My autistic RAGE + why repressed anger is dangerous
Chronic health implications...
Dear reader,
It’s mid-morning in Chiang Mai, Thailand. I conscientiously hike 10K steps around the old city moat. My stomach growls as I haven’t eaten breakfast and I’m not my perkiest as I haven’t had quite enough sleep. I’m feeling depleted after the walk but I’m near the food market on Chaiyapoom Road and I want to stop off and buy supplies.
I get carried away and buy more than I plan and the heavy bags—vegetables, fresh tiger peanuts and bunches of pink orchids—cut into the palms of my hands and ache my lower back as I walk home.
I’m wearing my current favourite outfit which is a peachy soft men’s black T-shirt, breathable cycling shorts from Marks & Spencer, and my spongey Reebok trainers—usually a source of comfort— but I’m absolutely boiling as it’s 28 degrees and my clothes are sticking to me.
I walk down sun-drenched streets and cross busy traffic intersections. Even though I’m wearing factor 50 the sun burns my cheeks and I can’t stop patriarchal thoughts about getting more wrinkles intruding my mind.
Sweat trickles down my back and a warm damp patch forms on my chest. Cars and motorbikes whir past and horns honk and the noise batters my brain. My body winces.
It’s all ok, I tell myself. I’ve done this routine many times before. I just need to get back to my apartment as quickly as possible. But as soon as I make this reassuring statement to myself, my cognition starts to slow and my thoughts feel like they’re dredging through mud- not quite able to make it to the next neural pathway.
My body starts to feel heavy and my feet begin to drag the pavement. That’s when I realise: I’m gonna have a meltdown, here in the street, alone.
I stop. I drop my bags in a heap on the pavement. I crouch in the dirt in the partial shade of a rusty, abandoned tuk-tuk.
I close my eyes and steady my hands on the floor. I fight back tears. I swallow deeply. I take heavy breaths.
Luckily, after a couple of minutes, my swirling mind comes back to consciousness.
Then, I have a HUGE epiphany.
The heightened emotion I’m feeling, besides confusion, besides overwhelm… is RAGE. It roars through my chest, my arteries and my tears.
I want to scream my head off. I want to fill the perfect blue sky with my anger—like a Greek god displaying his wrath. I want to smash something.
Even if it was socially acceptable or there was nobody around, I would never do this. Because when I have a meltdown I go non-verbal.
When I gave birth to my daughter—an agonising 24-hour labour which ended in an emergency C-section— I didn’t make a peep. There were no grunts, or screams—like I’ve seen on TV—I didn’t raise my voice or speak at all. Not one word left my lips. Instead, I sobbed silently.
It wasn’t because I was being brave, or because I have superhuman strength, it was because this is how I respond to stress.
It’s as though someone has cut my vocal cords with scissors. I think about speaking, asserting myself, or contributing somehow, but there’s a disconnect between what I want to say and any sound coming out of my mouth. It’s bizarre. But it’s when I’ve got nothing left, at all, in the tank. And mustering up the energy to make the sounds needed for speaking, even in a quiet voice, is unachievable.
What are the implications of this behaviour?
For me, it has been disabling. Years of repressed emotions were the cause of my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), which I suffered with for four years.
When you’re diagnosed with CFS and you’re told by the doctors there’s no cure and you just have to make the best of it, you naturally start to seek answers elsewhere.
You end up in all sorts of weird Facebook groups, or analysing Reddit threads at 3 am hoping to find that one piece of information that’s going to help you heal.
Over these four years, I tried ALL the things. Nothing worked.
Like many women with chronic health conditions looking for answers that mainstream medicine can’t provide, I came across the work of Dr Gabor Maté.
I immediately resonated with his books and lectures regarding trauma and its impact on our health. One particular lecture about anger always stuck with me.
Gabor asked an audience member to volunteer. He then breached her personal space by standing very close to her. When he asked for her feedback, she expressed feelings of intense rage. This powerful reaction led him to explain the fundamental connection between anger and boundary violation. It’s our body’s natural response to: This is too much!
In mind/body healing communities, and in some experimental research studies, it’s accepted that repressed emotions, and particularly anger, is the cause of many physical illnesses, including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME and it’s best friend Fybromyalgia.
I’m oversimplifying here but the idea is that these repressed emotions need to be released and our body alerts us to this by causing us severe pain/fatigue until we do something about it.
Hearing that repressed anger is the real problem can be hard to hear. And also, what do you do about it? How do you release that anger? Anyway, I wasn’t an angry person so it didn’t apply to me.
Or so I naively thought…
My lightbulb moment came one cold winter morning just under a year ago. I had an explosive argument. This was unusual, as I'm generally calm and level-headed and—like most people—prefer to avoid conflict.
However, at that moment, I felt deeply misunderstood and wronged, and the intensity of my anger surprised me. I was incensed. I blew up.
Just for context, my CFS had reduced my world to the confines of my bedroom. I lay there day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
My life was over, finished. All the dreams I’d had were now abandoned. With nothing to replace them. I watched everyone else getting on with their life while I rotted in bed.
But now, after this argument, rage surged through my body like an electric current and powered me up. I hastily threw on my clothes and raced out the door. The pavement pulsed beneath my feet as I ran and ran. Tears streaming down my cheeks.
I could have run forever, fueled by the exhilaration of a newfound realisation. I pulled out my phone and voice noted my sister, my voice cracking with emotion: "I know what's wrong with me. I'm angry. I can finally get better."
