Repression Expression (Passive Aggressive Behaviour)

Repression Expression – Passive Aggressive Behaviour

If you’ve ever found yourself repressing your anger and behaving in other ways to get your point across, you may be someone who is adept at engaging in passive-aggressive behaviour.
Although passive-aggressive behaviour is recognized as a psychological disorder, it also describes the behaviour that many people use to cope with confrontational situations.
Such behaviour has the outward appearance of being peaceful, yet it is really an attempt to express oneself in seemingly passive ways-usually without accepting responsibility for doing so.
For example, someone who doesn’t want to attend an event with a partner might engage in behaviour that causes them to be late or miss the event without ever admitting to their partner that they never wanted to go to the function at all.
Procrastination, inefficiency, stubbornness, and sullenness are some of the many ways that anger can be expressed indirectly.

It is important not to judge ourselves when we engage in passive aggressive behaviour. You may want to consider that you are not owning your feelings or your expression by indirectly expressing yourself.
Perhaps you are judging your feelings and needs as wrong which is why you are expressing yourself indirectly. You also may be worried that others will judge you for feeling the way that you do. Remember that anger and every other emotion are never good or bad.
They can, however, become toxic of you don’t express them in healthy and proactive ways. When we express ourselves directly, we are more likely to be heard by the other person. It also becomes easier for us to ask for and get what we want.

Once we learn to be honest with ourselves about our feelings, we can begin to directly express ourselves to others. By learning to express ourselves directly, we prevent misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and resentment from cropping up in our relationships.
We also learn to communicate with others in healthy and productive ways. It is never too late to start working on ourselves and our behaviours, just take it one day at a time.