Let’s talk about anger. My name is Dave, and I’m a therapist.
I have lots of good reasons to be angry.
Throughout my late teens/early twenties, I considered myself “an angry person”. I was constantly lashing out, raising my voice. As you may imagine, these patterns caused my relationships to suffer. My anger pushed people away. Loneliness at your own hand is a difficult kind of suffering.
I never understood exactly why I would get so angry. I was a therapist, just starting out. So I decided to find some answers.
Going Back
The answers started to come when I looked back at my past. I went through some very intensely traumatic times growing up. Caregivers let me down. Trusted people abandoned me. It started to dawn on me: my anger was a defense mechanism to try to keep myself safe. To my surprise, my anger had good intentions, but obviously, painful and ineffective results. It didn’t actually keep me safe. In fact it often did the exact opposite. What I discovered in my own self reflection and when I allowed myself to become curious, I found deeper wounds. Hiding under my anger was anxiety, grief, sadness, shame, and deep disappointment.
Anger is something many of us are familiar with. It's human to be angry. Perhaps you’re more familiar with anger being directed inward, towards yourself. Perhaps you’re used to being the target of someone’s anger, which can cause a fight/flight response. Or perhaps you’re afraid of expressing your own anger, fearing harming others, so you push it down. Anger is really a secondary emotion used to cover up other emotions that we have a hard time expressing.
Too often, we as individuals are taught to hide and deny intense, painful emotions that can be hiding under our anger.
If that personal story about myself struck any chords in you, you’re not alone. I assure you that experiencing anger in this way is very common. Too often, we as individuals are taught to hide and deny intense, painful emotions that can be hiding under our anger. (Especially if you’re socialized as a man). We are taught to push them down because we believe showing our anxiety or our pain to others makes us weak, inferior, or an easy target for further harm. This line of thinking leads many of us to struggle with depression, loneliness, or shame at once again lashing out at our loved ones.
What’s Beneath
Let’s talk about those other uncomfortable feelings, hiding under all that rage. Contrary to popular belief, being “emotional” is not weak. In fact, it takes great courage to stop running from these feelings and turn around and face them. To become curious and let them flow through us.
If we let them, emotions can be a guide. Validating your own pain of loss or deep disappointment, for instance, can cause us to progress through a grief process, and not become stuck, angry or envious when others’ don’t see our pain or treat us fairly.
Validating your own painful experiences, and learning to communicate your feelings clearly, (especially if you never have before!) is a skill you can learn. As I’ve had to learn!
I leave you with this: in my experience, my anger wants to keep me safe. But when I’ve experienced true safety, it’s from giving myself permission to reveal what I’m really struggling with to safe people.
If you’re tired of letting your anger be your only emotion you let others see, or you want to get curious about your angry patterns, let’s talk. I have openings for new clients, and I’d enjoy helping you find emotional safety in new ways.
Thanks for reading,
Dave