The Nice Girl Syndrome (26 page)

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Although it may not actually be part of a life-or-death struggle, we often feel threatened by the behavior or remarks of others; in other words, we experience a threat to our emotional well-being. When someone hurts or insults us by saying something inappropri- ate, disrespectful, or vicious, we become righteously angry.

Our anger may also signal to us that we are not addressing an important emotional issue in our lives or in a relationship. It may be a message that our wants or needs are not being met, or it may warn us that we are giving too much or compromising too much of our values or beliefs in a relationship.

I am happy to report that as Carly became aware that there is indeed a difference between anger and hostility, and that expressing anger can actually be a positive and healthy thing, she allowed herself to own and express her anger more and more, a little at a time.

This is what she shared with me just before she terminated ther- apy: “I could have never imagined when I first came into therapy that I would ever feel like expressing anger could be a good thing. Anger was so negative to me—the only way I’d ever seen anyone express it was the way my mother had. Now I know that there are lots of positive ways to express it and that it actually feels good to do it. I feel so much more alive now that I can express my anger. I was like the walking dead before. Thank you so much for helping me come back to life.”

You, too, can “come back to life” if you tend to be numb from not expressing your feelings, including your feelings of anger. You, too, can change your mind about anger. And you, too, can learn healthy ways of expressing anger. The following remedies will help.

Remedies

I believe it is safe to say that every woman has been affected to some degree by negative cultural conditioning concerning anger. Various reasons are presented in literature for the repression of anger in women. These include:

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• The fear that the expression of anger will cause retaliation
  

• The fear that expressing anger will deny the nurturing aspect of women’s socialization or drive away the love and closeness women seek
  

• The fear that anger, in signaling that something is wrong, calls for the necessity of change
  

• The need to be seen as the “good woman” or the “nice lady” as opposed to being perceived as unfeminine or the “bitch”
  

Put a checkmark next to each reason that you feel might be affecting your ability to express your anger directly.

We often “inherit” the way we cope with anger and our beliefs about anger from our parents’ example, from their beliefs, and from the way they treated us. Some people, like Carly, fear repeating one or both of their parents’ ways of expressing anger to such an extent that it causes them to take on the opposite anger style. The follow- ing exercise will help you identify any patterns you may have estab- lished based on parental messages and your parents’ behavior.

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1. List the ways your mother and father dealt with their anger. Which of your parents do you feel handles anger the best?
   

2. List the messages you received from your family about expressing anger. For example, was it acceptable or unac- ceptable to confront someone when you were angry? Were you ever punished for expressing your anger? Were you ever rewarded for not expressing your anger?
   

3. Which of your parents do you most resemble when it comes to expressing your own anger? List the ways you are like this parent in terms of anger expression.
   

4. Which of your parents do you most resemble when it comes to dealing with other people’s anger? List the ways you are like this parent in terms of the way he or she reacted to anger.
   

This exercise may have unearthed some painful truths for you. As much as we try hard to be different from our parents, especially

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a parent who was explosive or abusive or who put up with the abuse of others, we often become more like that parent than we care to admit. If you have found this to be true, don’t be discouraged. Now that you are aware of the similarities, you can do something about it.

In my experience working with female clients, I have found that women tend to make certain predictable mistakes when it comes to anger. These are:

1. Crying when you are really angry
   

2. Telling yourself you don’t have a right to be angry
   

3. Telling yourself you aren’t really angry even though you know you are
   

4. Becoming an anger magnet—that is, attracting those who will act out your anger for you
   

5. Pretending to forgive someone when all the while you’re plotting ways to get back at him or her
   

6. Becoming withdrawn or distant from the person you are angry with
   

7. Taking the anger you feel at someone else out on yourself (by becoming self-critical or by blaming yourself)
   

8. Stuffing down your anger (by overeating, drinking too much, smoking cigarettes, taking drugs, shoplifting, becoming addicted to sex)
   

9. Taking the anger you have at one person out on someone else (becoming impatient with your children even though you are really angry with your husband)
   

10. Holding your anger in and then suddenly exploding in a rage and saying hurtful things to those around you
    

Put a checkmark beside each of the mistakes you personally make regarding anger.

As you will notice, most of the mistakes women make concern- ing their anger involve expressing their anger in passive rather than assertive or even aggressive ways (with the exception of number 10).

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Because the expression of anger has been socially unacceptable for women, they have learned to disguise or transform their anger into hurt, sadness and worry, attempts to control, or headaches, insom- nia, ulcers, back pain, and obesity. When women are under stress, anger is often turned into tears, hurt, self-doubt, silent submission, or nonproductive blaming; they often become distant or under- or overachieving.

When women do become angry, it is often accompanied by cry- ing, an expression of the impotence and powerlessness many of them feel when victimized by injustice. Tears also accompany anger when there is a power differential between a woman and the object of her anger, when action is denied because the forces that frustrate her are too powerful. Often misinterpreted as a sign of sorrow, crying is a signal of the righteousness of women’s anger along with the strength of the hurt.

