I witness daily how believing circumstances should be different can negatively affect one’s life. I observe this dilemma not only in my work as a psychologist, but in my own life. Recently, I became stuck at a European airport on my way back to the United States. The delay was weather related, as the airplane we were scheduled to take could not get to us due to storms on the North American east coast. As I grumbled along, checking in and out of security while waiting at the airport for about 12 hours, I noticed I was becoming increasingly miserable. When I examined the situation, I realized my state of mind was not a result of being cold, starving, or mistreated. My misery was largely due to my expectation that the plane “should” be there to take me home; when it wasn’t, I was angry and irritable.

As it dawned on me how I was the source of my own misery, I remembered learning about Albert Ellis, who developed rational emotive behavioral therapy (REBT). He would frequently tell others to stop “shoulding” on themselves. In essence, denying what actually is and feeling that a situation or person should be different to make our lives better is a cognitive distortion. When we feel that some other person or entity is the cause of our misery, we are in some ways acting entitled, as if the world should bend to our wishes and needs. As the situation at the airport unraveled—resulting in an overnight hotel stay, a 33-hour delay, and a different airline returning me to the U.S.—I observed firsthand how we create our own misery and often misattribute that suffering to someone or something else.

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On the second day of waiting at the airport, a large group of passengers from my flight began to cling and complain together. As I approached the group and heard their remarks, I could feel the negativity radiating from them. I quickly decided to stand near another group of passengers I stood in line next to the night before. This group chatted and joked, shared about their lives, and had a much more positive attitude. As the hours rolled by, I noticed we were actually having a good time! We had fun spending our meal vouchers on junk food, learned about each other’s homes and families, and held places for each other in line to give each person a break to sit. We took the opportunity to connect with each other in a way that would not have been possible had the plane left on schedule the day before.

The more negative group, on the other hand, began to almost riot. Airport security was called to keep them in check, and the angry passengers threatened to call the mayor of the city, file claims of human rights violations, and basically made the situation awful. We were all in the same situation, yet one group decided to make it miserable, while others decided to make the best of it. This experience opened my eyes to just how much power and choice we often have in a situation, even when there are circumstances beyond our control.

It is not someone else’s responsibility to remove all obstacles and make a smooth path to our success and comfort. Thinking otherwise is just an unproductive illusion.

Now, I am not suggesting that anyone put up with abuse or mistreatment. While I do believe fair and humane treatment is a must, beyond those basic considerations, no one owes us anything. It is not someone else’s responsibility to remove all obstacles and make a smooth path to our success and comfort. Thinking otherwise is just an unproductive illusion. Next time you feel upset or irritated, consider what you might change, even if it is quite small, to improve the situation or your experience of the situation.

Tom Evans, one of my favorite guided meditation instructors, suggests that experiencing adversity is a sign that things could be done in an easier way, and acknowledging this is an opportunity to think or do something differently. Another way to undo a difficult situation is to consider what you are grateful for rather than what you dislike or hate. Focusing on what is not working is a way of not being grateful for what is working. When we are grateful for what is, rather than being angry with what isn’t, we move from a place of unrealistic expectations and entitlement to a calmer and more content way of being.

If you spend more time in the “should” trap than you would like, a therapist can help you find a productive way forward.

When I first read your letter, I wondered if you had visited your personal physician for a checkup recently. I am not a physician, but I am aware that your irritation can be a symptom of many things, among them a nutritional disorder, neurological damage, or medication interactions. So I would advise you first to seek the advice of a medical doctor.

You write that you did not always feel angry, edgy, and unfriendly, and I wonder if you can trace back to the time when your feelings and your behavior changed. Tracking this down might give some clues about what it is that has gone wrong.

You may not have a big social circle, but are there a few friends or relatives to whom you could turn for help? They might have ideas about when, and even why, you changed.

You ask if you are depressed. It sounds like you are, and anger, as you might know, goes hand-in-hand with depression. Anger is even an underlying factor in the development of depression.

You say you are nitpicking and edgy. Who are the people most affected by these qualities? Do they have something in common?

