➤ What Is Anger and Where Does It Come from?
©2019, Steven B. Zwickel
{This is the first of a series of articles about dealing with the anger in your life}
Why learn about anger?
The problem with anger for many of us seems to be that it is something that was missed or avoided while we were growing up. Our parents and other adults who raised us gave us many different skills—a whole kit of tools with which to deal with life. They tried to teach us how to survive in the world; how to deal with different situations at school, at work, in our relationships; and, by their own example, how to raise a family. However, they may have left something out of these tool kits; they may have not given us a good set of skills for dealing with anger—either our own or other people’s.
Why didn’t the adults who raised us teach us more about anger? For one thing, they may have had little experience in dealing with anger themselves. People used to be much more formal in their actions and relationships than they are today, and anger, along with other strong feelings, just wasn’t something people talked about or expressed in certain situations.
Perhaps they lived a more isolated or sheltered life, far removed from the hustle and bustle of modern-day living. We live in a more crowded society,and interpersonal conflicts occur more frequently.
Another reason might be that they themselves were unsuccessful in handling anger and thus had few good skills to pass along to us. They may have been unable to offer us effective ways to deal with anger and may have passed along tactics that do not work.
Finally, they may not have taught us about anger because they shared society’s strong negative preconceptions about anger. They may have considered anger bad and sinful and simply too scary to deal with. We may have been told repeatedly that people who get angry are wicked, that anger makes us less civilized and more barbaric, causing us to associate being angry with being deranged. This negative view of anger is reflected even in our language: mad is used to describe both people who are angry and people who are crazy.
I’m NOT angry!
Anger is so scary for most people to deal with that they try to avoid even using the word “anger.”Here are some expressions (euphemisms) people use instead of saying they are angry:
Fury, indignation, ire, mad, wrath, dander, dudgeon, dutch, in a pet, huffy, a monkey, in a fit of pique, temper, annoyed, exasperated, infuriated, irritated, enraged, incensed, steamed up, umbrage, irked, vexed, aggravated, nettled. provoked, riled up, affronted, offended, outraged, hot under the collar, burned up, set by the ears, blowing up, boiled, bristling, burning, flaring up, fuming, raging, seething, chafing, fretting, stewing, ranting, raving, storming, breathing fire, flying into a rage, getting one’s blood up, having a cow, hitting the ceiling, seeing red, losing one’s temper, being sore, acrimonious, feeling choleric, getting hot, irate, pissed, shirty, boiling over, feeling waxy, wroth, perturbed, riley, put out, upset, uptight, worked up, wrought up, pissed off, orey-eyed, red-faced, wild-eyed, in a snit, hateful, galled, throwing a tantrum, roiled, a rising gorge, ticked off, in a frenzy, frantic, petulant, miffed, resentful, full of rancor, in ill humor, sullen, indignant, stung, cross, rankled, doing a slow burn, seeing red, flying into a passion, filled with bile, flying off the handle, smoldering, sizzling, feeling peeved, glowering, scowling, giving dirty looks, feeling bitter, righteous indignation, heated, getting one’s Irish up, having conniption fits, exploding, erupting, storming, blowing up, making a scene, in a towering rage, having one’s nose out of joint, taking something amiss, showing one’s teeth, foaming at the mouth, glaring, looking daggers, smoking, being browned off, beside oneself, livid, breathing fire and fury, blustering, carrying on, kicking up a fuss, raising cain, tearing up the place, having a cat fit, stamping one’s foot, raising hell, venting your spleen, biting someone’s nose off, chewing someone out, jumping down someone’s throat, raising the roof, snapping at someone, taking it out on someone, bridled, raising one’s hackles, getting worked into a lather, doing a slow burn, flaring up, going into a tailspin, having a hemorrhage, blowing one’s stack, blowing a gasket, feeling ruffled, aggrieved, having someone step on one’s toes, having something stick in one’s craw, feeling stirred up, driven mad, lashed into a fury, P.O.’d, mad as a hornet, fit to be tied, mad as a wet hen, bearing a grudge, having high words, feeling spiteful, bilious, hopping mad, smarting under, arching one’s back, losing one’s patience, forgetting oneself, going berserk, having shit fits, quivering with rage, feeling antagonized, pushed too far, worked up, disappointed, cut to the quick, giving someone a piece of one’s mind, madder than hell, testy, grouchy, surly, fractious, feeling antipathy, cranky, honked off, twisted my tail, had a kitten.