Women make another mistake about anger: they confuse anger with blame. Many people, especially those with a passive anger style, believe that it is wrong to get angry. They think it is a sign of weak- ness or evidence of a less-than-evolved spirit. One of the reasons for this is that they confuse anger with blame. Whereas anger is a nat- ural, healthy emotion when ventilated properly, blame is a wasted and negative experience. As noted earlier, the difference between anger and blame is that blaming keeps us caught up in the problem, while releasing our anger constructively allows us to work through the problem.

Continually blaming others for what they have done to you keeps you stuck in the past. But when you release your anger in healthy ways (such as writing anger letters that you do not send) toward those who have hurt or damaged you, you are able to step out of blame and let go of the past.

It is very likely that the main reason you do not allow yourself to be angry is that you are afraid of anger. To begin to overcome this fear, it is important to understand the specific reasons for it. These can include any or all of the following:

• The fear of retaliation.
  If you were punished when you were a child every time you got angry, if you were emotionally or
  

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physically abused as a child or were a witness to abuse, or if you have been the victim of emotional or physical abuse as an adult, it makes sense that you would have this fear. As one client told me, “I remember standing up to my dad one time when I was a kid. It was the first and last time I ever did that. He slapped me across the face so hard that I went flying across the room. I learned my lesson. I never stood up to him again, or to anyone else for that matter.”

• The fear of rejection.
  This is also a very real fear if you experi- enced rejection when you stood up for yourself. My client Janette told me about her experience with this: “My mother would stop talking to me whenever I got angry with her as a child. Sometimes she wouldn’t talk to me for days until I finally apologized to her. Because of that experience, I am always afraid someone will reject me completely if I let them know I’m angry.”
  

• The fear of hurting another person.
  My client Annie told me about her fear of hurting others: “When I first got married, I used to try to tell my husband when I was unhappy about something he’d done. But he said that if I loved him I should accept him as he was and that it upset him too much when I became angry. What he said made sense, and I didn’t want him to feel so bad, so I stopped telling him when I was angry or when I didn’t like something he did.” This fear can be espe- cially powerful if you have, in fact, hurt someone in the past when you were angry. This is what Carmen shared with me: “When I was growing up, I had a bad temper. I used to yell and scream and throw things when I got mad. One day I got so mad at my younger brother that I threw a plate of food at him. The plate hit him in the head and cut it open. He had to be taken to the hospital for stitches. Since that time, I’ve never gotten angry again.”
  

• The fear of becoming like those who abused you.
  If you were emo- tionally, physically, or sexually abused as a child, your primary reason for not expressing your anger is probably your fear that you will become an abuser yourself, or at the very least that you will lose control of yourself and act in ways that you would find unacceptable. This is a genuine concern, since many who
  

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were abused do become abusive themselves. But if you fear continuing the cycle of abuse, there is even more reason for you to begin to communicate openly about your angry feel- ings. If you continue to hold in your anger, it is likely that you may one day explode in a rage. It is also likely that you may already be taking your anger out on your loved ones (for example, by belittling or berating, punishing in silence, or having unreasonable expectations). Your old, repressed anger toward those who mistreated you needs to be released in con- structive ways, and your current anger needs to be expressed openly. Then, and only then, can you ensure that you will not become like those who abused you.

• The fear of losing control.
  It may seem to you that expressing or communicating your anger is a form of losing control. You may be afraid that once you begin to express your anger, you will go crazy and hurt others or yourself. Ironically, it is often the person who represses his or her anger who is most likely to become destructive or to have rage erupt in inappropriate ways, at inappropriate times. You will not go crazy if you allow yourself to feel and express your anger. If you learn to consis- tently allow yourself to express your anger instead of holding it in, you will find that you will actually feel
  more in control
  of your emotions and yourself, instead of less.
  

• The fear of becoming irrational or making a fool of yourself.
  Far from making you irrational, becoming angry can often cause you to think and see things more clearly. It can also empower you to make needed changes in your life. This is especially true if you don’t allow your anger to build up to the point where you lose it and begin to yell, act irrationally, or lash out at someone.
  

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1. Make a list of the reasons you are afraid of your anger.
   

2. Write and complete this sentence: “I don’t want to express my anger because .” Don’t think about your answers beforehand, just write. Continue completing this sentence for as long as you have responses.
   

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Sometimes people deny their anger because if they were to acknowl- edge it, they would also feel the separation that comes with anger. Anger separates people—it creates a distance between people. Those who deny their anger are often enmeshed with the people in their lives—their parents, their spouse, their children. Enmeshment is an unhealthy connection with someone, indicating overinvolvement, a loss of self, or an inability to emotionally separate from the per- son. Young children often deny their anger toward their parents because they don’t want to feel separate from them. This is normal and healthy. But as we mature, we need to feel separate from our parents to develop an individualized sense of self. This is why it is typical and healthy for adolescents to frequently feel angry with their parents. It is part of what is referred to as the individuation process.