magz wrote:
Honestly, having grown up in a less-than-perfect home, I've learned the art of redirecting a loved one's agression quite well - but self-sacrificing is not the way you do it. The way you do it is redirect the energy from fighting to finding solutions by skillfully using knowledge on what that person likes and what calms them.
If the angry person now gets angry at you, it means failure.
There is not such thing as 'energy' in psychology. Even when you act friendly with an angry person effectively what you achieve is redirect anger of this person at himself, make him ashamed and guilty about their sh***y behavior, it motivates them to finding solutions. By being too nice with a depressed person acting aggressively, you can just as easily guilt them into committing suicide. Fundamentally it still works the same way I described. I'm not saying you should not be nice, I'm describing how it works.
Do you realize, that if I was depressed, I would be extremely upset by your actions right now? But if we would not have this discussion, I would still be upset, but for some other reason?
But I'm not upset at all, because your actions have little to no effect over my emotional state.