Washington: Researchers have discovered that people with depression and anxiety who experienced a traumatic childhood often grow up to be angry adults, and the more severe the trauma, the more furious the adult. In addition to having an impact on social interactions and mental health, this makes treating depression and anxiety more challenging.
This work is presented at the European Congress of Psychiatry in Paris.
More than 40% of patients with both anxiety and depression were shown to be prone to anger, according to earlier research. Comparatively, just 5 per cent of healthy controls have this problem. The ongoing Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, which was created to look at the progression of depression and anxiety disorders over a number of years, provided the data for the current study.
The study took participants between the ages of 18 and 65 and began to question them about their childhood; by the end of the study, 2276 people had taken part. Working over a period of years they were able to discover if there had been any history of childhood trauma, such as parental loss, parental divorce, or being placed in care.
They also asked participants about neglect, and emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The participants were also later checked for a variety of psychiatric symptoms related to depression and anxiety, including their tendency to anger and how this manifested itself.
The study found that anxious or depressed people with a history of emotional neglect, physical or psychological abuse, were between 1.3 and 2 times more likely to have anger problems. We also found that the more traumatic the childhood experience, the greater the tendency towards adult anger.
The children who suffered emotional neglect had an increased tendency to grow into adults who were irritable or easily angered, whereas those who had been physically abused had a greater tendency towards anger attacks or antisocial personality traits. Sexual abuse tended to result in a suppression of anger, possibly because of a greater sensitivity to rejection - but this needs to be confirmed.
Being easily angered can have several consequences. It can make personal interactions more difficult, and it can have consequences for your mental health and well-being. But people who get angry easily also have a greater tendency to discontinue psychiatric treatment, so this anger may mean that it reduces their chances of a better life. (with ANI inputs)
