WHAT ARE ANGER AND IRRITABILITY?

Of course people can be angry and irritable for a variety of reasons, but these emotions are often a part of depression. Again, let’s describe the symptoms in our four groups:

A- Emotional: angry, furious, irritable, tense,wound up,’having a short fuse’.

B-Cognitive: you may be preoccupied with seeing yourself as having been badly or unfairly treated or about wider injustice. You may be angry about big things , such as the abuse and cruelty that we see in the world, or about small things : your partner should not leave their coffee cup for you to wash up; your children should not leave their toys all over the house; that driver should not have cut you up on the roundabout. The angry thoughts may be worse if you feel the unfair behaviour shows that people are disrespecting you.

C- Physical: you may be aware of churning feelings in your stomach, feelings of heat in your body, tense and painful muscles , tears of rage . People sometimes talk about a ‘red mist’ coming over them.

D- Behavioural: at milder levels of anger and irritability you may be snapping at people around you , telling them off, or cutting them off and ignoring them. It can mean banging doors and slamming things around. More seriously, though, people can become violent to those close to them, or cause fights and accidents outside the home. Anger and irritability can cause problems with relationships, particularly if families or work colleagues are not aware that it is a result of depression.

If these symptoms ring a bell , especially if you are afraid that you cannot control your anger and may cause harm to someone else, then it would be good to go and walk to your doctor .