Funny, one of the first things you wrote was that simple questions bug you, so I guess I’m bugging you as you read my reply, because I’ve asked you a lot. So rather than ask anything else, I’ll suggest that after you visit your physician you make an appointment with a therapist, who will ask you to talk about yourself, probably ask questions that annoy you, and who will request that when you’re annoyed you say so. The therapist will also ask you to report when you think the conversation has gone stupid, and you won’t have to worry about being offensive, because the therapist won’t take it personally, and that will help you, eventually, learn how to be the more likable person you say you used to be.

I hope you find your old self soon, and that when found it’s even better than you remember.

Best wishes,
Lynn

While not everyone’s experience is the same, when people have a major depressive episode, generally the world looks, feels, and is understood completely differently than before and after the episode. During a major depressive episode, the world can literally seem like a dark place. What was beautiful may look ugly, flat, or even sinister. The depressed person may believe loved ones, even their own children, are better off without them. Nothing seems comforting, pleasurable, or worth living for. There’s no apparent hope for things ever feeling better, and history is rewritten and experienced as confirmation that everything has always been miserable, and always will be.

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When this reality shift happens, it’s difficult to remember or believe what seemed normal before the episode. What the person believes during the episode seems absolutely real, and anything that conflicts with it is as unbelievable as a memory or message telling him or her that the sky is purple. For example, if the person is unable to feel love for a spouse, and someone reminds the person that he or she used to feel that love, the person may firmly believe he or she had been pretending to himself/herself and others—though at the time he or she really felt it. The person can’t remember feeling the love, and can’t feel it during the episode, and thus concludes he or she never felt it. The same process happens with happiness and pleasure. Attempts to tell the person that he or she used to be happy, and will feel happy again, can cause the person to feel more misunderstood and isolated because he or she is convinced it’s not true.

Even if nothing was wrong before the episode, everything seems wrong when it descends. Suddenly, no one seems loving or lovable. Everything is irritating. Work is boring and unbearable. Any activity takes many times more effort, as if every movement requires displacing quicksand to make it. What was challenging feels overwhelming; what was sad feels unbearable; what felt joyful feels pleasureless—or, at best, a fleeting drop of pleasure in an ocean of pain.

Major depression feels like intense pain that can’t be identified in any particular part of the body. The most (normally) pleasant and comforting touch can feel painful to the point of tears. People seem far away—on the other side of a glass bubble. No one seems to understand or care, and people seem insincere. Depression is utterly isolating.

There is terrible shame about the actions depression dictates, such as not accomplishing anything or snapping at people. Everything seems meaningless, including previous accomplishments and what had given life meaning. Anything that had given the person a sense of value or self-esteem vanishes. These assets or accomplishments no longer matter, no longer seem genuine, or are overshadowed by negative self-images. Anything that ever caused the person to feel shame, guilt, or regret grows to take up most of his or her psychic space. That and being in this state causes the person to feel irredeemably unlovable, and sure everyone has abandoned or will abandon him or her.

It’s difficult to describe all of this in a way that someone who’s never experienced it can make sense of it. I can’t emphasize enough that when this happens, what I am describing is absolutely the depressed person’s reality. When people try to get the person to look on the bright side, be grateful, change his or her thoughts, or meditate, or they minimize or try to disprove the person’s reality, they are very unlikely to succeed. Instead, they and the depressed person are likely to feel frustrated and alienated from one another. I do believe cognitive therapy has an important place, but generally not in the throes of a major depressive episode.

Support for People with Depression

So what does a person whose reality has shifted in this way need? Please keep in mind that I am talking about a major depressive episode—severe depression that has lasted more than two weeks. I would take a different approach for someone with milder depression, or one that is a response to a terrible loss.

For some people in a major depression, psychotropic medication works and is the only thing that works. The same could be said for electroshock treatment, though it’s not for everyone. Many people will emerge from major depression in time, though episodes seem to make more episodes more likely, so if medication works to end the episode, it’s usually prudent to take it. Nutrition, acupuncture, and other body-based treatments as well as therapy can help without the side effects of medication.

What Loved Ones Can Do

Loved ones can gently hold and show love and commitment to the depressed person, try not to take on the person’s reality, but also not argue with him or her about it. They can also gently remind the person that depression causes his or her perspective on everything to change, and he or she is unable to think outside of depression mode at the moment. It is a time for the person to avoid making decisions, or avoid doing anything significant that requires a nondepressed perspective. If this is a repeated experience for this person, it can be helpful to discuss all of this between episodes so he or she is more prepared when caught in the quicksand.

