Great topic exaspr8!!
Ok, here is point of view from my perspective..

I let people run over me. I tend to keep quiet, and hold my anger inside. I do tent to just go along with whatever you need me to be or do. I don't like comfronting others. I guess there was a time when I would try to stand up for my self, but it didn't work, I didn't have enough power. So that made me I guess give up.
In general people scare me. I don't trust them and in order for me to talk to you, to be in some sort of contact with you, I have to get this vibe, this feeling that you're a good person, and that you won't hurt me.

Yes notoroius defnatly. I was just diagnosed with those exact traits of passive/aggressive and being very aggressive and defensive about myself and my kids. he diffrence is i do not ascosiate with any foster or adopted families i have had do to my own anger about how i and my kids are treated. very big stuggle for me though.

Anybody seen the movie "Crash"? There's a scene where Sandra Bullock's character is talking to a friend on the phone saying something like: 'I get angry and then I thin it's going to go away, but it doesn't. I wake up angry every morning. I'm angry all the time and I don't know why'.

Ditto that for me. And passive too because I cannot convince myself that I matter. I expect to dissapear at any moment.
~Saffron

Been there myself......

Oh man, anger is the only emotion I can feel. I keep it bottled up because I am afraid to let it loose. If something happens that makes me angry it just builds until I black out and bad things happen so I go to great lengths to escape from any situation that might cause me to get angry. I let people walk all over me because I do not fight back. But I am afraid of what I might do if I allow my anger to go. I get a kick out of the anger management classes, the instructor say, well you have a chance to stop the anger. No, I can go from sitting there laughing to instant rage with no chance to stop it. So I stay away from people.

Another trigger is being cornered where I cannot escape, I remove the source, which is not pretty. I just want to be left alone. This is kind of rambling... Trying to hurry and got to much running through my head... LOL

i feel that the general anger i am carrying around much of the time is a shield for my sadness over ways in which i feel i have been 'wronged' both by specific people and/or circumstance..but i also feel that this is really a victimization of myself that i should try (am trying) to overcome after i have given these issues a due process of grieving, if that makes any sense...

my instant anger...actually...more like instant RAGE...i think, is a combination of my bipolar and the stuff i am still carrying around and some external and/or chemical trigger...the meds i am on and coping skills i am learning help to some degree...but sometimes...i just have to know to stay and/or or get away from people and/or certain situations, as, like gomez implies, this kind of anger is much less under my control...especially when there is a chemical component to it from the bp...though...to varying degrees...there are sometimes warning signals...though...sometimes not...

xx to anyone else trying to cope with this issue. it's a tough one. i've been working on it since grade school...