every minute. I’m a semi-pro repressor. As I’ve started to figure out unmasking, I have to take it in pieces, because there is a lot of angry under the hood. Trying the keep peace has meant holding a lot of war…Again, thank you for posting. Here are a few things that I liked and learned from watching. - The non-linear structure was easy to follow, and kept the video engaging (linear can be a little…predictable) - I like that you are specifically non-specific in your recommendations. Teaching people how to work within themselves, rather than telling them what to do - It confirmed many of the perspectives I was starting to believe (e.g. the importance of finding an expressive outlet) - It provided hope that while things will never be perfect, they can continuously get better - It provided words for things that I didn’t have yet (also, appreciate how you use the term rumination in a non-negative way) Keep doing what you’re doing…it’s hard out here in these streets for a neurodivergent! Admittedly, this is probably too long for a comment, but 🤷🏾♂️
Anger has been one of the few emotions that has been clear to me, but also something that has been damaging to me and others growing up, which is why I started supressing it somewhere during my teens. Only relatively easily have I been trying to get to know my emotions and deal with them. Anger has been the thing I have gotten scared of sometimes, especially I turned it inward and invoked it any time I was not able to motivate myself or felt shame or felt empty. The short term effects were helpful, as the burning anger drove me forward, but every time I did that I'd driven myself to utter exhaustion. As I'm trying to get in touch with my other emotions, I am still wary of anger
I grew up Autistic in rural Pennsylvania, and I can attest first-hand that it was not conductive to teaching emotional regulation. I was constantly monitored by "Autism Support Aides" whose response to me stimming was to yell at me loudly, and who kept me focused on schoolwork via constant loud prompting. When I got upset by this intrusive treatment (I had the distinct sense of being treated unfairly by the time I was in 3rd Grade), the teachers would start loudly yelling at me for getting upset and for "being disrespectful" (which was pretty much a catch-all term for any emotion that wasn't unconditional cheerfulness). I was often in positions where I was so powerless that the closest I could get to redressing grievances was to hold grudges against those who wronged me (often for years on end)- and my mom would frequently intimidate me into giving up grudges by lecturing about how "holding grudges is a Mortal Sin and people who hold grudges will never get into Heaven" (I'm Catholic BTW). A year or so ago, I mentioned this in a now-defunct political subreddit as one of the reasons I was politically radicalized, and was genuinely surprised to see someone offering their condolences. I hadn't even realized just how fucked up my school environment was until I saw that comment, I had just thought that me being prone to grudges and wanting to exercise power over others were just Autism traits rather than possible trauma responses.
I never allowed myself to b angry- thought I was being selfless by transmuting it into a quiet sadness. It just made me perpetually quietly sad! Here’s to unlearning. 👊
Fist bump!👊
My anger is so intense, and scares me so much. I’m getting better at allowing it to be expressed in healthy ways, but repressing it for so long has turned it into something very frightening and unfamiliar.
Yea I get that, but I'd be fine if I could let it out
Same. I experienced very traumatic things last year, making me lose control and lash out and scream, which i never ever did in my life, this made a horrible impact on my physical health, especially my heart. Now im living with constant fear of not being able to control myself and my emotions. I don't even know what to do about it. Because every time I've reacted to my anger, my body got internally hurt in some ways
Same
Yeah I think this has happened to me too! I don't feel like myself.
same omfg
Growing up with autism, my parents and teachers never allowed me to be angry.
Same. It felt like people didn’t are about the way I felt, and they didn’t understand me. I don’t know about the first part of that, but the sec part is 100% true.
@@Reed5016I was too nice growing up to the point of being naive, I’m careful who I show empathy towards
@@Reed5016 also it sucks being 31 and single since 20. I’m better off dating a woman with autism like myself.
@@millabasset1710Honestly, same. I’m a people pleaser to my core now, and a lot of people take advantage of me.
@@Reed5016I ditched my high school friends recently, I was taken advantage of for years and enabled it. Also it’s telling when you’re the one initiating conversations and the other ones aren’t. I’ve had fake friends flaking on me for several years.
Underlying my anger is sadness or anxiety. Expressing it physically or vocally and then crying is normally the only way I release it.
I always say anger is usually sadness in a trench coat
For me, fear is often what underlies anger.
So accurate about women repressing anger and autoimmune diseases. Men struggle with being allowed to show sadness and vulnerability, but women aren't allowed to express boundaries and anger when boundaries have been crossed, because god forbid we're hysterical, etc. Our anger is pathologized when it is something that has gone behind every revolution for women's rights. Anger is a threat to patriarchy. So express! In a healthy way ofc ;).
This guy who had been my friend for a long time started being mean, like condescending and actually hateful. So when he pushed me for the last time, I screamed at him. He goes "You don't have to be so mad about something that happened in HS" bro was talking about me being stalked and harassed by another girl for 4 months. I just don't give a fuck anymore how people are hurt by my anger unless they actually didn't deserve me to be mad at them
By repressing and intellectualizing our emotions and ourselves in any and every ways possible. We are washing away our authentic self. We are completely ignoring our intuition and we do pay the price.
We're all on our own path Irene. These break throughs are precious, these moments genuinely make me realize what the meaning of Gratitude is. I'm seriously grateful for this video because even tho I'm on my own journey currently, I found so many nuggets of wisdom in your video.
Thank you so much!!❤
Edit: Working out and blasting music is still my favourite way to process my anger. I've never been so regulated than when I was regularly working out.
I was a super angry kid. Pretty early on, though, I had to teach myself to bury it. I did that for years. I remember the movie Anger Management really stuck with me. I didn't realize how angry I actually was. I kept dissociating for YEARS until a few years back. My wife and I were dating and she told me that I was "watching TV in my head" around my family. I didn't even realize I had been tuned out for so long. This was all before I figured out I was neurodivergent. Here I am at 42, finally being more present in situations.
I really connected with your description of screaming in the car. That's been a huge anger release for me. Tensing up and absolutely going berserk with shouting.
When I was in jr high I learned how to death-growl because I was really into horror movies and death metal. It's great because it engages your vocal cords int the same way singing falsetto does which allow you to ful- force-scream at a low volume.
Ha cool I need to do that
@@quryilsame
Def learning how to do gutterals is an awesome way to let out the full force of a top-of-your-lungs scream but at a volume that can be very acceptable even if you’re around people. I work in a kitchen and I do it all the time. Alongside the noise and volume of the kitchen it just sounds like an annoyed grunt. People will prolly still look at you weird, but not in the same way as screaming out loud will.
BTW, anybody can do it too. You don't have to be some 250lb dude.
"Pisces" by Jinjer
@crankydragon one of my favorites from them!
Not only did I repress my anger out of fear of hurting others, I also intellectualized it in a not healthy way. Instead of just trying to understand what caused my anger, I systematically told myself out of it by gaslighting myself and minimizing or discrediting the reasons I was angry. Like I convinced myself that it wasn't so bad in order to avoid having to set my boundaries witch was to stressful for me.
I only recently realized that my main compensatory strategy to avoid being perceived negatively was to not let myself think or feel anything other than what I thought I should think or feel. Witch is very messed up.
It took me six years to understand that my job was destroying me because I didn't let myself feel, process or understand my negative emotions. I was told that having a lot of social connexions and helping people was a meaningful way of living that would make good people happy, and so I convinced myself that I loved doing it even thought it was too much socializing for me and then didn't understand why my physical and mental health were falling apart.
I'm going through the exact same things right now (I'm still not sure if I have AuDHD). I have never felt angry until about a year ago when I started therapy, and even then, I didn't know what to do with the feeling, dismissed it, and my issues worsened. It wasn't until about two months ago when I started struggling with derealization and depersonalisation (as a result of ending a very important friendship that turned toxic) that I realised what I have been doing to myself all my life and was finally able to start my healing journey. It's rough. But I'm starting to accept myself and dig into the unpleasant stuff in order to listen to and understand myself better. And it was so healing to me to read your experience and feel understood. Thank you very much for sharing. It feels good to feel less alien.
It’s so freaky to go your entire life misunderstood and then finally find videos of others speaking on your exact thoughts and connections it’s such a relief off my shoulders but feels like it’s not even real life. To know I’m not the only one who thinks this way has saved my life. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences (and all other AuDHD creators) it’s helping people more than you may ever realize.
I'm AuDHD and grew up in a similar environment so this is really relatable. I learned to resent my anger because I automatically associated it with abuse. Thank you for being vulnerable with your story and speaking to the importance of allowing ourselves to feel anger ❤
Sounds like “fawning” which is usually a survival strategy from trauma. I think some autistics struggle to stop their anger coming out. Personally, anger was the only “negative” emotion I was allowed to express growing up because I was raised in a typical repressed British household. Crying or being sad was absolutely not allowed. So everything would bubble under the surface until it all exploded out in anger. I need to learn how to identify what I’m actually feeling underneath the anger and how to express it instead of anger.
Repressing the anger has been feeding my depression because it got turned against me. As a teen, it also led to ED issues.
Last year, for the first time I allowed myself to get angry at others and it felt GOOD. It lasted MONTHS because it was years of repressed anger coming out at once and it was so painful to deal with.
this is happening to me right now, as i’m past the point of demonizing anger from family issues. i’m very trigger happy to express it when its deserved, and it’s definitely a learning experience
Don’t let it bottle up. You’re a human being, allow yourself to be angry and express it the moment you feel it, but of course, in a productive way, love you 💛
For those not into astrology, what she is saying about being in her Saturn Return is that she is in a time of learning some very hard lessons.
After getting in touch with my anger, I too now cry every time anything feels intense. Good luck with your journey. It's intense. Maybe we'll meet one day on the other side.
Without anger you become a doormat and are extremely at the mercy of others (ability to stop themselves). My home life was a war zone. I got beaten up regularly, had to watch my sister being hit as well. My anger and stubbornness were the only thing that made me able to hang on for dear life. I've been in chronic fight response for ages. I have no issues with arguments. But I had to work with my rage because a part of me was still stuck on the battlefield fighting for it's life. Reactive and locked in. Like a dog having another in a death grip. Underneath is deep deep powerlessness and grief. Tons and tons of grief. To me it's much easier to 'step into the ring' than go into that. Because it feels like i would just cry for years. And that energy is a lot lower than anger. Anger moves shit. Wild ride eh? Everyone has different layers to feel. Somatic work is great. Some yoga chest opening made me instant cry too. Be sure to be grounded enough so your nervous system can deal. Ps: Oh yeah, I did martial arts for 12 years and boy was I way more chill back then. Planning to get back into it.
For me, listening to "angry" music like metal and punk + moving my body (doing high intensity exercise) has always helped. I think listening to metal music in particular taught me that it is ok to be angry, and there are many ways to express it.
As a 28y/o afab previously undiagnosed Au/HD person, I *needed* this. I have never felt more heard by anyone, especially someone who's never met me; the parallels between what you were saying and what I've experienced were almost too much to bear. It feels so obvious now why I'm always in pain, more than anything thank you for giving me ideas and new ways to heal/cope. Take care,
Thank you for sharing 🙏🏾
This video really helped put things into perspective for me. When I was angry/frustrated/grumpy as a kid my parents told me I was being a brat, and "nobody likes whiners". Or they'd kind of laugh and poke fun at me, like it was silly because I didn't really have anything to be upset about. My whole life I've thought in the back of my head I must be a bad person because I was such a difficult, sensitive, self-centered kid, whereas my older siblings were so polite and quiet at that age. Now it's clearer for me to see that I wasn't bad, I was just a kid struggling to regulate (especially with sensory issues) and my parents didn't understand how to help me. My siblings were simply able to repress more than I could, which damaged them too. And tbh, I'm really fucking angry at my parents. Part of me hates them, even. Which is hard to admit because I'm still stuck in the old survival mechanism of suppressing my anger and trying to please and defend them so that maybe I'll be safe. It feels good to come full circle and welcome that anger, and begin to let go of this shame around it. As an adult, I can finally create the safety for myself that I was always looking for as a kid.
I’m only 9 minutes but I wanna say I’m glad you listened to your intuition to talk about this because this is something I really REALLY need to hear and immediately resonated with so thank you 🫶🏾
On point Irene. Anger is an emotion just like happiness or sadness. Finding healthy ways to express the anger is key. I've read that monks are at a high risk for diabetes. They found a link between repressing anger and diabetes. So the body really does keep the score. ❤
The method of expressing my anger that works best for me is having an angry rant. Vocalizing the specific things that are making me angry, especially in the presence of a person who understands that I am just getting it out and that it is not an attack towards them. Having someone who can witness my anger really helps dissipate it. I usually find that I have tons of energy afterwards. Mostly, my anger wants to be heard. Because of this, I am also someone who is happy to listen to someone else's angry rants. It's very cathartic.
