Anger is a feeling of annoyance or hostility towards someone or something that you believe has done you wrong in some way. People feel anger when there has been injustice. It is data that tells us that we or someone we love has been or could be harmed.

In your body, you’ll know you feel angry because your muscles are tightened, your eyes feel hot and you might feel like you are going to cry. Some people feel their stomach drop. Other people feel tightness or pain in their chest as their heart starts to race. Most people feel hot and can feel their face flush.

You can also tell that you are feeling anger by your thoughts. In your thoughts, you’ll start to build a case. Building a case is like being an attorney before the court, thinking through all the things you’ve done right and the other person has done wrong. Your thoughts might become ruminative and focused on the past. They might be mixed with worry about what will happen in the future. You may find yourself playing the situation over and over again in your discussions with others or in your mind. You’re looking for evidence for your case, that you are right.

You might also find that your anger mixes with other feelings like anxiety or despair. In that case, you might think, This is so unfair. Why does this happen to me and not other people? What will this mean for my future? Will things always be like this? The anger is all the thoughts associated with why the situation is unfair. The questioning about why this has happened is a question of despair and the fears about the future are anxiety.

You can tell that you’re feeling angry by your behavioral urges. Your muscles tighten and you may have the urge to physically fight. If not physically fight, you may have the urge to yell at someone, pick a verbal fight, or gossip about the situation. If you can’t direct your anger at anything outside of yourself, you might have the urge to hurt yourself in some way, for instance through self-harm or emotion-driven eating or drinking.

All of these behaviors are emotion-driven behaviors in the sense that they are behaviors that occur in the context of a strong, uncomfortable emotion with the intention of reducing the feeling. Unfortunately, most emotion-driven behaviors escalate the feeling of anger.

When you’re thinking about your relationship with anger, consider four different types. First you might be chronically triggered by similar situations to which other people might respond to different. Second, you may become irritable in the context of a mood disorder, where some situations make you feel more irritable because of your mood changes, but you otherwise don’t usually feel irritable about it. Third you might be chronically triggered by a societal injustice that specifically impacts you and that others recognize as wrong. Finally, you might rarely feel anger at all.

All of these types of anger are great to discuss in psychotherapy. For the first two types of anger, psychotherapy will focus on understanding your triggers and responding with alternative action. Psychotherapy for the third type of anger will focus on problem-solving and being assertive to the extent that you can be based on your situation. If you rarely feel anger, but feel a lot of anxiety, psychotherapy can also help you explore if there are parts of you that feel angry and experience it as anxiety.

Anger is data and can be a healthy reaction to injustice. Understanding your anger triggers and learning to respond in alignment with your values can help you feel in control when you feel angry.

One of my favorite groups was one that focused on loneliness. I asked the group to describe their greatest sources of loneliness and how they cope with it. Given that it was during the pandemic, I had assumed that most members were going to describe similar processes. In reality, there was a diversity of answers. Most members agreed that isolation during the pandemic made loneliness more frequent than it had been before. The similarities stopped there. Some members indicated that the experience of mental illness made them feel othered and lonely, especially when they experienced their symptoms. Others explained that experiences of stigmatization or discrimination created their loneliness. Many shared that surviving trauma made them feel really lonely and their trauma triggers continue to create loneliness to this day. Despite the variation in experience, everyone seemed to feel closer to everyone else, and less lonely, after sharing.

Loneliness is the feeling you experience when you believe that you are disconnected from others. Talking about loneliness and learning that the antecedents of loneliness are very different, but knowing that the experience is the same is very helpful. The variation of antecedents matters because it shows that loneliness is an interpretation, rather than a truth. If that makes you lonely, but not me, then this that makes me lonely might not make the feeling of loneliness meaningful. The feeling of loneliness might not mean that I’m actually disconnected.

