What is Aggressive Anger?
Aggressive Anger is the most hostile and powerful display of anger. The intention behind the aggression is to cause harm or inflict danger or violence against another person.
Sometimes this type of anger is a build-up of frustrations resulting in an explosion of anger and aggression. There doesn’t need to be a reason for a person with aggressive anger to explode.
Aggressive anger is carried out with the intent to hurt another person, controlling and dominating others by installing fear in them. This anger often results in physical harm, destruction of property assaultive verbal abuse.
There Are 3 Ways of Expressing Anger
- Aggressive Anger
- Assertive Anger
- Passive Aggressive Anger
Passive anger is not added here because passive anger is an avoidance tactic not an expression of emotion. So just to get that out of the way.
We are not taught how to do our emotions. Somewhere in life, something will happen and you will spontaneously react with emotion. The emotion could be anger or sadness or fear.
However, you did it the first time you will get better at it over the course of your life. You want to make sure the way you are doing anger today is appropriate to the situation and is carried out with some level of control.
Aggressive anger is not a controlled form of anger. It starts somewhere in your life and it’s up to you to realize you could be doing it differently.
You can only say sorry so many times for uncontrolled anger if you recognize it was wrong.Most people with Aggressive anger won’t apologize. (Read: 4 Ways to Apologise to Your Partner.)
The problem is you can’t hide aggression from people. It’s not a secret it’s a reputation.
What Triggers Aggressive Anger?
- Certain situations
- Stress & Anxiety
- Financial Struggles and Pressure
- Family/relationship problems
- Addictions – drugs, alcohol etc.
- Genetics
- Abuse
Stress & Aggressive Anger
Stress is a major trigger of aggressive anger. When a person feels stressed their body is fuelled with adrenalin creating the fight or flight response. The fight or flight response is a human reaction to a perceived threat.
(Read: How Stress Effects Men & Women Differently)
When a person feels threatened they lash out with aggressive anger if that’s how they do their anger and pass the threat onto someone else.
That means in a situation where they once felt threatened they have changed their feelings to power.
Aggressive anger can feel very powerful and addictive especially when people are rewarded for their behavior by getting what they want.
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Signs of Aggressive Anger Include:
- Harming others on purpose
- Verbal abuse
- Physical fighting
- Breaking and destroying property
- Bullying people
- Threatening People
Aggressive Anger Body Language Signs Include:
- Clenching fists
- Raising voice
- Death stares
- Point fingers
- Hands-on hips
- Talking through a clenched jaw
- Getting too close to a person’s face
This kind of threatening behavior is enough to pull anyone in line that isn’t interested in fighting, arguing or getting physical. The person with aggressive anger will learn they can control people through fear but they will never be respected.
With aggressive anger a person gets to the point of being so angry they start to lash out and find it very difficult to stop being angry. They become so consumed with anger that everything they do has an impact on others.
This behaviour is not reserved only for men. Women can be extremely aggressive too. In my opinion when women are aggressive towards men it isn’t taken as seriously as when it’s the other way around.
Personality Traits of Aggressive Anger Include:
- Bully people
- They are selfish in nature
- Threaten people to get what they want
- Blame others for their actions
- Vindictive and seek revenge
- Moody and irritable
- Unpredictable
- Think they’re better than other people
- Don’t care about the consequences of their actions
(Read: 9 Signs You’re In A Toxic Relationship and 8 Behaviours That Will Kill Your Relationship)
Bullying
Bullying includes pushing people around physically, swearing and yelling at people, manipulating people and using people. This behavior can start in the family amongst siblings, parent to child and in the workplace. There are a high number of suicides as a result of constant bullying.
Selfishness
Selfishness is when a person always puts themself first. They focus on what they want, what they need, how they feel and what they believe to be true should be everyone else’s truth too.
Selfishness means they don’t think of other people and what is good for everyone concerned. They expect attention and they want to be number one.
This behavior can be attributed to how a child was raised, learned behavior, modeling other people and genetics.
Theatening
Threatening people includes saying things that put other people in a position they must do what the aggressive anger person wants otherwise they will be harmed in some way.
Threats can be a violent promise, shaking fists and pointing the finger at someone one, standing too close to someone invading their space, throwing things around and death stares.
Threatening behavior can include a persons association in particular an association with a gang will cause people to feel threatened by a person.
Blaming
Blaming others is a trait of someone who has aggressive anger. They will never look at their part in a problem it will always be someone else’s fault because they are never wrong.
They can’t admit their own faults. They have tunnel vision and only one perspective – their own.
Blaming other people when they feel angry or blaming others for their aggressive anger outbursts means they are not accountable for what they have done.
People with Aggressive anger hurt other people’s feelings, make people feel bad about themselves and they don’t listen to other people. It’s a Narcissistic trait. (Read: 7 Traits of a Narcissist)
Vindictiveness
Vindictiveness is when a person is always calculating paybacks and causing trouble for other people. It’s personal and they can feel they are on a mission to make someone else’s life miserable.
They want someone to suffer and they want them to feel emotional pain and loss if not physical pain too. People with aggressive anger hold onto grudges and look for revenge to make sure they feel like they have won and they have power over someone. (Read: Are you In Love With A Narcissist)
Conclusion on Aggressive Anger Management
Aggressive anger doesn’t sound good but it’s effective in giving a person what they want. Ultimately these wins are short-lived because it’s difficult to be around a person with this type of anger.
If you are in a relationship with this person you will always be looking for your escape plan because life is too hard with someone who has this kind of behavior.
If you have aggressive anger you need to understand there are other ways to get what you want. There are other ways to feel powerful. Making people fearful of you doesn’t equal love or respect.
Generally, the only time a person with aggressive anger will want to change is when they have lost someone they love or they have lost something special to them. When they get to a point of thinking “What have I done?” it means they are starting to think of other people instead of themselves.
This kind of thinking is only triggered by loss. Aggressive anger can be unlearned and retrained into assertiveness where you can learn to get what you want by being fair to others. Learning a new behavior takes a desire, effort, and commitment to change.
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