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Lori Kandels

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October 6, 2023 by Lori Kandels

Anger is Not Abuse

Anger and abuse are different things.

Anger is a statement of dignity and indignation. It’s a way of saying, “This is not alright with me”. It is intended to assert control over oneself and one’s circumstances.

Abuse is the willful* diminishment of another person.  It comes from a place of fear, and it is intended to assert power and control over another person.

For a person who has experienced abuse, the two can be conflated. While working through the traumas of the past, they may worry that their own anger is, or will become, abusive. But feeling angry about being abused is different. It’s an assertion of dignity and self-determination.

Depression can take advantage of this conflation between anger and abuse and act as an oppressive force against any expression of strong emotion, including anger. The way out of depression is through connecting with that anger, or in other words, that expression of dignity and self-definition.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that others will like what you have to say when you express anger. But it doesn’t mean that you are being abusive. (Stay tuned for another post on non-violent communication.)
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*Did you know that abuse is always a choice? I worked in a program that did research on domestic violence and they found that 100% of the time, abusers decided to abuse. The good news about that fact is that if you can decide to abuse, you can also decide not to.

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Lori Kandels, MFT, MBA

(415) 633-6763
lori@lorikandelsmft.com
3882 24th Street
San Francisco, CA 94114

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