I was raised with a taboo about emotions.  I was not taught to recognize and rejoice in my emotions.  My mother couldn’t control her emotions so she controlled mine.  Worked to.  My teen idol was Mr. Spock.  I thought I would be perfect if I could show no emotion.  I felt totally betrayed when they had an episode showing Mr. Spoke enraged with emotions.  If I was sad, I was shamed for feeling sad after all we had so much to be thankful for.  If I was excited, that was unbecoming of a lady.  Any emotions were dismissed, repressed, or ridiculed until I stopped showing them.  I knew the basics like happy, sad, mad, and afraid.  But the nuances of emotions were totally lost on me.  My counselor was fascinated by my ability to suppress all emotions.  Then he became frustrated because part of what he did was get a person angry enough to spout off what they actually thought.  He was soon frustrated when he couldn’t get me mad.  He would watch me start to get upset, then the flitting emotion would vanish.  He actually stopped mid sentence and asked me where it went.  I didn’t know.  I just knew I could make it go away.  I didn’t know that I had dissociation down to a fine art.  I could disconnect so completely that I felt no emotion and no physical pain.  I could make my world black-and-white at a thought.  Emotion adds color to life.  My counselor spent years teaching me to recognize, identify and process my emotions.  Another counselor taught me to sit with an emotion.  I can have hundreds of emotions a day.  I can go from happy to sad to excited to scared in a matter of moments.  Emotions are volatile and some come without warning or permission others I can invite into my life and encourage to keep them.  I know for myself that putting color back in my life is like switching from a black-and-white TV to a color one.  Allowing myself to feel what I feel at the time that I feel is powerful and liberating.  Fortunately, at the same time I was taught that just because I feel it doesn’t mean I should act on what I feel.  There is a certain amount of self control over my behavior.  Just because I feel like I want to spit on someone, doesn’t mean I should do it.

I did a search for ‘list of emotions’ oh my there are a bunch of list.  I liked the one with the emoticans.

http://parenting.stackexchange.com/questions/18281/list-of-emotions-to-teach

http://www.sonoma.edu/users/s/swijtink/teaching/philosophy_101/paper1/listemotions.htm

Emotion or Passion: An affective state of consciousness, often accompanied by physiological changes, (as joy, sorrow, fear, and hate), to be distinguished from cognitive (knowledge and perception) and volitional (willing and intending) states of consciousness [Dictionary definition]. According to Cognitive Theories of Emotions, an emotion can have a cognitive component, a judgment. Such cognitive theories go back to Aristotle and the Stoics. Emotion not to be confused with a bodily appetite, as hunger or thirst. Mood: A disposition to acquire certain emotional states of mind in certain situations. For instance, depression is a mood that weakens one’s ability to easily become elated or sad.

In the definition above you can see why people believe they are weak when they are depressed.  My opinion is that depression is a better choice than rage.  Sometimes I purposely use depression to bring rage, intense frustration, or unbearable hurt into a more bearable range.