And not only can anger help you conceal feelings of fear, inadequacy, and self-doubt by turning them into external conflict. It can also keep at bay states of depression, and emotional pain generally. Embarrassment, humiliation, guilt, and shame—as well as feelings of refusal, dismissal, and abandonment—can all be buried (however temporarily) beneath the self-righteously moralistic or “morally superior”) camouflage of anger. However weak you may feel deep inside, you can fool almost anyone, including yourself, into believing you’re strong if you can successfully obscure such vulnerability through the smokescreen of anger.
2020-04-28