Areas › Anger › The fear underneath anger
Anger makes a convincing costume for insecurity, and the person most often taken in by it is the one wearing it.
It reads as courage from outside because the frightened person is supposed to be the one running away. From inside it feels like conviction, which is why you can go a long time without ever noticing what it is covering. Ask what you would have to admit if the anger were not available, and see whether you flinch at the answer.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Man was truly created anxious (Quran 70:19). If the baseline is anxious, then a permanently fearless front is a costume by definition.
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
The original work developing measures of fear of compassion showed that some people, especially the highly self-critical, actively fear kindness from others and from themselves, and that this fear can be measured reliably. If softness feels dangerous, the hard front stays on. These were self-report questionnaires developed in mixed samples, so they map the pattern rather than explain where it starts.
Gilbert P, McEwan K, Matos M, Rivis A. (2011). Fears of compassion: development of three self-report measures.. Psychology and psychotherapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A display convincing enough to make others back off is usually convincing enough to fool you as well.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
Stay a beginner on purpose. If you are still learning, being corrected costs you nothing, because you never claimed to be finished.
Never decide you are safe because the other person is scared. Frightened people are often the ones who go furthest.
Anger rescues you from an unbearable in between by handing you something to do. The relief is real, and that is exactly why it keeps coming back.