“When I’m really mad at others, I sometimes take it out on myself.” “I get just as mad at myself as I do at other people.” “I just hate my guts.” Anger turned inward means taking the feeling of anger, and behaving in a way that turns that anger on ourselves. The results are that we hurt ourselves, sometimes knowingly but often without thinking much about it. Although anger is a feeling, it can lead us to angry behaviors such as blaming, ignoring, shaming, criticizing, attacking, condemning, abandoning, and physically harming its target. What happens when we target ourselves for these kinds of punishments? We often hear people say they are frustrated, angry, even furious with themselves. Some people get as angry with themselves as they do with others in their lives. But many say they are angry only with themselves. There are also those who refuse to admit any anger whatever, but treat themselves like yesterday’s trash. They are angry and disgusted that they are here in this world, feeling inadequate and paralyzed, they try to justify the fact that they exist, and often feel like failures.

It is when we turn our anger inward often, with too much energy, calling ourselves names and feeling angry with ourselves for whatever we do, that our anger becomes a problem—for us and usually for those who love us, as well.

Inappropriate anger turned inward

Anger Turned Inward Quiz

• _ I don’t like to hurt anybody’s feelings.
• _ Other people might get mad, but I don’t.
• _ It’s hard for me to really care about myself.
• _ Sometimes I might act a little unhappy if I feel angry.
• _ I tell myself I shouldn’t get angry even if somebody else would.
• _ When I say somebody makes me sick, I mean it literally. I just can’t let go of the stress.
• _ All I really want is peace with no conflict.
• _ Even when I’m angry with someone, I feel like I should make sure they are doing okay.
• _ I get mad at myself for things I would comfort others about.
• _ Other people don’t know I wear a mask, because I am so good at it.
• _ Usually I just keep all my feelings to myself.
• _ I feel guilty when I feel angry or resentful.
• _ I am ashamed of myself when I get angry. I should be better than that.
• _ I’m too busy to take care of myself, even if I know I should.
• _ I’m always doing things wrong.
• _ I have an addictive behavior I use when I’m angry. It makes me feel better at the moment, but later I feel worse.
• _ I tend to have accidents when I get angry, like hammering my finger.
• _ Some days I get so angry that I would like to hurt myself.
• _ If I hurt myself, maybe other people won’t hurt me.
• _ It’s hard for me to care about myself.
• _ I don’t care what I do, just so long as I don’t hurt anybody else.

Put a checkmark next to the statements that apply to you. Count them. If you have three or more items checked, look at how you can change to treat yourself better. If you have six or more checkmarks, it’s likely that you have some anger-turned-inward habits that affect your life negatively. If you have eight or more checkmarks, you definitely have some anger-turned-inward habits to change. Changing a few things could make you feel a lot better about your life.

You may say to yourself, “so I’m turning my anger on myself? Why?”

Most of us hide our anger from ourselves because we don’t want to look at ourselves. For example, if Don sees he’s really angry with his friend Tim for giving so many orders and he says he doesn’t like that to Tim, Don might rock the boat. If Tim got upset with Don for speaking up, who would Don have to hang around with then? Maybe Don also thinks he has no right to get angry with someone else. Back when he was a kid, he learned that if anything goes wrong, he’ll be to blame. No matter what goes wrong, it’ll be his fault. So why would he want to bring up something Tim will just get mad about. Better to keep it in, even if he does get a headache.

Some of us are like Sherry, who thinks that being angry with anyone else equals being mean and hurting them. She’s been hurt by angry people herself. Forget it. She just won’t do that to anyone else. Inside, though, she sits in judgment of herself—and nothing is right! So she yells at herself a lot and doesn’t eat and exercises way too much. She is just furious she can’t make herself perfect.

Maybe people who are angry with themselves have learned from a relative that getting angry at others means “losing control,” or that “only dogs get mad.” They may even have seen people who were openly angry described as “crazy” and “irrational.” We believe that people who turn their anger on themselves have often been taught that being angry with someone else is morally bad.

Many have learned that to protest what seems unfair by “talking back” is just “looking for trouble.” And if they go looking for trouble, they fear they’ll find plenty of punishment. Not wanting others to be angry with them, or to punish them, sometimes they punish themselves, just to show that no one else has to. In addition, moral self-righteousness, self-attack, rage and abuse, and vulnerability have played their part in many people’s lives so that they learn one or more of the following beliefs:

1. I am a morally better person if I turn my anger on myself rather than becoming angry with others.
2. We often have been taught as children that we have no right to protest things that others do and say. We have been told that this is rude, ungrateful, wrong, disloyal, insulting, or irrational. So we learned to either suppress our anger or to attack ourselves for any feelings of anger we have. We have learned not to be inappropriate, and we try to avoid being punished by others.
3. We might have learned that when we object or disagree with something, we will be called names, hit, slapped, or that love will be withdrawn from us. It is safer to be angry with ourselves. We would rather target ourselves than be targets for others.
4. We’ve learned that expressing anger may change the relationship with another person. We don’t want to disrupt the relationship because then we don’t know what will happen. We feel vulnerable. We worry what the result will be. Rather than risk changing anything in the relationship, we have decided just to turn the anger on ourselves, or stuff it.
5. Like children, we may think that if we have done something wrong and we punish ourselves, then the world (or parent) won’t punish us as much. If we punish ourselves, we have the sense that we are more in control of what happens.
6. We often feel shameful and unacceptable. Because we do, we turn our anger against ourselves in self-hatred, in the belief that we must somehow justify our continued existence. We feel defective, and we are angry at ourselves for being that way.

This is a painful list of reasons for becoming angry with ourselves and hurting ourselves. But notice that a lot of things on this list are things we can choose not to believe and have not believed or acted on consciously because we were hurt by others. At times, we even feel too responsible to hurt anyone because we have gone through these feelings. It’s no wonder that we are angry. Perhaps we are not so much at fault after all. Maybe what we’ve learned to think and believe is what’s wrong. We will discuss the ways we can change shortly. First, let’s take a look and see what others see from the outside, when we are very angry with ourselves.

excerpt from Letting Go of Anger: The Eleven Most Common Anger Styles and What to Do About Them by Ronald Potter-Efron MSW, Ph.D., Patricia S. Potter-Efron MS