Very interesting … I didn’t think about this … I’ve been using the wrong definition as well.
from “In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People”
Covert and passive-aggression are both indirect ways to aggress but they’re most definitely not the same thing. Passive-aggression is, as the term implies, aggressing though passivity. Examples of passive-aggression are playing the game of emotional “get-back” with someone by resisting cooperation with them, giving them the “silent treatment,” pouting or whining, not so accidentally “forgetting” something they wanted you to do because you’re angry and didn’t really feel like obliging them, etc. In contrast, covert aggression is very active, albeit veiled, aggression. When someone is being covertly aggressive, they’re using calculating, underhanded means to get what they want or manipulate the response of others while keeping their aggressive intentions under cover.
Simply put: covert aggressives want to be bad while looking good.
My question is when it isn’t on the surface intentional, but part of you is angry and you are coming up valid things but you are bringing them up because you are angry and they are the things that will cause the most pain, what is it called? Is that unconscious-covert-aggression?