Understanding Anger, Depression, And Social Stress: An Essay On Stress Mechanisms Leading To Disease.

Anger and its Forms

Describe about the Stress and the Individual of Mechanisms Leading to Disease?

Anger is the stage of emotions with a wide intensity rate which tends from irritation to the highest level of frustration (McEwen, 1993). Anger is a warning statement that indicates that something is going wrong. There are many forms of anger but four of them are :-

Impatience

Jealousy

Fear

Guilt

These are four forms of anger. Further evidence of anger has been supplied by two London socialists, George Brown and Tirril Harris, who have worked towards the establishing the scientific standing of what has been termed ‘law-starw’ event in relation to an individual who have struggled for some duration for some time to keep their heads above water. According to the rational behavior therapy which was introduced in 1955, irritation is the state which is combined with frustration tolerance and leads to high anger.

Negativity towards one self and self- denigrator position are two reasons that can lead a person quickly to the depression stage. According to Aaron Beck, depression is not the actual factor of disturbance of emotional cognition. Negative view held by a person towards himself and the world makes him feel depressed. There are thoughts of getting depressed which lead to negative swings. According to Back, there are ill thoughts that lead to depression. Feeling depressed can make you feel low and leads you towards the depression stages which turn into anger (Taylor, 2005).

Fig 1: Situations of Anger

Source: Taylor, 2005

For many years, the link between stress and depression are two main reasons and areas which have been subject of controversy within the medical intuitions and professors. Doctors are naturally wary of the term- ‘stress’. According to the doctors, it’s embracing, vague and imprecise, and in contrast they find it difficult to understand whether it is the best use to describe the cause of someone’s problems, the problems itself or the impact of the problem on the problematic. There are few areas that need to understand in terms of stress (Taylor, 2005). The medical professors are still not able to draw a conclusion about the fact whether stress is an abnormal feeling, and therefore it should be sometimes avoid and prevent or something to be encourage and cultivated. Stress is linked with anger and depression which to a certain level leads to various forms of depression in an individual.

Social stress is a term that is related with the form of relationship with one and another. A person experience stress at various stages of life and it’s an ability to cope up with an external stimulus. The ‘Oxford Companion to Medicine’ defines that stress is a totality of the physiological reaction to a threatening stimulus. There are various social stresses which are linked with anger and depression. Stress is a situation where person starts feeling impatient and irritated. The reasons for the social stress can be unemployment, poverty, isolation from the gatherings and a crowded supermarket. These all the major factors that can increase the level of anger in an individual. Bottling up negative feelings can result into anger and depression and even on a short term they can lead a person to various states of anger and depression. Stress can be the reason of physical illness and mental sickness.

Understanding Depression and Its Link with Stress

The anger is one of the major parts of individual’s case in an undeniable situation. Stress and depression are linked together and form a problematic situation. In other words, this may reflects an individual’s aggressive mood towards a certain situation. A depressed person is in a constant state of stress where he face various challenges such as:

He built up a fear within himself for future situations.

He tends to get frustrated easily on things that are related to him.

He remains impatient if something happens wrong and get depressed.

He gets jealous of everyone around him and tends to feel low from others.

He resends from the feeling that others are doing wrong towards him.

These are the few reasons that make the person more angry and depressed. Moreover, an individual starts feeling hopeless in this situation especially when he is angry and depressed.

Aaron Beck, who is an influential cognitive theorist, has stated that the negative views and thoughts that the persons hold towards themselves and the world around them is the cause of their depressed feelings. Persons have depression as thoughts in their minds, as well as the feelings that they go through. Earlier theorists have stated that the depressed feelings would lead to depressed thoughts. However, Beck differs with them and had reversed the concept by elucidating that that it is the presence of depressed thoughts that lead to depressed feelings.

Beck also puts forth his argument that depression in the persons is not that disturbing emotion as is cognition. Beck’s theory has been proven as one analyzes the symptoms of mild depression, which includes discouragement, loneliness, inferiority complex, melancholy, etc. These would lead to the clarity that the depression can be seen as one’s own ‘anger is turned inwards’, which leads to implosive nature of depression.

There are many symptoms that are showcased by those who are suffering from mild depression in their lives. Out of these the 3 symptoms that can be instantly identified are (1) feeling discouraged, (2) loneliness and (3) melancholy (Jacques; 2006).

Feeling discouraged:

Even though every normal person would feel discouraged at times, those who are suffering from mild depression take this feeling to the next level. They would not be able to think positive, self-convinced to be powerless and would be surrounded with lots of negative thoughts.

Loneliness:

Due to the discouragement that they have and also the growth of inferiority complex, those who are mildly depressed withdraw from social interactions. They start to suffer a lot in loneliness and do not seek help from others.

Melancholy:

Those who are depressed slightly would be sad most of the times. Their reactions towards the happenings around them would always be in a negative tone.

The depressed person subjects him / her to a constant state of stress and does not take the necessary action to come out of it. Depressed people tend to hold on to the fear about their future, even if they clearly know that they would not be able to control the outcome. They are not sure about themselves or where their lives are heading to. They would feel and feed their inability to do anything to suppress their depression. They would feel inferior to others and therefore gradually withdraw from the social groups. They become frustrated so easily. This happens due to the fact that they link their happiness and freedom from depression with certain outcomes in lives. They would therefore become so impatient for the things to happen and will always be in a state of haste. They will be jealous of others who are having fun in their respective lives.

When persons are depressed, then they would expect certain things to happen in their lives to get rid of depression. Therefore, they would become impatient for their desired outcomes and would feel totally frustrated and angered if these do not happen. The additional forms of anger in the form of impatience, resentment, jealousy, fears, etc, would fuel their depression in an adverse manner leading to dire consequences. They would start to feel more helpless than they ever were.

As these additional anger forms are encouraged and harbored in the minds of individuals, they lose sight of their true power and abilities. This would allow them to allow other events and people to easily overpower them. This would lead to feeding their depression with even more negative energies, thereby pushing themselves, almost to the point of no return. With more external powers overpowering the mind, individuals would become angrier and increase other forms of anger as a vicious cycle.

Every now and then, something keeps happening to all persons. They would have desired to have reacted in a certain way. However, if the same is not done, then they become angry on themselves. Regardless of the type of anger, it needs to be identified, confronted and suppressed before it is allowed to cause any damage.

Proof of inability:

When an individual feels angry and does not do anything to the other person, even if it is for a second or a few seconds, they would feel their inability. This would make them feel numb and thereby relate to depression. Their minds would start to manipulate all the possible alternative things that they could have done in that situation (Nancy, 1994).

Self Pity:

As they have not done anything that their mind would have liked, they fall into the pit of self-pity. Since they have not stood up when they should have, there is a huge chance for self-pity, leading to self-anger and depression.

References

McEwen, B. (1993). "Stress and the individual: Mechanisms leading to disease". Archives of Internal Medicine 153 (18): 2093–2101. doi:10.1001/archinte.153.18.2093. PMID 8379800.

Taylor, P. (2005). “The reasons for main causes of anger.”, conselis.com. Accessed on 2 April, 2015.

Jacques, H. (2006). "Interleukin 6 is associated with subclinical atherosclerosis: a link with soluble intercellular adhesion molecule 1". Journal of Hypertension.

Nancy, R. (1994). "A closer look at the link between marital discord and depressive symptomatology". Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 13 (1): 33–41.