Toddlers seek to explore their worlds, but also in the presence of their mother or other important caregiver. The toddler will crawl away and discover a new toy, but also look back and see if their mother is still paying attention. An attuned parent can mirror the delight of the new toy, helping the child feel pleasure and accept that pleasure as theirs. This is the beginning of the process of individuation. Ideally, as a toddler, you were able to focus your attention on play, while feeling securely attached to the adults that loved you. You had solitude, but not loneliness. Children who don’t feel securely attached, as a result of a mis-attuned parent, will become either preoccupied with what the parent thinks of them or isolated and dejected. This happens in very subtle ways in early childhood and then continues on into childhood and adolescence. In addition to biological vulnerabilities, after decades of moments of attunement or mis-attunement, you can either come to be anxious in the presence of others or depressed in the presence of others or both.

Loneliness is the painful feeling of being alone and usually othered in some way. We all have a need and a longing to belong, to feel securely attached to the people we love. In early childhood, it was a matter of life or death to be taken care of and attached to the caregivers around us.

The social vulnerability to the experience of loneliness starts in early childhood, as you see yourself as either being good enough for those around you or you start to experience yourself as not good enough. During adolescence, teenagers navigate their way through intimacy or isolation and it is at this time, that you are either able to connect with friends and romantic partners in a vulnerable and intimate way or you experience isolation, either physically, emotionally, or both. We have needs for intimacy throughout our adult lives and the seeds of loneliness are planted while we navigate this developmental stage in adolescence.

Many people experience shame, doubt and uncertainty, and guilt, especially in response to an internal trigger.

Here’s some helpful self-talk for an internal trigger:

Shame self-talk: It’s okay that I am having this experience. I didn’t ask for it or I don’t deserve suffering. I am stuck in a cognitive behavioral loop and it is challenging to relate to it. Having this experience doesn’t mean that I’m broken in some way. Humans have intrusive thoughts and uncomfortable feelings and I am having a human experience. In the presence of shame, I’m going to offer myself compassion.

Doubt and uncertainty self-talk: I’m choosing to take a leap of faith and act as though this is OCD or anxiety. This means that the doubt and uncertainty I feel is not an indication of a problem to solve, but rather a feeling I’m experiencing. I can move forward in accordance with my values in the presence of this feeling.

Guilt self-talk: I may have gotten tricked and started to engage in compulsions and avoidances in response to my doubt and uncertainty. My guilt either is signaling that I have acted in a way that was not in accordance with my values or it is excessive. Rather than self-criticism in the presence of my guilt, I can bring up an attitude of curiosity and see what I can learn here. Have I done something against my values? What are my options for how else I can respond in the future? If I was just having a thought, can I allow this feeling of guilt to be in my body without doing anything in response?

Some CBT providers might consider these forms of self-talk as reassurances from me or self-reassurance. Indeed anything, including exposure practice, can become an avoidance strategy. Most people say that preparing them with self-talk helps them remember what to do when they get anxious. I typically look for the function of the intervention. If the intervention facilitates willing acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and sensations in the present moment, then it is not a compulsion. Helpful self-talk orients you towards acceptance. Unhelpful self-talk facilitates avoidance. If you can’t tell whether you are facilitating acceptance or avoidance, ask yourself whether it helps you accept your present experience or reinforces your avoidance.

You may wonder whether your emotions are disproportionate to your circumstance. Let’s rephrase the question.

You’re asking about coping. Why I am feeling this way? and Is this the right way to feel? is an attempt to understand, analyze, and fix the unpleasant state you are in. It seems that if you could just have the right feelings at the right time, then you wouldn’t suffer so much. I get it. I don’t want you to suffer either. The problem with Why am I feeling this way? and Is this the right way to feel? is that they are judgmental questions. When you judge an internal experience, your mind experiences it as an issue and then gives you other thoughts and feelings to cope with it. You are vulnerable to getting all tangled up in thoughts and feelings. Questions like What is happening that is causing my feelings to escalate? and How can I relate to my feelings more effectively? can help you understand and cope better, which is what you ultimately want.

Let’s talk more about how entanglement with thoughts and feelings causes escalation and how to observe what you feel instead.

When feelings escalate

You might be wondering about this because your feelings often escalate and you get feedback from others that your feelings are disproportionate to the circumstance.

If you have sadness and you are sensitive to sadness, you will feel it intensely.