Wow so much to unpack, you’ve inspired me to go and scream my anger out on my car. 31 years of anger
I do this all the time!
As an autistic woman who deals with this exact same issue myself and has been getting close to this realization, I'm so glad and appreciative that you've made the connection and made this video. It should be a gem and vital resource for every autistic woman to watch. It got so bad for me that I spent a year struggling with severe dissociation and have only now come out of it and begun to connect to myself again. Being completely cut off from yourself and from your emotions and life is such a sad way to exist. I've also struggled with self-harm. This video has encouraged me to begin expressing and releasing my anger in safe and healthy ways so that I can make the next step in my personal growth. Thank you so much, truly.
P.S: Funnily enough, I had the exact same experience as you. After an argument with someone where I couldn't regulate myself, I left and as I was driving home I couldn't take it anymore and started screaming and screaming.
I have a similar realisation a couple of weeks ago. This is extremely validating, thank you. I'm not sure if I'm able to word it correctly, but I'm trying. I didn't realise I was dissociating for years, it really changed the way I'm expressing myself now. I had a lot of anger in my in my feelings but I'm never able to express it. Instead I was depressed, but I didn't know how to put the way my brain works into words. I didn't know I was autistic until 30 years later. I'm chronically ill. I shut down sometimes, but it's not really what I mean by dissociating constantly - my brain was automatically daydreaming and repeating harmful memories at every chance it got. I wasn't able to focus when I sat down without doing anything, I always was in a different world when I disassociated. I HAD to watch, read, play, do anything in order to distract me from my thoughts but the act of doing this is also me dissociating. It was a symptom. Often I realised I wasn't focusing but I wasn't able to to do anything about it. One day I was in car as a passenger after I have this realisation and I tried to be in the present and I couldn't last for a minute. Not even a minute.
It breaks my heart that my traumas could dig this deeply without me realising it. I thought that this was how everyone with depression felt like. It's no wonder that I'm chronically tired, by brain is working overtime.
Yea I am (have been for idk how long now) stuck in that *always* NEEDING music or anything to tune out my thoughts so I can "focus" on a task
Oh my god. I could have written this except I havent had a realization yet until this video maybe
I have so much repressed anger and frustration. It seemed like all the NT’s around me were able to express that, but not me. I had to be on my best behaviour to be accepted. I realise now that I struggle extremely with setting boundaries - I just don’t, and isolate instead. It feels so lonely living this way. I feel like I don’t have the “right” to express my boundaries because I’m a fundamentally broken person. Sighs.
Dont internalize boundary issue so much often we expect outcomes inconsistent with reality which deepens pain. Most ppl who violate common boundaries, do it systemically and pathological ly, to one degree or some other. I’m saying this to say the presumption is there is an assertion method that will result in your boundary being accepted by others this is wrong. Ppl who are going to violate your boundaries do so bc of there behavioral precedents, become incompatible
Ugh, my whole life since puberty!!! I was bullied in school, and the anger from that time still haunts me now as a 35 year old. I still haven't released any of it properly, but I find that listening to aggressive music (I'm mainly a metal-head) helps... I discovered that for myself in my teens. One more thing I like to do when feeling intense anger is punching the air while holding a dumb bell in each hand! That or using a rowing machine at the gym. Buuut going to a live metal concert beats all of them :3
I grew up in a veeeery calm family, and anger was a hostile emotion to show, so I repressed it in order to not scaring or upsetting people around me... Even the ones that made me so angry. I became unhealthily calm on the outside and constantly anxious on the inside.
Thank you for talking about this, Irene
Dude, this is probably my favourite autism related video on this platform. The relatability, the rawness... I love it. This ones gonna be close to my heart
I love this topic! Very timely for me. 54 yrs of anger repressed into my body and now I have MS. I really need to get a grip on this problem. It's literally destroying me.
As the oldest child in my family I was so concerned with being the peace-maker that I was made to feel like I couldn't let myself feel anything. I was never in sports but I felt a similar sort of release being involved in singing groups and theater growing up. It's been really great to rediscover those creative outlets in adulthood because music has truly always been the main thing that has made me feel seen. ❤
That's true I can kind of express my anger through music even if it is suuuuuuuper repressed. I was parentified by two parents who could not self-regulate so I always had to be the regulator for them and that created a lot of unhealthy patterns.
Audher here as well as Survivor of childhood abuse and currently becoming an Art Therapist. This video essay came at a perfe t moment when I'm writing my current essay on Disenfranchised Grief and it's sibling Anger
I just started the video but i have been recently diagnosed with autism after being diagnosed with OCD (somatic and existential subtypes) & a dissociative disorder a year and a half ago. My narcissistic and emotionally abusive relationship with my ex had triggered a lot of mental health issues while also shining light on my autistic traits, which encouraged me to get tested for it. I built up a lot of resentment towards my ex throughout the 2 year relationship and I also witnessed my parents' domestic abuse. All of the childhood and romantic relationship traumas formed my avoidant attachment style and triggered a freeze trauma repsonse. My brain learned to disconnect from my environment and body during stressful periods. However, the DPDR (derealization/depersonalization) symptoms just created more anxiety. I constantly suppressed my emotions and trauma, appearing fine and numb on the outside but I was interally screaming and panicking. It really is unhealthy to keep things bottled up as you mentioned because the harmful stored energy can manifest as physical illnesses, imbalances, and negative projection. I am grateful to come across another autistic person that notices the correlation with autism and dissociation. This topic is rarely discussed. ❤
Does your OCD cause pain I have heds autism ADHD pain is worst symptom
I SEE you, I feel you. All of this, my parents were angry, and I didn’t want to make it worse. Never wanting to express anger has been incredibly harmful.
I highly highly recommend the book On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good by Elise Loehnen. She talks about how this is a struggle for ALL women due to being forced to *not* be angry and most women do not know how to process their anger and it comes out in other ways. Of course, this is wayyyy more for us with asd. When I read the chapter on Wrath, this was the epiphany that I had as well. You're not alone.
