A CASE FOR ANGER
About a year ago there was an incident. And as is often the case with many major incidents, there was a complex blend of emotions. Top of the list was anger. I was so so angry. My eyes were a blazing red and I couldn’t see past my own feelings. However, everyone who I met at the time, everyone to whom I recounted this harrowing incident, came back with one line.
"Don’t be angry, just calm down." As if in the history of telling people to calm down has resulted in the actual calming down of people.
At around the same time as this incident, I was working as a psychologist. Part of my job description was to see young college students, many of them barely twenty years of age. You could imagine that they would be filled with innocence and a bright-eyed vision of the world. Unfortunately, this was often never the case. The young people I came across may have been new to independence or being far away from home, but trauma and the indelible marks it leaves were not new at all.
One particular client Dan*( not his real name) was thrown into the deep end of childhood trauma after finding himself moving from home to home. First, his father sent his mother and him away when he was five, after that he had to go and live with his grandparents. After that he landed at his aunt's home and if all this movement wasn't enough, he eventually found himself at 14 living with a family with no relation to his own.
By the time Dan was in college he had learnt how to keep his head down and not attract too much attention to himself. This is what trauma causes us to do, especially with a childhood that has taught you that you're highly dispensable. Dan landed in the counselling office because after nearly four hospital admissions in the last 8months, no conclusive physical issues were found. Dan had a psychosomatic illness.*
On the surface, he seemed okay, polite quiet, shy even. But anyone who was really looking could see how withdrawn he was, holed up with his feelings. His arms were always close to his chest as a show of him defending himself. Session after session, Dan remained withdrawn and I was near exhaustion feeling like I had hit a wall. So one day I asked how he felt about being moved from home to home and no clear idea of who to call mum or dad.
"Okay," he said.
"Are you sure? Because that doesn't seem the case. You can be angry about it you know.
It's okay to be angry."
"No, no it's not."
And there it was. The lie that he had been fed, the one we had all been fed. The way we had been denied our humanity.
Anger matters, make space for it.
When we teach people to not get angry where does it stem from? Is anger bad? Can we make a case for anger?
Anger is a feeling valid like any other. Unfortunately, it has been nearly demonized. Yes, anger can lead us down very dark paths. But it can also do us some good. Anger directs us to the things we care about.
It reminds us;I feel strongly about this and that is why I am so angry.
Think of the last time you got very angry with your friend for something they did that they considered insignificant but was, in fact, important to you. Or when you shouted at the TV because you're tired of your local politician. Maybe that time, pushed you on the street and caused you to fall into a puddle of water, based on a true story.
I'll help you out, the strong feelings you felt were anger. It is a powerful emotion, one that can serve almost as a guide to remind us of our values and the things we deem important.
A lot of people advocate for the blocking of anger, in addition to many other feelings. But anger shouldn't be blocked, believe it or not, there is space for it. Choosing not to feel an emotion does not necessarily mean it will go away. On the contrary, it simply piles up in the recesses of our psyche waiting for a moment to finally be released.
To choose to avoid anger or even ignore it, is to create a society of people guided by apathy. A lacklustre for life and everything within it. I want to live in a world of highly emotionally intelligent beings, and the first step in achieving this is admitting that we are emotional beings and our feelings matter.
Anger needs to be managed. And there are a great number of resources available to manage anger if you feel like it has gotten out of control. One of which includes therapy. The therapeutic relationship will provide you with an avenue to both express yourself and learn techniques to continue with everyday life.
Another resource is meditation and mindfulness exercises. These help you get in touch with those tough feelings and manage your responses to them.
Anger is not the evil monster. Anger is not the enemy. Nor the thing we must cower in shame for feeling. Anger is, dare I say, even healthy. Yes, healthy. Anger allows us a space to know the things we care about it. Anger directs us to what matters most to us. Anger reminds us of what we believe in, at our core.
If you needed permission to feel your feelings, then here it is. Anger matters, make space for it.
XoXo
J.A.
Ps
The term psychosomatic refers to physical symptoms that are influenced by the mind and emotions rather than a specific organic cause in the body (such as an injury or infection).
A psychosomatic illness originates from or is aggravated by emotional stress and manifests in the body as physical pain and other symptoms. To read up on the same, please read this.
