Aggressive ways of expressing feelings

Written by Renee Mill on February 22, 2012 - 0 Comments
Categories: Anger

Many people are unable to express their anger in a constructive manner. Instead they become aggressive in interesting ways:

The Sniper: Rather than come out and express their feelings about the object of their dissatisfaction, snipers will attack their friend’s/spouse’s behavior by making sarcastic comments. If their friends/spouses respond in a hurt fashion, snipers might say, “I was only kidding!” Their spouses/friends never know for sure what the problem is because snipers don’t share what is really bothering them and the relationship moves farther apart.
The Trapper: Trappers play an especially dirty trick by setting up a desired behavior of their friends/spouses, and then when it is met, attack the very thing they requested. An example of this technique is for trappers to say, “Let’s be totally honest with each other” and then when friends/spouses share their feelings, they find themselves attacked for having feelings that trappers do not want to accept.
The Kamikaze Fighter: The kamikaze fighter is not satisfied until both people in the relationship have gone up in flames. The end goal of kamikaze fighters is to “win” and they will do whatever it takes to be right.
The Human Freezer: Instead of expressing their anger honestly and directly, human freezers freeze their spouses/friends with silence or frosty replies. When they feel their spouses/friends have been punished enough, human freezers will start talking to them again in a normal fashion. This not only builds up greater resentments in their spouses/friends, but oftentimes the conflict is never resolved and is swept under the carpet.
The Gunnysacker: Gunnysackers do not respond immediately when they are angry. Instead, they put their resentment into their gunnysack, which after a while begins to bulge with large and small gripes. Then, when the sack is about to burst, gunnysackers pour out all their pent-up feelings on the overwhelmed and unsuspecting victim.
With thanks to http://www.sandf.org/articles/IDAnger.asp
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