I recently started a full time job at an elementary school where I work specifically and more intensively with kids who have autism, adhd, or other neuro-divergent proclivities and your content has helped me a lot in my own understanding and in practice ❤
I have so many thoughts! I’m having the same discovery during my Saturn return. I just discovered I have a dissociative disorder (I’ve noticed a lot of audhd people have as well And I suspect it’s bc of the topic of this video + the trauma of no support and maliciously masking) and the first this to come up after somatic therapy was anger. I screamed for a long time the very next day. Once I did that I realized all the pain and tension I was in. I hear you and this video made me feel heard every single part. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
I also wanna add we did what we needed to survive- including the suppression.
I often feel guilty for expressing anger, and think that "I'm a nice person, I shouldn't get angry at people, that makes them feel bad, and it isn't really their fault." I notice that I'm starting to do that intellectualizing thing, focusing on "Ok, what am I feeling, why am I feeling it, this isn't a good emotion, let's find out where it's coming from and make it stop." I needed the reminder to let it out - this applies to other things too, not just anger! Guilt, shame, anything that I dislike, I tend to repress. Thank you for talking about this.
Yes! It’s useful to acknowledge where the feeling comes from, but it’s not okay to use that acknowledgment to stop feeling it.
Thanks for covering this topic Irene you are always ahead of the curve.
As a clinical mental health counselor I work with clients who are Neurodivergent especially immigrants.
I've noticed women who repressed their anger chronically once they become mothers or reach menopause, the anger is almost uncontrollable.
Don’t know why, but your vid titles are the only titles that always draw me in Irene 🎉
That’s so ironic cause I sit there thinking on these dang titles for so long 😵💫
I relate to this video so hard, there's so many emotions I realized I suppressed because it was a defense mechanism and I've been trying to relearn them again. Anger is one of the hardest ones to feel, since I just never feel angry. Or choose not to, or logic it away, I dunno.
It's so unnatural that it feels like I'm pretending to be angry sometimes. But if I could re teach myself to feel sadness and cry again, I can do this too some day. It helps reminding myself that anger happens when injustice occurs (to yourself or others) and should be used as a motivating tool.
I wish everybody the best of luck on their self discovering journeys. ❤
17:55 I think it's the most complete summary that can be made of the relationships issues of many of us here, and intersects with delay processing, or with problems accepting our own intuition (it's easy to fall into rationalization and ignore bodily sensations)..
This is so relatable. Thanks for this video. I've repressed it a lot all my life. I'm still learning how to use it in productive ways, because I too have internalized it and not used it to remove me from unsafe situations, setting boundaries and just have swallowed it all.
I have a lot internal anger issues and now I have my autism diagnosis is so crazy knowing that masking has a HUGE part in myself about repressing my emotions and my anxiety and how this clap back bc I feel so resentful about myself not able to standing up for me and my feelings
Screaming in the car is so relatable. I personally have favorite stretches of road where I know there won't be many other cars or people, so I can scream at the top of my lungs. Its really the only place I can without worrying someone. It is so cathartic!
About breaking the cycle, there is a therapy called "modal therapy", which is about identifying modes in your psyche and letting them talk, e.g. your inner hurt child, or your happy child, your healthy adult, your punitive adult and so on. In modal therapy, you sit on chairs, impersonating those modes of yourself. Another way to get that insight, that the repression of anger is passed on to your child, is identifying, that this is what your punitive adult mode or others might've done to the child modes, in a try to protect it from emotional and physical harm. Its really eye opening, im glad you had that realization :)
it can be really hard to find that middleground between over managing your inner childs emotions, therefore repressing them from feeling it and leaving your child on its own, abandoning it. The approach you name, giving it tools it the best and healthiest option in my opinion, i am proud of you that you have come to this conclusion
I'd also love to hear about your relationship to autonomy (havent watched the video fully yet, maybe that is another thing that is also talked about)
Always identified as an angry person and easily moved to tears (for release), still it's a dysfunctional relationship with anger as I struggle with setting boundaries. Super weird to hear people tell me, that they see me as a calm and relaxed person, as I struggeled to stay calm while upset until some years ago which lead to a lot of built up guilt. Maybe that's what I'm suppressing, my calmness and that's why other people see it more than I do.
Very interesting to see the perspective of someone who struggeled to express anger.
I occupied myself with psychosomatics quite a lot when I was younger, so I know chronic pain stems from repressed anger. Psychosomatics also helped me release some of my issues and get to know me better.
Glad you had those realizations!
I've also found that driving around to scream in my car is the best way to let loose safely. I relate to many of your experiences with somatic self-care and moving through stuck emotions. I commend you on your healing journey!
I'm sorry that this is a difficult topic for you to share, but I greatly appreciate that you have. Thank you 💙💙
It sounds like you became the diplomat to ease the situation, to be able to see to your own needs.
I think parts of the goal for healthily experiencing anger, can be staying calm like you shared,, in some situations. But also being able to express it, so you can learn where is a good place for you to sit with it. Sometimes it needs to come out, so that you're able to move past it. Sometimes it can also lead to really good things like being able to look for a way to move forwards, understanding each other better, making connections you couldn't see before, from what you've said it could also in some ways be seen as self care and many other things.
A little like when a piece of land is crushed through some kind of destruction, then seeing flowers sprout from it in the middle of all of that destruction.
♋
I think kids don't stop to think about whether what they are going to say or do is appropriate, because they haven't learned the ways of being/ restrictions that adults have. They just feel/do/ say whatever is happening for them in that moment and get it out. There's no malice in it, no motive, other than that's what is happening for them
My brother and father were violent. And my mother threatened to have them have them harm.
And I am so sorry, for what you have been through..
🫂🫂
and yes we are not to be angry when your privacy, your boundaries or belittled, mocked etc.
It’s painful.
As painful as it I am happy for to start your healing at 28 b/c it’s horrible to only recognizing it later in life like me at 44yrs old.
For the past couple weeks, I've been browsing through videos to better myself. This is exactly what I was looking for. I didn't know what I was feeling until I saw the title. Thank you!
