Contrary to what you may hear, anger is not the problem. Rather, it is an attempted solution to a problem. Healthy anger is an emotion that gives you the energy and confidence to confront an injury or injustice. Being hurt is vulnerable and anger helps us to not avoid addressing our injuries. It reminds us that the injury matters and cannot be easily dismissed. Similarly, healthy anger helps us protect others who are hurting.

However, when impaired, anger can hurt others, especially ones we care about. Anger can actually keep us further from the care and healing we need by pushing away and harming the ones we need to be with us. Anger can cross the boundary of emotion and escalate into destructive words, intimidation, physical aggression, and abuse. Impaired anger can even repeat injuries it experienced onto others.

Rage is different from anger. Rage is an impaired emotion that attempts to create safety by destroying everything perceived to be a threat. Rage does not consider whether we care about or need the things it destroys once rage is done. Rage can be dangerous and disastrous for everyone involved, including the one overwhelmed by rage. The experience of being filled with terror and rage can be traumatic. It can be so traumatic for the one filled with rage it can even lead to dissociation, “black-out” experiences in anger or rage episodes. Dissociation is our brains way of trying to protect us from experiences that are too much for us to withstand. In anger and rage episodes in which someone “blacks out”, their very selves cannot withstand the fear, terror, and rage they experience within them, the embodied memories being recalled and replayed in the episode, and the acts of aggression and violence being done by them.

Impaired anger attempts to protect the self by vowing to never feel helpless again. It rises against perceived threats with quick and immediate responses designed to overpower and overwhelm. Unfortunately, the underlying care and compassion anger needs to feel safe and secure again is often pushed away or even rejected by its own behaviors and reactions.

There is a spectrum to anger struggles. On one end of the spectrum, someone may experience an intense internal but contained emotion others may or may not see. On the other end of the spectrum is the flash fire temper with immediate aggressive and overblown reactions to seemingly small issues or infractions.

Abusive anger episodes are often followed by periods of regret, sadness, and attempts to repair. These feelings most often are not false as the one struggling with explosive anger does not like or agree with their own behaviors. However, these “honeymoon” periods may not last long as the underlying need anger is protecting hasn’t been addressed. Soon, a fear or perceived threat will present and anger returns in its destructive and self-protective patterns.

We understand what drives anger, how to help you contain it, care for it, and lead it in new ways. Don’t let anger control you and destroy your life. Instead, let’s use the strength anger gives you to go beneath the surface to confront what is really driving your anger and find the freedom you long for.