Owning your anger as an HSP - Part 1

Many of us were taught to suppress our anger. By reclaiming our connection with this powerful emotion, we can transform our relationships.

Welcome to my weekly newsletter aimed at building a supportive community for Highly Sensitive People (HSPs). Due to half-term childcare commitments, this edition was published a day later than usual. Thank you for your patience.

It’s a pattern I see all the time:

A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) wants more support — but her partner isn’t meeting her needs.

When the HSP raises her concerns, her partner feels confused by the intensity of her emotions. To him, the issue seems like it should be manageable. He responds with a “problem-solving” attitude and suggests practical solutions.

His logical response only reinforces the HSP’s experience of “not being met.” What she really wants is for him to validate her hurt feelings and to be truly seen. She doesn’t want to be fixed — she wants a reassuring hug. But she’s now feeling too overwhelmed to put this need into words. Feeling helpless, her partner starts getting defensive — and projects his frustration onto her.

Ever alert to her partner’s subtle facial cues and tone of voice, the HSP begins to perceive the tell-tale signs of impending rejection. Her fear of losing him triggers a gut-level wave of anxiety rooted in her childhood experiences of abandonment — making her even harder to reach.

The HSP knows deep down that her needs are real — but she feels she’s being made to feel wrong for voicing them. Typically for an HSP, her mind goes into overdrive, analysing the situation from every possible angle. Before long, she’s questioning whether it was worth speaking up in the first place — but she wants a resolution. As the silences between them lengthen, both parties feel increasingly tired, stressed, hostile and exhausted. But neither can see how to break the cycle.

HSPs, anger and relationships

For the sake of argument, I have cast an HSP woman as the main protagonist in this typical scenario — but I see this dynamic playing out with HSP men too. Whatever the relationship set-up, the root of the problem is often the same: the HSP hasn’t yet had an opportunity to develop a healthy relationship with their anger.

Despite the many ways anger can affect us, the topic is perhaps less talked about than some of the sensory and social aspects of high sensitivity. Nevertheless, I know one thing for certain: Working closely with HSPs over the years, I’ve realised that cultivating a more conscious relationship with anger can be among the most transformative aspects of the work we do together.

Anger is a healthy, perfectly natural emotion. (It’s not the same thing as aggression, which is a destructive form of behaviour). If expressed cleanly in the moment, anger can release tension in a relationship before it starts to build. Anger can also be enormously energising. By learning to hear what it’s trying to tell us, we can find the courage to set boundaries; express our needs more clearly; and champion fairer outcomes.

But for highly sensitive people, channelling our anger isn’t always easy. As HSPs, we tend to feel all our emotions more intensely, and anger can seem even more overwhelming if it’s covering deeper layers of fear, grief, shame or trauma. We may also struggle to discern the difference between the anger that belongs to us and the emotions that we’re picking up from others.

Let’s talk about why HSPs can find anger so challenging — before exploring ways to handle this potent force with more skill in next week’s newsletter. As always, I love to hear about your experiences in the comments.

Childhood programming

When we were very small, we looked to the adults around us to provide a sense of safety and connection when we felt overwhelmed. If that need was met, we learned that it’s okay to be angry — and that we’d be loved no matter what.

Unfortunately, many of us didn’t grow up like this. Perhaps we were never allowed to fully express the rage we felt as toddlers. Or maybe we learned that “good” girls and and boys don’t get angry — and will be punished or abandoned if they do. Some of us may have grown up in homes where our parents were often angry — and there was no space to safely express our own anger. The result: We began to turn our anger inward, and in so doing we lost touch with a core part of ourselves.

Looking back, I can see that I was fortunate to have had a mum who intuitively understood that I sometimes needed to discharge my rage as a toddler — and who could calmly and gently hold space for me to do so. On one occasion, I vividly recall throwing every single one of my toys down the stairs in a fit of anger at the age of two. As I became more self-conscious as a teenager, I began to internalise my anger — part of a wider pattern of people pleasing and managing others’ energies familiar to many HSPs. Training and a practising as a clinical psychologist, and embarking on my own healing path, I’ve since managed to strike a healthier balance.

Suppressed anger will come out sideways: showing up as depression; stress, frustration and resentment; illness and fatigue; numbness; chronic irritability and low moods; snappiness; or uncontrollable rage that only makes our situation worse.

And there’s also some evidence that the more we suppress our own anger — the more difficulty we may have in reading another person, since we’re too busy attending to our own anxiety to notice how they’re feeling. That can make it even more difficult to resolve conflicts by communicating clearly.

Reclaiming our anger

If any of the above resonates with you, remember: It’s always possible to start a new relationship with your anger — whatever your stage of life. Next week, we’ll explore some ideas for how we can do just that.

---

February video check-in

Each month, I create a five-minute video exploring some of the main themes I see coming up in my work with HSPs. This month, I look at:

— Grounding

— Maintaining boundaries in challenging relationships

— Acknowledging and observing any fear or anxiety we may feel

---

As always, please do share The HSP Revolution with anyone you feel may benefit from joining our community. And do keep the comments coming!

See you next week,