It’s so so hard internalizing anger and all the emotions. I’ve messed up so much and hurt so many only now realizing stuff. Thank you for sharing 💞👊🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Literally pausing the video to write this. Been realizing within the past year I'm prob audhd, and recently had a horrible week where I was regressed most days and so, so angry at everything! I resonated so hard with what you just said about holding in your anger and not taking it out on others, but then you suffer silently. I feel I've done that my whole life and so when I was feeling that anger recently it was so loud and violent I didn't know how to deal with it other than scream as loud as I could into a pillow. It was a me who I haven't seen before, and it scared me. I feel like I've somehow lost a connection to my anger, as well as other aspects of my being (my body, my voice) due to masking my whole life. I'll be continuing my healing journey, and thank you for making your videos, they've really helped me learn about my own autism and mental health.
I think I've been trying to put this into words for months now. It's also really hard to look at something that kept you alive but now is hurting you and shift
Thank you so much for making this video. Myself and many of my loved ones are neurodivergent and have CPTSD and consequently have a really messed up relationship with anger - whether from repressing it constantly or repressing it and then boiling over and expressing it in unhealthy ways. This has been really helpful and validating. I actually sent it to all my roommates after i got about 20 minutes in. Thanks for being so open and vulnerable and being willing to speak on this earlier than was most comfortable for you. I think this is really something many of us deal with and need to hear. Thank you so much. You're lovely, and I appreciate you. 🖤
I also flip into extremely calm mode in conflict like you described and I’ve built resentment towards my partner that he expresses his anger in his tone and body language during arguments. It felt selfish that he wouldn’t also repress what he was feeling and speak without emotion. This video has made me consider my resentment may actually be towards my own emotional blockage and a jealousy of expression.
Oh, goodness, Irene...that's a lot to process and go through.
About five years ago, I had a similar but different experience that unlocked something. On my way to deliver some food, I was feeling some _intense_ self-loathing over a missed social opportunity when suddenly...I switched positions. I was on the receiving end of the anger. I kept crying and had much difficulty stopping crying between the two deliveries I had.
I was unfortunately no stranger to angry outbursts towards others when dysregulated (still happens at times, but I've seen so much progress in myself), and I could see how it ended up hurting them. I had no idea just how much damage I was doing to myself internalizing my anger...much less how much of my anger was internalized from the traumas I endured or caused.
I'm so glad for you that you're growing and learning in this way. Grateful as always for what you've shared.
EDIT: Rage rooms are also a thing! They're spaces you rent out to break things in with safety equipment on. I haven't been to one yet, but I really want to someday.
EDIT #2: Okay so I clearly didn't watch far enough into the video before putting the first edit 😂
I'm only two minutes in and I'd like to say that, no matter where this video goes, I am glad that you felt inclined to discuss this and follow your intuition- the way you described your abstract thoughts and difficulty with articulating them really resonated with me. I have that problem too, I need a LOT of rumination time to be able to explain something to someone, even if I understand to begin with... thanks for making me feel like I'm not alone! Thought I was just crazy... I am certainly not built like everyone else around me, neurologically speaking... I am working towards getting a diagnosis right now. But as a mid-20s woman the doctors don't really take me seriously, it's frustrating. Anyways thank you for your perspective.
I am genuinely so happy that you had this breakthrough, Irene. I remember watching some of your old videos, when you were stating your opinion on anger and how useless it was and feeling sad for you, because one of the first things I learned when I started practicing mindfulness was that all emotions (good or bad) are valid and serve a purpose and that you can't suppress one of them without also numbing down the others. I ended up with extreme alexithymia due to repressing several emotions but, because I have aphantasia and a memory disorder, I can't process things in the same way as you do. I learned to allow myself to cry when I feel like I need to cry and I've slowly been working to be able to name what emotion I'm feeling, but I'm not able to trace my traumas back to their origin, so it's harder for me to process and heal. But it seemed to really have clicked for you and I'm crossing my fingers that this will have a positive impact and that you can live a more fulfilling life moving forward. We both carry a lot of childhood trauma and you deserve better. Thank you for sharing.
I swear every time you post it is always so timely for things going on in my life. Just the title had me feeling seen, thank you for sharing so many vulnerable topics with us ❤
thank you, from the absolute bottom of my heart, for taking the time to make this video. as soon as you expressed how you viewed anger all of your life, i cried. i cried on and off throughout this entire video. i got up and moved around when you brought that subject up. everything about this video has opened up so much for me and i am once again tearing up while typing this, haha. thank you, again, for what you do. i can now now move forward because of you. you are truly a light to behold
Omg! Okay so I'm also autistic. I'm 29 now, but I felt the same way. I never understood anger. I also grew up in an abusive home. I also have chronic pain. I could move through the feeling fo anger to the underlying feeling so quickly. Over time I just realized I was betraying myself by never validating my own emotions because I was so worried about regulating someone else. I'm also spiritual. Spirituality helped me connect to my emotions easier in terms of philosophy. I don't want to argue about it. When I finally unlocked my anger, it was explosive a bit. I didn't go off on people exactly but my boundaries were sort of slammed into place. I ruminate hard as well. But I couldn't regulate my anger at all. My therapist had told me it would come back. It took me a year to regulate my anger. But I think that my relationships are much healthier now that it's balanced. I never got to have anger as a kid. My emotions were never allowed to come out. I married someone who I had to regulate and man.. I'm just much healthier now. I feel likebi had to break so many relationships to rebuild them in a healthy way where I was being respected. And I am so sad about how I let myself be treated because I was strong to be calm. Eventually my anger balanced back out. I do have to be a lot more clear with my genuine emotions. Dancing and breathing exercises help my system the best. I scream sing in my car too and I have playlists for that. And I also workout quite a lot. ☺️ I make art and I write poetry too and that helps process my emotions. Goshhhh. I have lupus. An autoimmune disorder. I got diagnosed at 20 so I can't really say when that happened. We have so much in common. 💀
This. Is incredibly helpful!! I didn't even realize I've done this before. I also had a similar mentality taught to me growing up. As the oldest, I always felt like I should've stood up for my siblings more. But it was a similar situation of "you don't get involved unless you want the punishment too". I'm gonna try and implement this more!
6 minutes into the video, and I HAVE to say this. The way you get emotional and your voice cracks when you talk about yourself, happens to me the same way. I blamed myself for feeling self-pity and victim- mentality when that happened. But really it's just the pain that I never allowed to be expressed. I find a sister-like image in you and I am eternally grateful for all your information and stories you share. 33 and still can't understand why I'm dysfunctional af, but you help. You help me see why. 🙏🙏🙏
Thank you so much for this video. I finally have the missing piece of why I've been so emotionally inhibited. My anger builds up inside and I carry this resentment that i never express. And finally giving myself permission to express it is so freeing. I feel more alive.
