I was also taught to suppress my anger, and it still causes me problems to this day. An autistic friend said something to me a few years ago that changed my pe

I was also taught to suppress my anger, and it still causes me problems to this day. An autistic friend said something to me a few years ago that changed my perspective on it completely. She said “Seph, I never know with you whether you’re actually calm or you just seem calm. It’s like you’re an oven and whenever I stick my hand in, the oven feels cold. But then one day the house will suddenly be on fire”. I thought I was helping by suppressing my anger, but it was actually stressing her out because she couldn’t calibrate. People want to know if they’re doing something that’s pissing you off so they can decide if they’re going to cut it out. Now, sometimes I think of it as “oh, I feel about a 2 out of 10 anger now. What does 2/10 anger look like?” - and then I try to communicate that. If the situation gets better, my anger dissipates and I relax. If the situation gets worse, fine, now we go up to a 4 out of 10 or something. And I try to express that. My voice and posture change, and I do the human equivalent of growling. My friends point is that predictability is a virtue. People hate it when you’re angry all of a sudden, out of nowhere. But they weirdly like it when things escalate and deescalate naturally. To do that, it’s important to be able to accurately communicate exactly how angry you feel along the way so people know where they stand with you. (Even, and especially if that’s just a very slight 1/10 frustration). It’s a skill as much as it’s an emotion. I wish people practiced their anger more.