this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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It's objectively not a normal reaction though. It's understandable, sure, but most people stop being angry about even heinous stuff after a few years.
if you're not angry about heinous things every time you're reminded of them - then you're the problem
Maybe in a few years and a few dozen hours of therapy you'll be in a healthier place and will understand. I hope so and wish you all the best.
anger is a natural emotion everyone experiences, it helps us express the strength of our beliefs - if you value justice and kindness, you should be angry when faced with injustice and malice. it's normal for someone who experienced something tragic (and preventable) to feel angry at those who allowed it to happen regardless of how much time has passed. that anger should lessen over time, but it will never be fully gone. if it gets in the way of living it should be addressed, but one can't just "get over it"
I agree with all that.
In reality, what generally gets pathologised is, well, pathological anger, i.e. anger that causes an impairment in everyday life.
What do you do with anger you can't work through? When you are revictimized again and again because the world is the same crucible that cause that trauma in the first place and you can't heal unless the world changes?
Because that's what you're saying. You're saying that as a "defense mechanism" it's normal to let it go.
But that's not only not as easy as it sounds, it's also not as human and normal as you make it seem. Just because you find ways to manage that anger doesn't necessarily mean it goes away. We pretend that it does. We do that constantly. In the same way we pretend that grief and fear, and envy go away. They don't. People either internalize them and try to pretend they don't exist, or they channel them into something using that energy in a way that people find acceptable.
I have witnessed this. If you've ever been forced to sit through a presentation from MADD you've seen this in action.
I've lost a lot of people. Had a lot of bad shit happen to me in my life. I force a lot of stuff down to maintain. That doesn't mean those feelings go away and what normally happens as a result is they catch up with me one way or another over time.
I think you're delusional if you think therapy just fixes people and makes their traumas go away. It doesn't make them forget. That's not how that works. Time doesn't make you forget either. That's just something we tell ourselves and each other as a coping mechanism.
No therapy doesn't "just fix" people, it helps them process what they've gone through in a healthy way.
We have to accept that just like any other medical procedure, sometimes therapy isn't successful, or does not work out the way that we want or expect. Complications exist, and even if they didn't, people aren't a monolith. Nobody responds to therapy the exact same way.
So, I'll ask the question. What does working through this in a healthy way look like?
I certainly don't disagree, but the OP's screenshot shows people expressing the idea that psychologists are wrong to "pathologise anger" (which I read as "to think that anger normally subsides several years after the initial event, and to want to take steps to reduce it").
I don't know what "this" is in your question, but I don't think I will be able to answer it usefully regardless of what you mean.
"This" was meant to be a direct question about the person in the original post's anger and grief.
But I do think the therapist is actively making things worse by expressing this medical opinion this way to the person in question. It's clear to me that they view this as a chemical imbalance of some kind (and as a result may be trying to push drugs on this person). But this persons anger and grief are valid, and I have found that a lot of drugs just paper over the cracks instead of working toward an understanding that the world is wrong and we do the best we can. This person is self aware. They recognize their anger. They know why they are angry. They understand that other people might have let it go, and they seem to even to some extent understand why they can't. They are actively seeking therapy and help.
I'm contrast, this therapist has expressed that something is wrong with them for being angry. In a society where we are constantly told anger basically isn't allowed. And the triggering events for this person are front and center most of the time. They don't get to have the space to distance themselves.
So while I can agree that anger and grief shouldn't be your personality and you should deal with your emotions and trauma as constructively as you can, I don't agree that because you happen to fall outside the norm to remain angry or to express it.
I may be reading a lot into what was said in the original post. But lots of other comments here seem to have hit the nail on the head.
When society fails you and continues to pretend it didn't, that causes what's called generational trauma. The medical community fully acknowledges that this is a real phenomemon.
So, does "healthy healing" mean op can no longer be angry?