You're so beautiful.
I do this, too, and it's been a trainwreck. What you say about passing it on to your kids is true. I'm struggling with my Autistic daughter's anger now. I'm so grateful for your honesty and your video. It gives me a sense of hope for our relationship and our futures. Thank you!
Reading through a couple of the comments it looks like some others have also said thank you for listening to your intuition because seriously... I can not thank you enough... This is so huge for me and has helped me better understand what it is I am going through and trying to understand. Please keep listening to your intuition!😂 Thank you!
I am recently going down a rabbit hole of self discovery and could not be more grateful for your content! Thank you so much!
Also, just starting to watch the video now. Your description of downloads made my jaw drop. That’s exactly how it feels when I’m trying to figure out how to verbalize a complicated thought. It’s like a collection of visuals, memories, and resonances between them that’s almost impossible to articulate unless somebody is sitting with me, letting me work through it verbally for a while.
Im late diagnosed AuDHD.
I went through the same as I grew up. I was never allowed to express my anger in front of my father. my father used to beat my older brothers up for the things they had done. My mother was not able to protect us. we just had to quietly observe his yelling and beating without saying a single word.
I didn't realize now, through therapy, that I haven't been able to know how to express emotions, and when my emotions came out, it was extreme. Didnt know how to release them.
Thank you for posting this video!!!
Thank you for sharing. It's challenging to talk about these things with others.
Anger and violence are so normalized within me that I'm stone cold when it comes to it. But because I experienced so much violence in my childhood, I don't dare to start anything or even engage in anyone who tries to get a rise out of me because I know the harm it does. I get angry, verbally, only when I'm too tired and vulnerable to keep the skin thick. It takes a lot of willpower for someone like me to ease that, who radiates the energy of war most of the time.
This resonates with me so much. I've recently discovered this about myself. I have been working through letting my emotions out and not trying to intellectualize everything. I realized that I often dismiss my own feelings as less valid to understand other people's feelings and that makes me angry but I've always hated anger so I internalize it and my negative thoughts are aimed at myself. I immediately started crying watching this video.
I feel so so much better with allowing myself to really feel anger, and to acknowledge reasons why I am angry instead of trying to talk myself out of it like I always had. Because I have a lot of anger, and all of it has been so deeply pushed down and repressed for my whole life. Almost 28 years and the past few months I not only let myself express it but I genuinely feel and absolutely understand where it comes from. I was always doing that somatic release of tensing and baring my teeth… and I was constantly, constantly shamed for it. I refuse to let people tell me not to do that anymore.
Thank you so much for discussing this. I really struggle with letting myself feel negative/strong emotions in general and just repress automatically, and in particular whenever ive "given in" to expressions of anger like screaming or hitting pillows ive immediately felt disappointed in myself and essentially scared of myself and my own reaction. It basically reinforced that it "wasnt safe" for me to feel my anger...this video is definitely a wake up call for me....while ive been working on feeling my feelings, true anger has not been on the list.
Be strong Irene. The first Saturn return is absolutely harsh but you can do it.
Thank you for sharing this raw beautiful authentic gutfelt experience. Blessings to you! You are so inspiring young lady. I’ve just TURNED 60 and am getting diagnosed. Thank you for the hope. Thank you for the honesty. ❤
i'm so grateful that you uploaded this now and i really hope that it wasn't too overwhelming for you. i've been experiencing incredibly intense anger lately and i've been searching for ways to deal with it without just suppressing it. extremely intense anger is something i've dealt with for my entire life, both in myself and others, and my natural instincts are to (privately) punch, throw, and scream, but i always feel so guilty for allowing myself to express any of that. i am female too and it's definitely connected. but lately i've been feeling called to allowing myself to feel all of the extreme emotions i have without judgement and to let myself healthily get them out however i need to.
12:00 i was literally just journaling about this yesterday. i've become so accustomed to immediately calming myself down and essentially numbing myself throughout my entire life, especially the past several years, that i've become almost entirely unable to utilize the emotions that i feel and take necessary action with them. often the calming is for good reason, because i want to avoid a meltdown or a panic attack, but it's become so constant that any swell of emotion can trigger overwhelm in me. 26:48 and much of what i've been feeling lately is tied to realizing that i'm autistic and rethinking my entire life and everything that lead me to where i am now, and it all really is a long and intense mourning process.
Oof, I feel this. It took my therapist pointing out that I intellectualize my feelings because home and certain family members were never a safe space. Something I've started doing is saying out loud "feel your feelings." Just the act of saying it, I'm giving myself permission to feel it. It can look like crying, punching the air, or, in one instance, screaming. I'm so glad the TH-cam algorithm pointed me to your channel.
My anger is a quiet disquietude. I mostly seethe in a silent anger. In some cases, my silence was the loudest scream. It would make some people change for the better. Other times, it was like expecting the other person to drink poison. People can make you mad because they are stubborn and stuck in their ways. Perfectionists and know-it-alls bother me, for example. There were many situations when I wanted to not repress my anger, but I stayed neutral or stoic. I thought it better to keep the peace, even when I wasn't at peace. I have rare moments when I speak my mind and exactly get to the point, making sure I'm understood and respected.
I always remind myself that people like that are not worth the heart attack. Surround yourself with people, places, and things that don't remind you of or give you anger.
Sometimes, you can't avoid people that make you angry. Remember, they don't dictate your day or happiness. You choose that for yourself.
Do your best, come home, and move forward.
Let them be right (even when they are wrong) and be happy.
I don't always re-wild myself, but I keep my younger days of flailing, running, and being goofy close to my heart. I also avoid toxic positivity.
Another way I express my anger is by turning it into something productive. My work speaks for itself and I'll never have to yell because of it.
TLDR: thank you for sharing, I really is appreciated 💛🙏🏾, you don’t have to read everything I wrote, I’m sorry it was so long 😭
Firstly, I just wanna say, I’m sorry you suffered like that as a kid. I can relate to many things you said, I too, was always concerned with being the anchor and feeling like I help the situation from getting out of control by not expressing my anger. I too, intellectualized what I was feeling, and I was constantly being overly considerate of others because I didn’t wanna feel like I’m a bad person.
