Depression as Anger

When people talk about depression and anxiety there seems to be one specific image that comes to mind. That image of depression is of someone who is sad and exhibits that by crying, looking downtrodden, forlorn gazes, and just overall a melancholy countenance. The anxiety image is one of someone who fidgets, bounces, bites their nails, picks their skin, or gazes off into space. Those are the images that we see play out in movies, tv shows, and on pharmaceutical advertisements. But if we really look deeper into both depression and anxiety, we will see something else at play, something that is not talked about hardly at all and is not touched on when one first goes to seek help for these things. 

The thing that comes up with both depression and anxiety is the emotion of anger. Yes, you read that correctly, anger. No one talks about this side of the issues because it can appear scary and even more uncontrolled than the sadness and fidgeting. Anger is something that bubbles up from deep within a person and expresses itself in a variety of manners. When one thinks of anger, they usually automatically have an image of a person who scream, berates, belittles, or physically harms themself or another. That is the easy definition of anger and the one that is most often presented around us. 

Anger from depression and anxiety can present just as we know it in its easiest form. But a lot of times anger from the depression and anxiety presents differently. It presents as a doubting seed that grows with each passing moment of time. It infuriates us at our core and we don’t necessarily act on it, it just festers below the surface. We don’t act on it because there is a realization that acting on it would do no good and it would just cause us more anxiety and depression which would cause a never-ending cycle that we can’t mitigate. 

For me my anger comes out at various times, I get snippy with my loved ones, I don’t ever actually blow up and create a moment but it is there simmering beneath the surface. My anger comes out as self-hate, where I talk horribly to myself and tell myself how much I have never amounted to anything and I never will. My anger comes out in how I brush my teeth and hair, I get extra aggressive and frustrated with how I appear. My anger comes with a random hatred for things that should have no hate attached to them. For example, there should not be hatred directed toward a cup of hot chocolate but yet it’s there. My anger comes out as self-doubt and questioning my very existence. 

All my anger leads to more anxiety and depression, which manifests in the typical ways along with more anger. So here I sit in a cycle of anxiety and depression manifesting as anger and then perpetuating itself in the manner in which we are all familiar. I have this anxiety and depressive anger because I have been over six months without my mood stabilizing medications thanks to one of my autoimmune illnesses and it wreaking havoc on my body. I say all this to say, that you never know what someone is dealing with and you never know how someone’s depression and anxiety is going to present. So, if someone is unusually snippy with you, you see someone is really hating on themselves and their life, or if someone just seems off, it might just be their depression and anxiety rearing its ugly head. So, if you are around me, please bear with me and be patient as I navigate this new world of depression and anxiety induced anger. I will be getting back on my medications very soon and I am so looking forward to that day but until then I am extending grace to myself and others as we battle this monster. Please reach out to someone if you need help, I am always here if there is any way that I can help and be of service. Give yourself and those around you the dignity of peace and understanding.