When self-directed anger turns into excessive, your psychological well being and general well-being might endure. It might encourage you to have interaction in detrimental self-talk that reinforces your detrimental emotions, which might result in a vicious cycle of self-blame and self-criticism that may be troublesome to interrupt.
“Experiencing excessive self-directed anger can result in emotions of low self-worth and self-doubt,” says Grace. “This may have an effect on a person’s confidence and talent to pursue their objectives and aspirations. Excessive self-directed anger can contribute to the event of despair and nervousness. It may be difficult to handle these feelings with out skilled assist.”
It’s additionally attainable for excessive self-directed anger to result in self-harming behaviours similar to reducing, burning or hitting oneself. Grace explains that whereas these behaviours could briefly relieve emotional ache, they will trigger bodily hurt and long-term emotional misery. In some cases, self-directed anger might contribute to addictive behaviour, the place people could flip to addictive substances similar to alcohol and medicines, or different addictive behaviours similar to playing or binge-eating, as a strategy to numb or escape from their emotional ache.
“After we are extraordinarily indignant with ourselves, we could make impulsive selections or have interaction in dangerous behaviours. This may result in detrimental penalties that additional reinforce our detrimental emotions,” says Grace.
There are, nonetheless, sure conditions the place being indignant at your self could possibly be good for you. For instance, it could possibly be a motivator for self-change because it might cost you to take motion.
“An empirical examine on self-anger noticed that it has larger coping potential than guilt and disgrace, enabling extra confidence about their self-efficacy to vary downside areas inside themselves when experiencing self-anger,” Grace reveals. “Self-anger was additionally correlated with support-seeking behaviours, the place self-angry brokers create constructive situations for self-improvement by enlisting care and encouragement from their networks, whereas brokers who’re feeling guilt and disgrace don’t search such supportive networks. One can higher harness the emotion of self-anger over guilt and disgrace to capitalise on its motivational powers to create self-change.”
Grace additionally mentions that some individuals could possibly be extra vulnerable to self-directed anger than others. For instance, these with perfectionistic tendencies maintain themselves to impossibly excessive requirements and turn into indignant once they fall in need of these expectations. Additionally, people who’ve low vanity could also be extra more likely to direct their anger inward as a result of they could not really feel worthy of affection or respect from others. And individuals who wrestle with guilt or disgrace could expertise self-directed anger as a strategy to punish themselves for previous errors or perceived failures.
Individuals with sure character issues, similar to borderline character dysfunction or narcissistic character dysfunction, could contribute to self-directed anger as a result of difficulties with regulating feelings or a distorted sense of self. And those that have skilled traumatic occasions similar to abuse, neglect or violence could wrestle with self-directed anger as a way to deal with their feelings and recollections.
Supply: Her World