But, I hate how that always left me so miserable inside. I was bullied as kid, I was abused as kid, I was sexually abused by my sister as kid, at first I thought it was ok as long as it was me who suffered, but I also noticed how easy of a target I was. What made me change tactics was seeing how vulnerable I made things that I cared about, and I also feared that I should never be with a girlfriend because I wasn’t able to protect her, and on top of it all, I have a very manipulative mother who exploits somebody who’s considerate of her.
So I decided to stop intellectualizing my feelings, I stopped wanting to be the anchor. I was sick and tired of being bullied, I didn’t like putting the things I cared about at risk, and I wanted to protect the girl that chose to have feelings for me. I got into a lot of trouble when I decided to be defiant, and funny enough, I’m somebody who felt unintimidating, even at 6’5”, but people started claiming I’m so scary and I should be ganged up on. But what I’m happy about most of all, is being able to regulate the emotions going on in my body, and knowing that I’m allowed to be cathartic in my music-listening sessions without feeling like I’m choosing to be angry at my music instead of people.
I’ve helped out a lot of other people, in a way that I didn’t expect, and I promote healthy circles around me, which makes me feel so proud, because nobody deserves to be bullied or put down or never be heard, we all matter equally.
These videos are so healing, Irene. Thank you for posting them! Everything you said in the breaking the cycle section was like taken straight out of my journals. Everything you said I have also said and its such a relief to see another beautiful, deep, capable, person who also thinks and feels like I do.
Thank you for this video! There is definitely a connection between the behaviorism that discriminates against dysregulation and the behaviorism autistic people endure. Especially with a housing crisis and more and more crises and disasters taking place daily and continually there’s both nowhere safe to be dysregulated (angry anxious etc) and more and more dysregulating us. Under the current systems of harm, that harm is exasperated by a culture that comparmentalizes dysregulation to specific spaces or times because someone will always lack access to them under the current systems of harm.
As an AuDHD social emotional educator, I would say we really need to be supported even when we experience dysregulation in any space while also interrupting harm and injustice. People need deescalation tools. Expressing anger and violence aren’t exactly synonymous though. I always start from a place of remembering any of us can be angry to the point we are violent, cause harm or abuse someone when our values conflict with those around us enough.
As someone with autism, I sometimes get angry whenever I argue with my dad who says mean things to me, blaming my mom, etc. I am trying to keep it under control by telling him not to start a fight, but it has become too much to the point where I just want to leave my parents house. I am trying to focus on the positives like my summer internship, my daily chores, and even writing in a gratitude journal to help me cope with the stress of life.
I am feeling so much clarity right in this second. I am so tired of internalizing other people’s anger and sadness. And being so repressed. I want out! At least I want to declare right now that I am done repressing myself in fa,ily situations and otherwise. In this moment of clarity I am no longer embarrassed or afraid to declare how mistreated and unsupported I have been. , without being afraid of people thinking that I am crazy or that there is something wrong with me. Because there is not anything wrong with me….. unless we are going to make a list of everything wrong with every single person on this planet. But I don’t think like that. N.
Never drive when emotional. It is more dangerous than being drunk.
Shit that's very worrying
I went to therapy when I was young, before I knew I was autistic and my therapist said that I should show my anger, because apparently I didn’t… oh well, now I’m THE ANGRY WOMAN😂
I am almost 45. Not dealing with my traumas and anger was coming out as dissociation. I even experienced a conversion episode. It was so scary. I recently had a breakthrough in therapy. I knew that I was only hurting myself by not expressing anger, but I did not feel that I was allowed to release anger. Anger is something I feel all over my body. It makes me sick to my stomach. Why would I want to feel that? Who cares if I am angry? Is it going to make a difference if I get angry? My answer was always no. I am actively trying to release my anger...even if it isn't always released in the best way. I need the practice. I have held in so much for 40-odd years. I am still learning.
Thank you for bringing up this topic! I can relate so so much. I wasn’t allowed to show anger during my childhood, it was always dismissed as irrelevant and „improper” emotion. Also 2nd thank you for the greatest possible follow up after my today’s discussion with the therapist ❤
i had a similar experience as you growing up, but i didn't develop this peacemaker mindset, i just detached myself from the situation entirely and stopped caring about my parents fights, that as a 6-7 yo child, so now it doesn't even has to be anger just whenever there's a situation that requires a emotional response from me my face goes blank and i can't even hear my thoughts or understand why i am supposed to react or why someone else is reacting so emotionally. the idea of expressing what i feel makes me so uncomfortable, i can only do it when i'm alone, and when i'm angry even if i release that in private i feel a sense of shame and embarassment afterwards, i think it's the emotion i'm most averse to and this video made me realize that. it doesn't really bother me to have a low response, but it's hard to have people close to me thinking i'm unable to feel anything or that i don't care, it damages my relationships, and i know i can learn to be more open but didn't know where to start, so thank you for talking about it, it's incredibly helpful for ppl out of tune with themselves. i really appreciate the work that goes into organizing(?) these thoughts, especially as it's not easy for yourself to put all that in a way that's understandable to us, ty so much
genuinely couldnt of got this video at the most perfect time. thank you so much for being so raw ❤
I wanted to share, in case this helps others. I’ve been painting for a couple of years and recently got this strong desire to express myself through illustrative journaling, mapping out some of these overlapping and conflicting parts and wounds. I started with original attachment wounding, walked through all sorts of complex and simple traumatic experiences, placing them on an accurate timeline and highlighting all the opportunities adults had to help me but simply didn’t. All the undiagnosed medical, education and employment, relational woes. The gaslighting and willful ignorance in society. Writing that story in a picture book format through the traumatism survival lens has been painful but helpful expressing some of the anger.
I’ve never related to another person’s experiences as much as I relate to yours. This is my biggest challenge in life as well. I’m a trans woman who went undiagnosed as AuDHD until 30 years old when I was *unofficially* diagnosed by my therapist who is herself diagnosed and focuses on social work for neurodivergent people. The combination of masking my emotions and natural self-expression both as an autistic person and a feminine person was extremely damaging in a way that will take me years to heal. I’m a year and a half into this process and it’s changing everything. I finally understand. And I continue to grow in understanding of what it all is and what it all means.
