Joe describes anger repression as “kinking the hose” — the energy of anger is always there, but it gets twisted into different shapes depending on how it was suppressed. If the hose kinks one way, anger turns inward as self-abusive talk. Kinked another way, it comes out sideways as passive aggression — being late, subtle undermining, guilting others, or being sad “at” someone. Kinked a third way, it explodes outward as dysregulated rage directed at people.
All three are forms of repression. Even explosive anger at someone is not clean anger — it’s anger that has been compressed through a story until it shoots out like a “sharp water cannon.” The symptoms span depression, difficulty feeling determination, codependence, freezing in your head, and the propensity to blame others for your emotional experience.
“If I think about anger as like a tube or a wire and it’s like is that wire open or is that wire constricted — if it’s twisted one way it’s like I’m not angry, I’m not angry, and if it’s twisted another way it’s like nice dress, and if it’s twisted another way it’s like [expletive].”
The person doing the passive aggression feels stuck and oppressed — they rarely see that they’re doing it. And in relationships, one partner’s form of repression makes the other feel trapped: the exploder feels abandoned when the freezer retreats, and the freezer feels attacked when the exploder erupts. Both are angry, but nobody’s letting anger flow cleanly.
Related Concepts
- Passive aggression is unowned aggression
- Suppressing anger kills your fire
- Exhaustion is unexpressed anger
- Anger unresisted is determination
- Repressed anger kinks into depression, self-criticism, and rage
- Anger repression gets installed through three childhood pathways
- Moving anger is the fastest way out of stuckness
- Unresisted anger is love expressing a clear boundary