As someone who loves a person with depression, it can be emotionally difficult or stressful at times to support that person. It can be beneficial to focus on your own needs and self-care, and to reach out for help if you need it such as seeking the support of a counselor or therapist.

We all know the feeling, but few of us want to talk about it. Shame often runs our lives and undermines our relationships, but we often keep it hidden. We’re ashamed of being ashamed. I felt it today when my wife reminded me of something I had said to her that was unkind. I pride myself on being a sensitive, caring man, and when she pointed out this shortcoming, I could feel the shame rise up in me. I felt myself getting warm. My first thought was, “I didn’t do it.” My first words were, “I never said it.” I felt confused and off balance. I wanted to run away and hide. I wanted to disappear.

I was awash in my shame, but I tried to cover my discomfort. Shame is such a wretched feeling, most of us try and deny we are feeling it, hoping that if we don’t look at it, shame will magically disappear. But shame is stubborn. The more we deny it, the more it sticks to us like glue.

Recent research shows that shame is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct, manifesting in various physical and emotional ways. Shame manifests physically in a wide variety of forms. “The person may hide their eyes; lower their gaze; blush; bite their lips or tongue; present a forced smile; or fidget,” psychotherapist Marc Miller said. Other responses may include irritability, annoyance, defensiveness, exaggeration, or denial. Research indicates that the strongest correlates of shame across studies include individual differences in nonacceptance of negative emotions and expressive suppression. Because the effect of shame often interferes with our ability to think clearly, we may experience confusion, being at a loss for words, or a blank mind.

“Man is the only animal that blushes,” Mark Twain once said. “Or needs to.” He reminds us how central shame is to the human experience.

Find a Therapist

When couples come to me for counseling, they rarely mention shame as a cause for their difficulty. Yet I’ve found that shame is a major factor of relationship problems. Research shows that shame can have a severe negative impact on intimate relationships, leading to negative shame loops between partners. We know that couples often fight about money and sex. He gets angry when she spends money on things he thinks are not important. Underneath his anger we often find feelings of inadequacy. Beneath her spending patterns may be feelings of loneliness and unworthiness.

Key Insight: Nathanael Schlect, Licensed Associate Counselor “Shame often operates alongside other vulnerabilities such as fear, grief, or insecurity rather than existing in isolation.”

One partner wants more sex, and the other feels tired or withdrawn. One gets angry. The other feels hurt. Shame is rarely discussed, but is always present. One may feel like a lousy lover. The other may feel unattractive.

Recent umbrella reviews show that a relative majority of studies conceptualize shame as a multidimensional construct, representing what Helen B. Lewis, a pioneer in recognizing the importance of shame to psychotherapy, argued was an entire family of emotions. This family includes humiliation, embarrassment, feelings of low self-esteem, belittlement, and stigmatization. Shame is often experienced as a critical inner voice that judges us as “damaged goods,” inadequate, inferior, or worthless.

Shame in Men and Women

I’ve found the things that trigger shame differ in men and women. Research confirms that gender stereotypes maintain that women experience more guilt and shame than men, with meta-analyses showing small but significant gender differences (d = -0.29 for shame). Women often feel shame when they are unable to do all the things they think they should do. They must be a good mother, a sexy wife, a successful breadwinner, a caring friend, a good sister, and more. Studies show that women avoid the shame they may have if others observe that they overestimated themselves, while men do not seem to be similarly shame averse, possibly due to different societal expectations where men are expected to be overconfident.

The list is smaller for men. Shame usually manifests when we don’t feel strong. Dr. Brené Brown, an expert on shame, says, “While women are faced with a web of many layered, competing, and conflicting expectations, there seems to be one major expectation for men—do NOT appear weak.”

I’ve also found that men and women often react to shame differently. Research indicates larger gender gaps in shame with trait versus state scales, and gender differences in shame about domains such as the body, sex, and food tend to be larger than other domains. While individual responses to shame vary widely and are not strictly gender-bound, often women often blame themselves when they feel ashamed. They look embarrassed. They turn inward. Men often blame others when they feel ashamed. They often look angry. They may explode outward.

