Dealing With Anger

Like most people when I want to know something, I Google it! When I wanted to know what the definition of anger was, I learned from Google that “Anger is an emotion characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong. Anger can be a good thing. It can give you a way to express negative feelings, for example, or motivate you to find solutions to problems”.

Often our expectations are shaped by our life experiences which can lead to the development of unrealistic expectations of others and maybe even ourselves. This can lead to the fear, rejection, hurt, and disappointments manifesting themselves as anger.

Over the course of facilitating Anger Management groups, I have had an opportunity to listen to clients discuss their anger and their need to justify it. I prefer to try and get to the root of the anger instead of debating whether the anger is justified. I have no problem with agreeing that anger can be justified. However, the response to anger is where my clients and I have different opinions.

I can recall one client, who I will call Nancy, that was about 4’10 and married to a guy about 6’5. But in his own words he admitted, ” I was afraid to death of her”. Why? Because she threw tantrums, threw things, broke things, screamed, yelled and anything else it took for her to get what she wanted from him and their kids. She disclosed that she learned this from her mother who she grew up watching use anger to rule over her father until he could no longer take it and left them when she was about 12 years old.

During our time together Nancy shared with the group that she inherited her anger from her mother and that is all she knew. I disagreed with her and told I did not feel she had inherited it from her mother, but instead learned it from her mother because I do not believe anger is inherited. She said, “Kelvin you must be right, because I was adopted at 3 months old and I didn’t meet my biological mother until I was almost 20. She has no anger issues, but the woman I call mom does”. Instead of laughing like some in the group did that night, Nancy started crying because she knew that the excuse, she had been telling herself and others was not true. The next week she disclosed in a group that she has often used anger to get what she wanted because she was always the smallest but had to be the loudest so she would be heard. She was bullied but used anger to become the bully to instill fear in others. Expectations for her were always set low, so she tried to take them lower so she would not disappoint anyone.

But as an adult she lived in fear of her husband leaving her like her father did her mother, so she used threats to make him stay. But just like her dad, her husband reached a point to where he had enough and told her to either get some help or he too would leave. “Why did I do that? I could have lost the best thing that ever happened to me”, Nancy inquired of the group. She came to understand that she was using anger to mask some of the things she had dealt with as a child. Fear, resentment, poor self-esteem, lack of self-worth, and depression all manifested themselves through her anger. Nancy had to confront some things from her past that she carried into her relationship with her husband and anyone else who did not meet her expectations. It was through talking through some of the challenges of her youth that she was able to let go of all the pent of anger and more importantly to understand that her anger responses were not justified. She learned too, that her anger was not inherited. It was learned and she used it as an excuse for her behavior for the way she treated people around her.

While I don’t disagree with Google’s definition, I chose to define it in simpler terms as. “I have an expectation that is not met”. For example, when I leave my house to go to Wal-Mart, I expect all the traffic lights to be green, I will find a good parking space, and I will not have to wait in line when I check out. To be honest I do not think my expectations are not unreasonable. Yet, not if, but when, my expectations are not met I can certainly become angry about having to stop at two traffic lights or having to park a greater distance from the entrance. Yet in no way does it grant me the right to take my anger out on other people inside of Wal-Mart or my family when I get back home.

In my example, is it really the experience of the trip to Wal-Mart or something else that is at the root of the anger that causes someone to mistreat the people around me? If you have unresolved anger, seek help. Find someone to talk it through with, share your disappointments, your hurts, your let downs, put downs, your failures. or your unmet expectations. You may find that seeking help will not only be beneficial to you but to those you care most about as well.