Don’t Let Your Anger Fester
I used to think of anger as an easily identifiable, reactionary emotion. In both myself and others, I thought it to be a highly negative but inevitable part of life. It’s easy to think of it in terms of sudden outbursts, feelings of betrayal, frustration with the situation.
But as time went on, I’ve come to realize that anger manifests in many different ways. It’s easy to develop a tendency of bottling it up, letting it seep deeply into your attitude and behaviours. Nowadays I imagine anger not unlike tar, slowly covering and engulfing you. The longer you ignore it the more difficult it becomes to move, to get it off and the easier it becomes to spread it onto others.
Chances are you have encountered a deeply angry person. The anger may be the underlying issue buried deep within, not easily recognized even by the carrier, but it is there. It can manifest in shortness of temper, being purposefully hurtful or harmful to others, insecurity and defensiveness. Those people who let their anger go unchecked end up alienating everyone around them. Not only suffering but becoming a source of suffering for others. Anger takes on many faces; it may be not only transmittable but evolving. Anger can also be a symptom of underlying issues. For instance, mental health issues and trauma can result in outbursts of rage, at times uncharacteristic and intense.
Still, I’d argue that the mere presence of pent-up anger or misguided expression of it doesn’t make one a bad person. Anger oftentimes being tied to trauma makes it a painfully common human experience. Anger can turn a person into a mere shadow or the worst version of themselves, it can drive them to cruelty regard to others, elianate those they once held dearest. So I propose that anger be treated like an injury, a bleeding wound.
The firststep would be differentiating that wound from a paper cut. We all get angry from time to time. That’s healthy. It can be beneficial. It lets us know that a boundary is being crossed, that we or someone else needs to be protected, that something wrong needs to be remedied.
But even those natural and necessary feelings can have a way of turning out to have a negative impact in the long run. The key is addressing the source of them, doing what can be done to understand and or/fix the issue. At times it may be as straightforward as initiating honest communication, explaining your boundaries or confronting an individual you may have found intimidating or otherwise unapproachable.
There are other more challenging instances, where open communication is not an option. Where your mistreatment is likely to only increase with confrontation. In those cases, I have found it helps to find a support network. People who genuinely care about you, and those you may confide in. Internalizing the fact that you’re not secluded in your pain, that others do understand and are willing to extend a helping hand can be transformative. At the same time, it is crucial to seek and develop anger management techniques that work for you personally.
