Why Am I So Angry?

By Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S.

When anger is our dominant emotion, we become addicted to its’ adrenalin high. Anger and adrenalin temporarily hide feelings of inadequacy, emptiness and despair, which make this a popular addiction.

Rushing thoughts, intense feelings and constant stimulus overload gives the illusion that we and our lives are important. This is the pretense of life where lust replaces love, mania replaces joy, and passing out replaces peace. Yet hidden behind inadequacy is a yearning for present moment acceptance, open-mindedness and learning. Behind emptiness is a desire to mourn important loss and establish heartfelt connections with others. Behind despair is a need to feel safe and hopeful, to be seen, heard, understood and valued as the whole person behind the mask and props.

We feel powerful, purposeful and opinionated when we are angry. We intend to intimidate others from doing or saying anything that offends or hurts us. Or we purposely provoke others’ counter-attacks, so that we can escalate into rage.

Our goal is to get our needs met. When that fails, at least we can make others feel badly for not meeting our needs and fearful of repeating such a travesty. Our aggressive self-expression denies accountability. We refuse to listen, learn or examine ourselves. We think anger protects us from being vulnerable or victimized. We like the attention and we like being heard loudly and clearly. We think we’re releasing our negative energy onto someone or something else, in justifiable self-absolution.

The typical elements that give rise to a predominance of anger come from our own prior wounds. At one time, we were the ones full of fear, powerlessness, and helplessness and hurt. We witnessed or were directly victimized by violence in actions, feelings or words. We lost the feeling of safety, security and self-esteem. We became terrified of vulnerability because that seemed to be the reason why we were wounded. For physical or psychological survival, we built a fortress around us and lost our real selves behind the protection. Defense mechanisms replaced our inner sense of direction. We discovered that our best defense was a good offense. Our thinking, behaviors and feelings became overly reactive, impulsive, rigid, constricted and hyperactive. In our limited view, the world was either aggressive or passive, and hoping to escape further mistreatment, we chose to model the former.

Thus chronic anger is a defensive emotion which dulls awareness of painful feelings. Verbal expressions of anger are attempts to compensate for past experiences where we were not allowed to voice our pain, ask for help, explain, or plead our case. Physical expressions of anger are attempts to remove the energy of past physical violations we sustained. The feeling of anger even without words or actions defensively distances us from others, in an attempt to protect us from potential harm.