Shame that manifests as anger

This is a pretty commonplace phenomenon but, as sometimes is the case, is really quite strange if you think about it. I saw an example of it a while ago in someone who momentarily seemed intensely angry but, I later realized, was actually feeling intense shame. I suspect everyone has done this at some time; I know I have.

But ... why?

I think it's a habit more than something specific to the situation. Googling around, I see that puts me at odds with professional opinion which tends to the view that deep analysis is the way to figure it out. My guess is that it starts in childhood when adults, especially our parents, shame us into doing things. We start to respond to feelings of shame with resentment. It's resentment and not anger because we can't act on our resentment.

But one day we lash out in anger and, to our surprise, it works. The adult is fully aware that they are manipulating might shame and they cave when we explode.

The problem is that we never learn how to process shame and guilt properly. We have to teach ourselves this skill as adults. We do things we feel badly about but know no way to achieve reconciliation. As a consequence, the feeling of shame is always there below the surface. When something happens to remind us, it feels like a rude invasion of our privacy and the anger flashes up because that is way we have trained ourselves to feel and to act. We have no notion. All we think we're feeling is shame but our face shows repressed rage to everyone else in the room.

Nothing good can come of this but, as I say, we have no idea how to fix it. We think we are faced with a series of individual problems that we cannot fix. But it's not really those things but our general habit of responding to bad feelings about things we have done.

I think that's it.