My sister told me about an American doctor she’d been reading about, a Dr John Sarno. His book—The Mind Body Prescription—was the first step in my recovery. Then a further book, Reverse Therapy by, Jon Eaton. Alongside binge-watching Raelan Agle on YouTube and engaging in daily activities using The Curable app.
I followed all the advice and I got better - quickly. I am better. I am so profoundly grateful it still brings me to tears to think about it.
I thought my repressed anger was due to the usual stuff, a chaotic childhood, abusive relationships, being a single parent…
It’s only now, having a meltdown on this scorching street in Chiang Mai, that I realise how years of repressed rage about my sensory boundaries being breached must have also contributed.
I spent 44 years not knowing I was autistic while presenting a carefully curated socially acceptable version of myself, is it any wonder I got so sick?
Is it any wonder that so many of us are sick? Because the stats are bleak. In one study 60% of autistic participants scored at or above the clinical cut-off for a Chronic Health Condition.
There is never any explanation as to why these conditions correlate (that I’ve found).
Could it be that autistic individuals—who generally struggle to identify and process emotions— have so many complex health problems due to repressed emotions? Particularly women, who are expected to mask our rage, whether we are neurodivergent or not.
Could it also be true that some of those struggling with Functional Neurological Disorders such as CFS/ME could be undiagnosed autistic?
Interesting ideas to consider…
I once proudly declared, "I'm not an angry person,". This is a sentiment I’ve heard echoed by so many others - with quiet self-assurance.
However, the truth is that we all harbour anger about something, especially those of us who are neurodiverse.
Our anger stems from the constant breach of our sensory boundaries every time we step into an environment that Isn’t our home and the injustice of navigating a neurotypical world that fails to accommodate our needs.
Anger is a normal emotion. A healthy emotion. I wish it was socially acceptable to say: Yes, I’m angry.
Some years ago having a therapy session with a spiritual teacher I told him I was having flashbacks from the many times I’d been physically assaulted and how angry I was feeling.
He said:
Hmmm, yeah anger is a problem. That’s not something we really want to be feeling on the spiritual path.
If we just sit with this for a moment. What?
You’ll be pleased to hear I didn’t book another session—more to do with sexual remarks he made (!) and not the comments about anger, because, duh, it takes me so long to process stuff.
But we don’t need to go to an incompetent, supposed guru to hear that our anger is a problem and that we should be ashamed of how we feel. We hear it everywhere, in every direction we look, every single day, about how we should behave.
Yet the rage we experience isn’t an irrational or unjustified emotion. It’s a natural response to having our boundaries repeatedly breached which can lead to a build-up of anger that’s difficult to express—or even acknowledge.
I’ve learnt many lessons in my journey to wellness. Perhaps the most valuable one is how to identify and process my emotions. Which takes time and effort as it doesn’t come naturally.
I must take responsibility for neglecting this recently, as I've been caught up in the excitement of being in Thailand. In my eagerness to live a "normal" life, I've forgone the essential emotional release practices that keep me grounded and energised.
I long for the carefree existence others enjoy, but have to accept that my path looks different, requiring more intentional effort to maintain equilibrium in a world that isn't designed for me.
My meltdown serves as a reminder that I cannot simply ignore my needs just because I fancy it.
So my recent meltdown was largely a result of my own doing. Alongside my lack of self-care regarding emotional processing, other stressors were there.
I was hungry, exhausted, and parched, my body screaming for nourishment and rest. The relentless assault on my senses, the pollution-laden air, and the oppressive heat frayed my nerves. My back ached, and my hands throbbed with pain, the physical discomfort compounding the mental and emotional strain. All of this, coupled with the perpetual stress of navigating a foreign country and the inherent challenges of change, created the perfect recipe for a meltdown.
So yes I’m angry. I get angry when my boundaries are breached, which is every day as an ND woman trying to live in an NT world.
How do I cope with this?
Sometimes just saying I’m angry and acknowledging it.
Sometimes allowing the anger to rise in my body and dissipate.
Sometimes crying.
Sometimes having a meltdown.
I don’t have all the answers.
I’m ashamed that you now know that my anger isn’t palatable. And I’m ashamed that I’m ashamed. But #SocialConditioning.
I’m embarrassed that you now have an image of me scrabbling around in the dirt in Chiang Mai having a meltdown.
But I write anyway.
We must challenge the notion that anger is something to be ashamed of or suppressed, especially when it arises from the constant violation of our sensory boundaries and the systemic inequalities we face.
Our health depends on it.
I hope you have a stress-free week.
Love Hannah xoxo
P.S. This post is also available on my website.
YES Hannah. This is so freaking spot on.
I was the child who had to wear the same pink shirt with the pocket every day (so I could carry pebbles, of course). I was at constant war with the seams of my socks. I cried bloody murder when my mom left me at kindergarten and was apparently non verbal for all of first grade.
I connected the dots…much later. Like after many traumatic experiences and developing chronic illness later. Definitely neurodivergent.
After 3 years of Long Covid and a year of moderate to severe ME/CFS, I still get intense rage when I’ve missed a meal, stacked too many tasks back to back, or masked my true feelings.
I do think my body is upset with me for crossing the boundary with myself, so I connect with my inner self and I apologize to her. I tell her I’ve got her and I’ll try to be more mindful next time. xo
Yes, thank you for writing this - this is FOUNDATIONAL & Fundamental for any kind of human flourishing.
& fuck no to having to prove that our needs matter, that if we say something is too much, we mean it, and that is enough.
We are not supposed to somehow be able to flip a magic switch and have the same sensitivities as anyone else…& if it would not bother someone else, who cares. Not to mention how deeply irrational that is - getting confirmation that what you are feeling is actually what you are feeling by someone outside of you.