Anger’s Role in Women’s Depression

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I once stood with my co-counsel in a courtroom as a judge recited his reasons for denying our carefully crafted, impeccably argued summary judgment motion.

The judge made what I thought was a stupid decision—the law and the facts were on our side, but hey, that’s what makes the law such a crapshoot, I thought. My co-counsel felt differently.

He hurled his briefcase across the courtroom and shouted curses I can’t repeat in this post. Fortunately, the judge had already left the bench, but the bailiff threw him out.

After I got over my initial shock at his behavior, I remember feeling rather envious. I was really upset, too, but I never could have displayed it like that, in public for all to see.

Instead, I went home and drowned my anger in several stiff shots of tequila. Then I cried. Then I felt the darkness creeping in: If only I were a better lawyer, if only I were smarter, prettier, or more assertive, then maybe the judge would have ruled in our favor. It was all my fault, I thought, and I deserved whatever consequences were coming my way. A heavy black wave of despondency sank into my bones.

All my adult life, doctors have told me that depression is anger turned inward. I think they’re quoting Sigmund Freud, whether they know it or not. But that particular bit of time-honored wisdom has never really helped me, because I don’t know how to get the anger out of me.

From a very early age, I was discouraged from expressing it openly. When I was still learning how to talk, I used to bang my head repeatedly against the sidewalk, until my forehead was bloodied.

I think it’s because I was furious that I didn’t have words yet to say how I felt. But whatever the reason, it made my mother mad at me, and a spanking would always result. Lesson learned: Beware of expressing anger.

Recently, I got upset with a dinner companion who drank too much and embarrassed me in a swanky restaurant, to the point where we almost got ushered out.

I was miffed on the drive back home, especially because he was driving, and therefore, putting me in physical danger. But did I scold him? Did I tell him how I felt?

No. I just got quieter and quieter, and once again, felt that familiar blackness come over me. It was my fault for not speaking up. I should have stopped him after the third glass of wine. I should have called an Uber instead. The next day, I woke up depressed.

So, I decided to look into anger and depression. I checked out the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), the psychiatric bible, to see what it had to say. To my surprise, I discovered that anger is not listed as one of the nine core components of depression.

That’s weird, I thought. It doesn’t seem to reflect either my own experience or the research. A large study reported in JAMA Psychiatry of more than 500 adults who had been diagnosed with major depression found that over half of them exhibited “overt irritability/anger.”

Is psychiatry missing a trick by not focusing more on anger’s role in depression?

I know I could certainly benefit from paying more attention to how I express—or don’t express—my anger, and I’m sure I’m not the only woman for whom that is true. Contrary to popular belief, women get just as mad as the opposite sex. Studies have shown that while women experience the same amount of anger as men, it’s more often internalized as self-anger (Sadeh et al. 2011).

I thought about my co-counsel in that long-ago courtroom: He hadn’t had the slightest problem expressing his rage to the world. Many men that I know seem to be perennially ticked off about something, and not at all hesitant to say so—to me, to others, even to the TV when an athlete misses a shot or a field goal goes awry.

Anger Essential Reads

The Buddha, Twain, and You: Wisdom for Taming Your Temper

The Best Ways to Manage Anger

Come to think of it, we’re an angry world, so polarized over our politics, that we can barely speak civilly to each other.

Where in all this torrent of emotion did I—did women—learn to get so quiet? I don’t want to end up banging my head on another metaphorical sidewalk or riding with someone too drunk to drive, simply because I’m too afraid to speak up.

Anger has proven to be a dangerous emotion for me, given that it devolves so often into depression. I want to learn to express it outwardly like men do—and then to let it pass.