These are all expressions (euphemisms) people use instead of using the word angry. Do all these expressions mean the same thing? How do you think they are different? Do they all describe the same feeling?
Anger may vary in intensity. How strongly an individual feels may be reflected in the “language of anger”—the words they choose to describe how they feel. Some writers draw fine lines between anger, rage, and resentment. Others distinguish between anger that has been seething within a person for a long time and anger expressed in a flash of “temper.”
We will call the intense emotional response (and the stress we experience) anger. My “anger,” your “irritation,” his “disappointment,” and her “ticked off’ will be considered different in degree, not type.
How Other People May React to Our Anger
The scary part of anger is that you can’t predict how an angry person may react; you can never be sure that the other person won’t strike back at you. Because anger is so unpredictable, you need to become aware of how other people may react to your telling them that you’re angry.
Some of you will read this and be eager to apply at home or at work what you’ve learned. You may be in for a big disappointment: when most people in our society come face to face with an angry individual, they try to avoid a confrontation and attempt to run away (literally or figuratively).
F Some people attempt to change the subject.
F Some will tell you that you’re wrong, that what you’re feeling is not anger.
F Others may become very defensive and attack you!
F Still others will immediately start talking about all their anger!
In other words, people will try just about anything to get away from you (and your anger) as well as to get themselves “off the hook.”
Anger is scary for most people. We tend to associate anger with destructive behavior and a loss of emotional self-control. If you decide, after reading this, to let someone know how you really feel, don’t be surprised at his or her reaction. Most people won’t want to deal with your anger.
What Makes You Angry?
Although different things make different people angry, there’s a common basis for their feelings when they feel that their self-esteem or their value system is under attack in someway.
Try making up a list of what makes you angry. Go through each item and see if you can tell what triggered your anger response.
Can you reframe each response in such a way that it’s clear how it relates either to your self-esteem or value system?
Try using terms such as should or should not to show how another person’s words or actions may violate your values. Add those words to the items on your list. You may discover patterns—the same terms cropping up repeatedly. That can tell you a lot about what triggers your anger.
Here are some examples of how this rephrasing might work:
Item: “I get angry when people are inconsiderate.”
Reframed: “People should be considerate of others. As a human being you deserve consideration.” (Write inconsiderate on the list.)
Item: “I don’t like it when people are prejudiced.”
Reframed: “People should not be prejudiced.” (Add prejudiced to the list.)
Item: “When my boss isn’t fair with me, I get upset.”
Reframed: “People should be fair.” (Add unfair to the list.)
Give yourself plenty of time to think up examples, but if none are forthcoming, try some gentle prompting. For example, consider the following:
Do you watch the news or read the newspapers? Do some of the events you hear about make you angry? How do you feel about pollution, terrorist attacks, wasted money and resources, incompetent leadership, violence against innocent bystanders, children, the elderly, the sick, animals?
You have families, relatives, parents, and children-do they ever make you angry? Do you ever have to deal with their criticism, nagging, teasing, or manipulation and taking advantage? What about abuse-emotional, verbal, physical?
If you work outside the home for a living, you may have to deal with customers, supervisors, co-workers, or suppliers who sometimes make you angry. Do you ever feel that they are unfair or arbitrary? Incompetent, slow, careless? Fussy and demanding?
Sometimes institutions and organizations can make you angry. For example, dealing with government agencies and officials, hospitals and doctors, school systems and administrators, the legal system and lawyers, or financial institutions can make you angry. These systems can make you feel very angry when you perceive them as invading your privacy, avoiding responsibility, being slow and corrupt, insensitive to people’s needs, or greedy and expensive.
Look for patterns in your list. Be aware that different people get angry over different things; these differences don’t make the anger of one person more justifiable than the anger of another. What may outrage one person may have a very different effect on another.
Here are some more examples of things that make people angry {from participants in a workshop on dealing with anger}:
➤ People who don’t listen or who interrupt
➤ When the boss acts as if she owns you
➤ People who don’t use their turn signals in traffic
➤ Big shots who think they can boss you around
➤ Lateness, being kept waiting
➤ When my father tries to tell me how to live
➤ People who cheat on their spouses
➤ When I get blamed for someone else’s mistake
➤ Hypocrisy- saying one thing and doing another
➤ Indecisive people
➤ Litterbugs
➤ Unfair criticism
➤ People who act as though they are “holier than thou”
➤ When people don’t keep their promises
➤ Bullying
Feeling angry is a common experience, so you don’t need to feel the stigma some people feel when they think that they are “different” or “bad” for being angry. And, remember that people become angry over different things.
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