Monday, September 1, 2008

Anger and Frustration, the difference

If you're angry, does it automatically mean that you're also frustrated? Are they respective products of each other? If they are, which comes first? Do they have different solutions or methods of release?

I won't be answering this in a psychological or scientific perspective. I have no heavy credentials to support any claim in the complicated field of human emotions. I only have experiences, observations and questions. I'm not even emotionally inclined to begin with. But might as well give it a try lest I be frustrated.

As I have observed there are two things that really set anger and frustration apart for me. When I'm angry, I become deadly silent, sometimes irrational, but always on strategic mode. My mental activity seem to increase exponentially. I think of possible solutions or sometimes think of how to turn the tables around. In anger, I usually tend to get even. I may be kind, but when pushed, I'm never the one who's going to be the martyr. Anger makes me creative. Anger makes me "masculine." And usually anger for me is triggered by some isolated incident or a single act of a person that might have inflicted something negative in me. It's a natural human reaction to offense.

However frustration may be connected or fueled by anger, but it occurs after unfortunate series. When I'm frustrated, I would know because I would sulk and become helpless. Frustration triggers that I have been blocked to solve something or get even. I'm not creative when I'm frustrated. I get stubborn. I get weak and I get too feminine. In frustration, I tend to cry as a sign of helplessness over something or someone that cannot be controlled or changed no matter how I try. Frustration is deep and beyond any manipulation. Frustration is created by negative series of events that releasing initial Anger could not solve. Personally, this has more depth and psychological roots. This imposes more danger to a person by being detached and by losing faith entirely.

In Anger, it comes and goes powerfully. It's readily identified and released.

But Frustration is a different thing. It invests on negative emotions and its accumulation. It makes people irritable and to the point lose faith on others or themselves.

The question of Anger and Frustration as different emotions. Yes it is.

The question of being respective products of each other. At some extent yes. Too much Anger on series of events or something unchanged leads to frustration, where it replaces anger and just simply surrenders. Series of frustration may lead to heavy emotional burden, for being unsolved, and might cause anger to self or someone.

Whichever comes first? It depends on a person's personality. Some people are easily angered and some don't unless they are ultimately frustrated. But personally for me, anger usually comes first. If it's unsolved and happens repeatedly, frustration comes in.

Do they have different solutions or release? Important thing is that They both need the same SOLUTION to a certain problem, which made these feelings erupt in the first place. However the release may be different or varies from person to person. Anger makes one feel aggressive and masculine. Frustration makes one feel helpless and feminine.

It helps also to write about it, makes everything so objective. It strengthens the grip on emotions like these.

No comments: