Anger Management

When my parents moved to Florida from New York, I was in my early 20s and completely devastated. Between their visits and mine, we were able to see each other about four times a year, which wasn’t bad. But when they visited me, they would stay with me for two or three weeks and that was rough since I couldn’t take my mother more than two or three days (actually, hours). There would be lots of fighting, even after my children were born. We just couldn’t seem to get along.

But this blog isn’t about my relationship with my mother. It’s actually about anger, although that defines my relationship with her. Just before she or I left to go home, there would always be a huge fight which would take days to recover from. It wasn’t until I eventually moved to Florida decades later that I had a revelation which was truly enlightening. I realized these quarrels were my fault; I was subconsciously picking fights with my mother.

Deep down, my subconscious believed that anger was an easier emotion to deal with than the pain of saying goodbye to my loved ones. I was subconsciously attempting to suppress the sadness and loss I was about to feel when I said goodbye. It’s hard to live far from those you love so deeply and I needed to protect myself and stay strong. Why I decided that being angry was the way to accomplish this is very unfortunate since we all suffered. And in actuality, I felt worse because now on top of feeling sad and heartbroken, I also felt guilty. Since we all are well aware that we never know what life holds in store for us, what if this had been the last time I saw either one of my parents and we had parted angry.

Once I realized this, I discovered I was not alone in using anger to suppress other emotions. At times, I noticed other people behaving similarly. Being angry is just so much easier than being sad because your heart isn’t breaking and you don’t feel vulnerable. And vulnerability plays a large role in how we view ourselves and live our lives. Vulnerability often makes us fearful, making it difficult to navigate through life. When you’re angry, you become somewhat self-righteous and focus on the injustice of whatever or whomever made you mad rather than the real feelings and concerns you’re trying not to face.

There’s a term called “misplaced anger” which I think makes a lot of sense. Often we are angry at the people we believe caused our problems, when in fact, we’re angry at ourselves. Perhaps because we didn’t take control or just felt helpless in a given situation. It’s certainly much easier to be angry at someone else than to acknowledge our own role in creating undesirable situations or simply to avoid the emotions that will make us feel worse, such as sadness, loss, and loneliness. As a side note, “misplaced anger” can also occur when you don’t have all the facts and you’re rightfully angry, but at the wrong person.

All this being said, anger is not always a negative emotion as it can often be used to motivate us to make necessary changes in our lives. Of course, there are times when anger is the exact emotion you should be feeling and directed at exactly the person who deserves it, but if you think back in your life, you just might recall times when you used it for self-protection.

Take this with a grain of salt since this unlicensed Dr. Phyl just gave you her own theory on anger, which is a powerful topic. Don’t be angry if you don’t agree. 😂