Whenever I get to the point of screaming and crying my head is always empty and quiet. It's peaceful and calm in my head but on the outside I'm a hurricane of emotions like everything that I was holding on to are released in the moment.
I relate so much. I learned at a very young age that anger was dangerous it hurts people so its not safe to express or even feel. Lots of violence in the home and lots of feeling like i had to tailor my emotional expression to be worthy of love. It can be so hard to tell what's the autism and what's the trauma and what's the trauma of unsupported autism. Honestly your videos where you're open to exploring things you may not fully have words to explain feel so relatable and i feel so seen seeing you process in a way that feels really familiar. That kind of vulnerability is probably very uncomfortable and I genuinely appreciate it.
Your realization about parenting actually made me see how I'm being so much kinder to my children by teaching them to safely express their feelings rather than supressing them, and i now have the very sad question of why don't i show that kindness to myself? Why do i see their anger as valid and worth expressing and not my own? Like I've separated their experience of anger as something different. Lots to think about.
okay i haven't watched the full vid yet but your hair looks so good lol thought i'd say that
I’m doing a project for my last year of design university, and I recently found out I’m likely audhd, and I’m likely alexithymic. I want my project to be a resource for autistic people with Alexithymia to express themselves other than verbally, but rather, visually. Communication doesn’t have to be verbal. This video came up at a very good time. I also grew up with a highly highly reactive and angry and passive aggressive and blaming mother. My household was so chaotic and disorganised and completely disregarding proper expression of emotion other than the manifestation of anger. My parents always invalidated my feelings, or ignored me, or yelled at me. This caused me to have immense hypervigellence, avoidance, numbness, anxiety, and suppression of emotions. I thought I had to have a tough skin to go through life, with the added difficulties of being audhd. This shit ruined my perception of myself and my connection with others. I want people to be able to express themselves freely. I’m in a relationship now and it’s so hard to allow myself to be angry because they are very sensitive as well, and I never ever want them to feel bad. I also feel the need to be calm and be a mediator and compensate. I downplay my own experience for the benefit of others. I hate how I get so overwhelmed when I’m stressed that I literally either break down or I go numb, amd I can never identify how I feel because I alway suppressed my emotions and people pleased. When I was younger I was a lot more expressive of my anger, but it was not good for me or others. I have control over it now, but I’m trying to do it in a more healthy way rather than repressing it. I’m learning to be more honest and get other people to understand how I feel when I’m triggered (which happens a lot). This video was very relatable, thank you for your content.
I resonate with this video so much. I have repressed my anger and trauma for reasons very similar to you and it has done me so much harm. I genuinely believe it’s the reason I have developed fibromyalgia at the age of 26.
I've always been a bottler and used to have isolated meltdowns at home that went largely ignored, but eventually bled outwards in adolescence; DBT taught me enough somatic emotional regulation to control my outbursts, which is supposed to be better for fostering and maintaining relationships, but I theorize that because interpersonal conflict has been such a key component of my emotional state for so long, I don't know how to feel anything without it, which is now getting in the way of connecting with others at all :) Yay!
Ugh. This is so true. This hurts me and kind of activates the anger in me too. I grew up with a covert narcissistic mother. This is something so real that I have to deal with and I’m slowly learning how to express it without imploding. I am half Chinese. And I am learning I believe in AuDHD. It sucks so bad.
This is your best video, EVER. Gonna have to rewatch a few times to make sure I absorb it all. Irene, THANK YOU. I use bo staff and contact staff to transmute my anger and other 'undesirable' emotions, but the advice you laid out in this video is really going to help me, I believe, focus in on the emotional transmutation as a priority in a really big way. Much Love.
Thank you for posting this. It was an emotional roller coaster, but worth every minute. I’m a semi-pro repressor. As I’ve started to figure out unmasking, I have to take it in pieces, because there is a lot of angry under the hood. Trying the keep peace has meant holding a lot of war…Again, thank you for posting. Here are a few things that I liked and learned from watching.
- The non-linear structure was easy to follow, and kept the video engaging (linear can be a little…predictable)
- I like that you are specifically non-specific in your recommendations. Teaching people how to work within themselves, rather than telling them what to do
- It confirmed many of the perspectives I was starting to believe (e.g. the importance of finding an expressive outlet)
- It provided hope that while things will never be perfect, they can continuously get better
- It provided words for things that I didn’t have yet (also, appreciate how you use the term rumination in a non-negative way)
Keep doing what you’re doing…it’s hard out here in these streets for a neurodivergent!
Admittedly, this is probably too long for a comment, but 🤷🏾♂️
Anger has been one of the few emotions that has been clear to me, but also something that has been damaging to me and others growing up, which is why I started supressing it somewhere during my teens. Only relatively easily have I been trying to get to know my emotions and deal with them. Anger has been the thing I have gotten scared of sometimes, especially I turned it inward and invoked it any time I was not able to motivate myself or felt shame or felt empty. The short term effects were helpful, as the burning anger drove me forward, but every time I did that I'd driven myself to utter exhaustion. As I'm trying to get in touch with my other emotions, I am still wary of anger
I grew up Autistic in rural Pennsylvania, and I can attest first-hand that it was not conductive to teaching emotional regulation. I was constantly monitored by "Autism Support Aides" whose response to me stimming was to yell at me loudly, and who kept me focused on schoolwork via constant loud prompting. When I got upset by this intrusive treatment (I had the distinct sense of being treated unfairly by the time I was in 3rd Grade), the teachers would start loudly yelling at me for getting upset and for "being disrespectful" (which was pretty much a catch-all term for any emotion that wasn't unconditional cheerfulness). I was often in positions where I was so powerless that the closest I could get to redressing grievances was to hold grudges against those who wronged me (often for years on end)- and my mom would frequently intimidate me into giving up grudges by lecturing about how "holding grudges is a Mortal Sin and people who hold grudges will never get into Heaven" (I'm Catholic BTW).
A year or so ago, I mentioned this in a now-defunct political subreddit as one of the reasons I was politically radicalized, and was genuinely surprised to see someone offering their condolences. I hadn't even realized just how fucked up my school environment was until I saw that comment, I had just thought that me being prone to grudges and wanting to exercise power over others were just Autism traits rather than possible trauma responses.