Key Insight: Nathanael Schlect, Licensed Associate Counselor “While patterns can differ across socialization, people of any gender may turn shame inward or outward depending on personality, history, and context.”

In fact, male violence is often an attempt to ward off shame. Recent research shows masculinity threats lead to emotions including shame, guilt, and a reduction in empathy, and these masculinity threats predict harmful behaviors such as men’s aggression, sexual violence, anxiety, shame, self-harm, and homophobic attitudes. Dr. James Gilligan has spent more than 30 years researching anger and violence in men. His research traces the role that shame plays in the etiology of murder and shows how feelings of shame cause violent and vengeful behavior. He says, “I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo this ‘loss of face.’ ” Respect is important to all of us, but for men it is essential. Recent research on masculinity and violence shows that when men were targets of partner violence, many described feelings of weakness and shame, reflecting assumptions that men should be dominant and not victimized. Feeling disrespected or “dissed” can cause a man to strike out in rage.

Self-Disclosure and Empathy

The most difficult thing in the world to do when we are feeling down on ourselves is to admit how we feel. Yet self-disclosure is what we need to do to stop the cycle of shame and blame that so many of us get caught up with. Recent research on intimacy shows that self-disclosure, a fundamental component of intimacy, occurs only when vulnerability is met with acceptance rather than rejection. However, shame disrupts this process by inhibiting vulnerability and promoting defensive strategies. It’s harder than hell to say to my wife, “You’re right, what I said was unkind. I’m sorry.” But that’s the key to washing the shame away.

Attachment research shows that shame loops within couple relationships may not only be triggered by negative cues, such as criticism from a partner, but can also innocently be triggered by a partner seeking connection or even offering comfort. It feels counterintuitive. We’re afraid that if we admit our faults, we’ll feel even more ashamed. But the opposite is true. The more we’re able to say, “Yes, I messed up,” or, “Yes, I made a mistake,” or, “Yes, I’m sorry for what I said,” the better we feel about ourselves.

We all know the good feeling we get when we can own our mistakes and be forgiven. But that takes empathy on the part of our partner. Our partner has to be able to feel with us, not blame us or put us down. Recent clinical trials of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy show significant improvements in intimacy and reductions in shame when couples learn to address these dynamics. For men, it often means admitting our weakness. And for women, it means accepting that we can still be strong, adequate men, even when we are weak.

Men need also to practice empathy with the women in our lives. We have to understand the things we do that shame them, the subtle ways we may put them down. And we all need to be more empathic with ourselves. We don’t have to be successful at everything, all the time. We don’t have to be strong all the time and hide our weakness. We can learn to love and accept the wonderful, flawed, human beings we all are.

References:

1. Mirzazade, Z., Molazade, J., & Hadianfard, H. (2025). The effect of emotionally focused couple therapy (EFCT) on shame and intimacy in couples: a randomized controlled trial (RCT). BMC Psychology, 13, 1111. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03415-3
2. Frediani, M. J., et al. (2024). Seeking connection can trigger shame loops in couples: An attachment-based understanding. Family Process, 63(1), 34-47. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12888
3. Vescio, T. K., et al. (2025). Masculinity threats sequentially arouse public discomfort, anger, and positive attitudes toward sexual violence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 51(1), 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231179431
4. Stanaland, A., Gaither, S., & Gassman-Pines, A. (2023). When is masculinity “fragile”? An expectancy-discrepancy-threat model of masculine identity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 27(4), 285-315. https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683221141176
5. Swerdlow, B. A., Sandel, D. B., & Johnson, S. L. (2023). Shame on me for needing you. Emotion, 23(3), 737-752. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001109
6. O’Donnell, S., et al. (2024). Masculinity and violence interconnectedness: Defining and reconciling the gender paradox among men with cumulative lifetime violence histories. SAGE Open, 14(3), 21582440241266998. https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440241266998
7. Else-Quest, N. M., Higgins, A., Allison, C., & Morton, L. C. (2012). Gender differences in self-conscious emotional experience: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(5), 947-981. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027930
8. DeSantis, A. J., Eshelman, L. R., & Messman, T. L. (2025). Emotional dysregulation, anger, and masculinity in men who have experienced lifetime sexual violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 40(21-22), 5199-5222. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605241301790
9. Deshmukh, A., Mehta, R., & Acar, Z. (2024). Perceived criticism and intimacy avoidance in couples: The mediating role of shame. Research and Practice in Couple Therapy, 2(1), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.61838/rpct.2.1.1
10. Bardi, L., et al. (2024). Conceptualization and assessment of shame experience and regulation: An umbrella review of synthesis studies. Clinical Psychology Review, 113, 102436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2024.102436

