Anger and Depression

How Helium-Filled Balloons Can Help You With Anger and Depression If You're a Child Abuse Survivor

Let's do something really dumb. Pretend you're holding a helium-filled balloon and you're asked to make it smaller. There's just one catch, you're not allowed to let the helium out or pop the balloon. You're only allowed to make it smaller by squeezing it. You think to yourself, "that's impossible." And you'd be right. By squeezing the balloon, you would just make another part of the balloon swell up.

See, you already understood the relationship between squeezing the balloon and displacing the air. You knew that if you didn't let the air escape, it would just move to another part of the balloon.

Well your anger works the same way as air inside the balloon.

You can try to stuff it down. You can try and hide it from other people. But if you don't let it out, then like the air in the balloon, you'll only be shuffling it around inside. You may feel stuffed full of anger. And keeping your anger inside can lead to depression. How you ask?

By stuffing your anger inside (or internalizing it), you may come to feel powerless about the situation. This can cause frustration and depression. By learning to vent your feelings safely and with the support of caring others, you can learn to let go of your anger.

If you're an abuse survivor, one of the roadblocks to letting go of internalized anger are the patterns of behavior you learned as a child.

If you've suffered from abuse, chances are that your parents didn't teach you the best coping mechanisms. You may have been taught that it is only ok to express the emotion of happiness and not sadness or anger. You may have been taught the "world is a cruel place and you have to keep a stiff upper lip."

Of course, this is a coded message for suppressing your anger. Besides being taught to suppress your anger in general, you may still be angry at your abusers if you haven't grieved any unhealed trauma from your past. This is a double whammy and a recipe for continued anger and depression.

But there is a way to begin letting go of depression and anger.

You have to learn new ways of expressing your anger healthily and grieving old wounds. While hitting pillows or taking a baseball bat to your couch cushions can help alleviate anger, getting the help of a therapist or other mental health professional will help you much more in the long run. Why?

A therapist can be helpful because they provide a safe environment for talking through issues you have a hard time dealing with or don't want to think about. A properly trained mental health professional will understand some of the complexities of the issues you are dealing with and help you move through the process in your own time and your own way. They can help you develop the coping skills necessary for dealing with and expressing your anger.

It's the talking through and learning of positive coping skills that help you let go of your anger over the long haul. When you do this, you'll start feeling better. Your balloon of anger will slowly start leaking, and you won't feel as depressed.

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