[mahreenferdous]

I'm have recently realized that I'm some what emotionally repressed and feel that it is effecting my relationships. In particular I sometimes find it really hard to get angry. I'll get very very sad and feel guilt and shame but not really feel angry. Part of this I think is due to my parents. My parents never fought in front of us or ever I dont' think. I've never seen people screaming and shouting or anything of that sort. Now I'm not necessarily saying its a bad thing that that happened but now I feel like I cannot express anger properly. My parents way of dealing with anger was usually humour, mockery, silence, sarcasm and coldness. The problem is now I see that I behave like that too. With being repressive as well, what tends to happen is that I'll not react to something at the time that it happens but those emotions will come out randomly at other times. Also, seeing how my parents behave I've come to see fighting of any sort as a bad thing. I have friends who have been telling me that it's okay to fight and realize that it's just a way to express ourselves and once you're done fighting you'll go back to a new equilibrium. Is that true?

With regards to anger as well, for example once a phone company was ripping me off charging me while I had no service. I called up and asked not to be charged etc. I couldn't get angry with the guy on the phone, simply because I know it's not his fault, all I did was got sad. I got what I wanted from them though without the anger. The thing is anger is supposed to be a higher level of consciousness than sadness so it feels like I'm unneccessarily pulling myself down too low.

What can I do to be more expressive at the time something happens and also find a healthy way of expressing anger