This article is part of a series that explores the ways specific “clusters” of depression symptoms manifest to create different experiences of depression. The previous article in this series discussed the hopeless experience.

The irritable or angry experience of depression is often not recognized as depression, either by the person who experiences it or by those around then. For the person experiencing this kind of depression, the people around them may seem disappointing, irritating, or intolerable, and the depressed person may feel as emotionally uncomfortable as someone with severe poison oak feels physically. They may feel very frustrated that they can’t get the people who seem to be causing their suffering to change. People around the angry or irritable depressed person may see them as mean, angry, or a bully. It may not even occur to onlookers that this person could be depressed.

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Irritability and Anger in Men and Women

I believe men and women may express this experience differently. Many men feel a great deal of pressure not to cry or express vulnerability, so when they get depressed, anger can be a more acceptable way to experience the emotional pain they’re feeling. Men may also feel more pressure to not feel anything, and so turn to drugs and alcohol when they’re in emotional pain to try to numb themselves. So while we associate crying with depression, men may not cry and yet be just as depressed as those who do. I believe this is the main reason women are diagnosed with depression nearly twice as often as men are: many men who are depressed aren’t getting the help they need.

When men are depressed and express it as anger, violence, or addiction, the consequences may further distract from getting the help they need. These consequences can be extreme, like jail or chasing a high, but they may also take the form of loneliness and isolation after alienating people. Self-hate may grow inside as depression festers, and the consequences of anger create more and more to hate.

Women are certainly not immune to experiencing depression as anger. Often in women it comes out as irritability, particularly with their children. This too may go undetected because sometimes, only their children see it, and children rarely call a therapist for their mother.

How Anger Manifests

There are two types of anger:

1. One is a response to something hurtful or unfair happening to or around the person who feels angry.
2. The other is a protection against feeling something more vulnerable.

When someone has been abused or traumatized, they certainly have reason to be angry and often don’t have a chance to express it when the trauma occurs. So anger may linger as a symptom of posttraumatic stress or may become incorporated into a person’s personality over time. When that happens, people feel angry a great deal of the time, and the anger isn’t just anger anymore—it becomes a way of life. It’s probable the anger develops this way in order to protect the person from further abuse and from the painful feelings of sadness, hurt, and fear that were also a part of the traumatic experience.

Classic examples of depression expressed as anger include veterans who come home from combat with the experiences of terror of imminent death, sadness from losing friends who were killed, and systematic emotional training to channel all these feelings into anger, revenge, and warfare. Coming home with all of this, it’s not hard to understand why a veteran would be depressed, or why they would express it through domestic violence, picking fights, or even just caustic cynicism. Police officers can have a similar experience, as can people who grow up with angry or sadistic parents who repeatedly abuse them. Even people whose parents used them for their own needs, without concern for their child’s emotional needs, may carry chronic anger that covers the hurt, sadness, and fear.

The Roots of Anger and Depression

In fact, anger almost always covers or is accompanied by hurt, sadness, or fear. When anger is helpfully expressed and begins to resolve, it almost always dissolves into tears and more vulnerable feelings. Usually, as long as a person sticks with the anger, they are stuck in the depression.

One way to look at this is that “frozen” feelings are often at the root of depression. Someone who feels and/or expresses only anger probably has frozen hurt, fear, shame, guilt, or sadness. Someone who never feels or expresses anger may have frozen anger. In either case, the person may be depressed and suffering and probably will continue to suffer until their frozen feelings are safely unlocked, expressed, and resolved.

While feelings of anger caused by depression can feel overwhelming, the support of a therapist helps many people work through these feelings and address their depression in a healthy way. Start here to find a therapist near you who can help.