By Cari McKnight, MSW, LCSW
In the course of our therapy sessions, Kate has shared the story of her childhood, in which she was raised
by an alcoholic father and an emotionally unavailable mother. These days, Kate has a close relationship
with her parents, but suffers from extremely high anxiety, and self identifies as a people pleaser. She is
seeking therapy to help reduce her anxiety and become more comfortable putting her needs first instead
of always putting others’ feelings above her own. She also wants to stop losing her patience with her
children for innocuous reasons, and feels this makes her “a bad mom”. Through our sessions, Kate has
become able to recognize that her parents failed to provide the emotional support and safety that she
needed. Because of her parents’ issues, she felt she had to protect them and keep the peace. When she
recounts the emotional neglect that she endured, she makes comments like “ I know that they just did
the best that they could have done” and “I don’t want to live my life being angry at them because I love
them”. The truth is, Kate has never allowed herself to be angry about any of these things that have
impacted her. As a result, her anxiety is through the roof, her sense of self is weakened, and the anger
that she has never addressed is now being misdirected at her children.
For many of us, anger is considered a “negative” emotion, and thus, many of us do not like to feel angry.
Maybe we learned in our family of origin that anger is bad because we saw hitting, throwing things, and
screaming names when people got angry. Or, maybe it wasn’t safe for us to have our anger as a child, so
we learned to shove it down, and ultimately not even feel it. We may feel that the things that have
made us angry are not “big enough” to justify feeling angry, so we tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel it. We
may have learned that our feelings just don’t matter to others, so they stop mattering to us. Another
reason that people are often unwilling to address their own anger is because they fear that it will cause
a huge conflict and disrupt their life. In addition, some people are scared that if they let themselves feel
the anger towards someone they love, it will ruin the relationship and that they will end up being an
angry, bitter person.
There are many reasons why so many of us avoid connecting to our anger, much less expressing it
openly. So, we become good at running from it, distracting from it, and numbing out in an attempt to
not feel it. Drugs, alcohol, food, sex, over scheduling our lives, gambling, tv, internet, etc are all ways
that we avoid feeling emotions that we don’t know what to do with.
But what if I told you that, as counterintuitive as it sounds, the secret to being free from anger and
bitterness is to lean into it and embrace it? Yes, this is actually the path to truly letting the anger go from
our psyche.
This analogy might help illustrate how this works. Have you ever seen a toddler pulling on its mothers
leg, trying to get her attention? When the mother is busy, talking to someone else, or not paying
attention to the child, the child tends to grow increasingly louder and maybe even acting out, all in an
attempt to get mom’s attention. Finally, when the mother turns to the child and wants to hear what the
child has to say, the child often doesn’t need anything in particular, often just wanted to know that they
can have mom’s attention, and be seen and heard. Ultimately, once the child feels validated and seen,
the child tends to release grip from the mom and go back to playing. I’ve seen this dynamic happen over
and over, and have come to realize that our emotional self operates in a very similar manner.
Meaning, our emotions are primitive and are like little toddlers – our emotions need to be seen, heard,
and paid attention to in order to loosen their grip on us. If we try to ignore them, sweep them under the
rug, or pretend that we don’t feel a certain way when we really do, our emotions tug on us just like the
toddlers tug on their mothers. Our emotions are relentless, showing up in the form of anxiety,
depression, passive aggressive behavior, misplaced anger, or other seemingly random symptoms. Until
we look at our anger and see it, feel it, and validate it for ourselves, the symptoms remain and we are
unable to be free. Until we own it and claim what we deserve to feel, we are stuck and often don’t know
why.
One of the misconceptions about anger is that “if I’m a good person” or “if I’m a Christian” then anger is
not allowed. It is critical to understand that anger, in and of itself, is necessary to be a healthy human.
We must be able to feel the anger for the injustices that we have endured, but we can CHOOSE WHAT
TO DO with the anger that we feel. Many people are scared of anger because it has been modeled in
such unhealthy ways that many of us do not trust themselves to feel the anger – we fear that we too will
show our anger in an unhealthy, scary way. However, we don’t have to go slashing tires or assaulting
people when we get angry, nor do we have to hold it in – instead, we can choose to show it and do it in
a healthy way. Often, simply having a direct conversation with the person who hurt us is sufficient to
allow us to release the angry feelings about the event, assuming it is safe to do so. Learning healthy
ways to show anger is important skill to learn, especially if you are feeling unsure of where to start.
Another misconception that stands in our way is that empathy for the person who harmed us is more
important than the emotions and anger that show up for us. For instance, Kate loves her parents and
does not want to be angry at them so she has focused on empathizing with them and saying that they
did the best they could. Empathy is incredibly important, and having empathy is often a sign of a
healthy, evolved person. However, our psyche doesn’t do well when we go straight to empathy – it is
imperative that we acknowledge our anger FIRST and allow ourselves to have it, THEN move into having
empathy and understanding for why someone harmed us or why they were unable to meet our needs.
The order of this is crucial. Honor our hurt and anger first, then rationalize why it happened. If we flip
these two, we can find ourselves always excusing other’s behavior and stuffing down how we actually
feel and never get to our own anger. Kate would be better served to to accept that while her parents
were indeed doing the best they could, their actions truly and deeply frightened and hurt her. Once she
allows herself to feel that hurt and anger that she deserves to feel can truly move on, reduce her
anxiety, feel stronger in her self, and stop misdirecting that emotion.
Yet another misconception is that we have the ability to CHOOSE to be happy instead of being angry.
Yes, we might be able to choose behaviors that will increase our sense of self and reduce our mental
health struggles – which in turn can increase our happiness – but to think that we can choose our
emotions is preposterous. Emotions are core to our very being, not what we have learned or been
taught to do – they rise up in us, whether we want them or not. We have to learn to feel what shows up,
then choose what to do with those feelings in a healthy manner.
Some of us, like Kate, may not even be aware that we are angry deep down. After a lifetime of shoving
away these feelings, sometimes we lose our ability to connect to what we actually do feel. If this is the
case, we may find ourselves feeling tearful and sad often, but never being able to get angry. It is so
important to do the work of connecting to our feelings, even though it might feel scary at first. If we can
deal with the anger and authentically heal from it, the symptoms that disrupt our lives will start to fall
away.
We don’t need to have a headline grabbing event to deserve to be angry – yes, we can be angry about
an obvious wrong such as physical or sexual abuse, but many of us are actually angry about less obvious
things too – for example, repeatedly not being listened to, being invalidated, or being manipulated with
guilt. Whether we like it or not, if we have been wronged or hurt, we do need to acknowledge it, if even
to ourselves. That is the path to a stronger sense of self, reduced anxiety and depression, and better
relationships. Many people have a hard time doing this on their own, so if you feel stuck, seek out the
help of a good therapist to help you deal with your anger once and for all. Ripping off the band aid and
feeling the anger instead of running from the emotion can be life changing.