I think you're looking at the stages of grief and relying on that to inform you about this post without thinking about the fact that this isn't just about grief. This is also about societal failure.
We've got a single quote made up of two words filtered through one person's complaint. You can take that fully at face value if you like, but I think that's remarkably naive.
The "stages of grief" are bullshit so I'm not relying on that for anything.
There’s a pedophile rapist running my country. I’m going to stay pissed about that shit.
I get a lot of fuel through anger. I wouldn’t have my life without it. It’s ignorant that you think all humans need to let go of anger. No. I’d be working some shit corporate career if I buried my anger.
You are literally the therapist in the post.
Fuck off forever you braindead shit.
Don't breed.
"Everyone should remain nice and calm so they can continue to be exploited peacefully"
I'm not even one of the far left in here but that's still how I read your comment. Are you british?
I didn't say anyone should do anything.
What I will say is that if you continue to be bitterly angry for years after it happened, you will suffer more than the majority of people who'll "get over it" (which as someone else pointed out, shouldn't mean that you literally "stop being angry" as I said, but that it settles down to a manageable level such that you're not in therapy over it)
Anger isn't a choice in this case, it's like telling someone they should just stop bleeding after being stabbed, after all they're gonna suffer a lot more if they don't stop bleeding.
Anger itself isn't a choice, but it's a choice to just sit in your anger for the rest of your life, growing bitter and resentful and never healing, which seems to be what is advocated as normal in the screenshot.
But the stabbing needs to stop first
Which is the problem with the world.
We are all apathetic enough to let shitty stuff go and so shitty stuff keeps happening.
No, it's a self-defence mechanism to avoid individuals destroying themselves by never letting go of anything.
I understand. On a personal level I never hang on to my anger. I let everything go. I've been that way for 35 years.
But on a national level, we look at the state of the world and say "meh" and we say "they are just as bad as each other" and say "that's how it is" and so nothing ever gets any better because we don't demand enough from the people we elect to govern us and run our country.
We hand them ALL THIS POWER and then just let them behave like two year olds on smack and when they do shitty things we say "that's just wrong" then "well, they're just kids" and then wait until they do a bad thing again and say the same things again.
We should demand more of our elected representatives because they are not as bad as each other and when they do something wrong we should beat the crap out of them
My dad died of COVID in 2021 after being in the hospital for a month, including a ventilator and a medically induced coma. I'm still mad when people deny COVID matters. I'm still wicked upset when someone asks me "but did he die of COVID or with COVID?" (technically, he died when he was removed from life support, so it wasn't COVID that killed him it was the lack of being able to breath. You got me there.)
Also, yes, he had underlying health conditions. He was 62. He was doing everything right---staying home, wearing a mask when he went for drive up groceries, waiting for vaccines to become available. The only way he screwed up was trusting his wife. His wife put her job above her husband's safety and went to a mandatory unmasked work pot luck breakfast in December 2020. It couldn't have been too mandatory---she retired 2 months later after my dad died.
It all goes into the background for normal day to day, but then something triggers it. And yes, I have a therapist. And yes, I'm still upset at the person that chided his wife that my dad's "mask didn't help him" while he was busy dying in the hospital.
There's a lot of trauma wrapped up in that whole experience. It's mostly scabbed over, but sometimes something picks at it, which doesn't help the healing.
I'm less angry at some individuals because they got mask fatigue after a while.
I'm still pissed that people continue to pretend it was nothing, though.
Clearly you've never been traumatized.
I agree with you but I'm chuckling at all the anger you're getting over this comment. Should've seen that one coming!
I more or less did expect it... a lot of people here are extremely angry and want to hang onto that.
If you aren't "extremely angry" most of the time you're either not paying attention or you're part of the problem.
No, it's absolutely normal. What's not normal is being OK with the chomo-in-chief destroying the people of this country.
The screenshot doesn't mention Trump at all. Feel free to be angry at Trump.
Most people are pretty stupid.