If you have anger and you are sensitive to anger, you will feel it intensely.

If you have uncertainty and you are sensitive to uncertainty, you will feel it intensely.

Same for guilt, shame, loneliness, disgust, fear and all other feelings.

It's okay to have intense feelings. Having an intense feeling doesn’t mean that it will escalate. If you label it and give space for it, all feelings will peak and pass. We can’t really see or judge the intensity of other people’s feelings when they are just feelings without any observable behavior added to it. For instance, there might be something that brings us both joy. You might smile and I might smile, but we can’t tell who has more joy and whether that joy is disproportionate to the circumstance. The amount of joy we feel has more to do with our sensitivity to and interpretation of that feeling than the trigger of the joy itself.

When your unpleasant feeling escalates from a feeling to a behavior like irritability, crying, yelling, or a stuck mood, you are likely adding an interpretation to that first feeling. Your interpretation is causing the cognitive and behavioral escalation.

Common problematic interpretations of feelings are:

I shouldn’t feel this…

This feeling means I’m weak.

I’ve worked so hard to prevent this feeling that having it again means I’ve done something wrong.

This isn’t the right feeling to have in this situation.

I can’t feel this…

This feeling overwhelms me.

I can’t meet my obligations as long as I feel this.

This feeling will last forever and I can’t tolerate that.

I don’t want to feel this…

I can’t stand the suffering this is creating.

I shouldn’t have to feel this and it is unfair that this is happening.

I don’t know what I feel..

That’s it… I don’t know what’s happening but it seems like a problem.

Shift Why is this happening? to What is happening?

What is happening? is a curious question, rather than a judgmental one. When you observe what is happening, you’ll see that there was a trigger, a thought, a sensation, a feeling, an interpretation of those thoughts and feelings, and then perhaps an urge to act. As you observe, you’re trying to identify your first feeling. If you can get in touch with the first feeling, stay with it without adding judgment, and give it space, it will dissipate. It’s easier said than done. You’ll have to work with and challenge all of the interpretations listed above and some of those are deeply held beliefs for some people.

If your feelings often escalate, show yourself compassion first. Your suffering is real. Try to identify your first feeling. Oftentimes it’s easier to stop resisting a feeling than it is to accept it. Try to identify the interpretation that leads it to escalate and challenge that interpretation.

Living with an anxiety or mood disorder or OCD can feel like a lonely journey, but it often influences your relationships with your loved one too. The people you love, and the quality and quantity of those relationships, can be influenced by anxiety, mood, and OCD symptoms in a number of ways. Here are a few common ways that emotional disorders influence relationships.

Avoidance Whether your non-social symptoms (for instance, agoraphobia) cause you to avoid in a way that decreases your chance at social relationships or your social anxiety triggers avoidance, avoidance prevents relationships from starting and makes it difficult to maintain fulfilling relationships. Untreated symptoms in your past may have also made it difficult to make and maintain relationships now. You might not have as many relationships as you long for.

People-pleasing / reassurance seeking Social anxiety or social OCD can compel you to attempt to predict what others are expecting of you and strive to meet those expectations. It's an effort to alleviate the anxiety associated with disappointing others or not being liked, rather than a behavior that you value. Reassurance seeking is also an OCD behavior that can be associated with any content area and have an impact socially. You may feel very anxious in your relationships unless you're acting how you think is expected of you or you're getting reassurance.

Difficulty being assertive Depression will tell you that you are worthless and helpless and hopeless about doing anything about it. Depression will make you believe that you don't deserve what you need or want. It will make you feel helpless and hopeless about doing anything to get what you need and want. It takes a lot of strategy to recognize what's happening and assert your needs anyway. You may feel submissive and resentful of your loved ones while you're becoming more assertive.

Difficulty letting go of control OCD will tell you that all uncertainty is intolerable and that to be happy, life should be controlled as much as possible. The consequence of attempting to avoid uncertainty through control often becomes difficulty with flexibility, adapting based on the needs of the moment. Loved ones often notice and feel frustrated by the need for control.

These are some, but there are many ways that emotional disorders impact relationships.