My History with Anger and How I Let Go of It, Part 2: The Damaging Effects of Anger

by Celes |
Filed in Emotional Mastery, Family, Relationships

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on anger where I share my history with anger, how to let go of anger, and how to deal with angry people. If you are new to this series, read Part 1: Growing Up in a Household of Anger first.

Recognizing the Presence of Anger in My Life

After realizing the anger in me (read part 1 if you haven’t), I began to be more conscious of the presence of anger in my life.

I noticed that I would feel really ticked whenever things didn’t go my way. It could be the littlest of things, such as the bus arriving late or later than I would like. It could be people standing in my way (physically or figuratively) when I was trying to get from point A to B. It could be the little kids in my neighborhood screaming at the top of their lungs when I was trying to get stuff done.

Whenever these situations happened, I would feel peeved and annoyed. I’d address this by first, eliminating the source of the problem. E.g. letting my friend know I would be late (if I was running late), blocking out the undesired noise (if the issue was noise), and so on. Next, I would shake off my angst by thinking about something positive or changing my train of thoughts.

While these actions would help, it didn’t change the fact that the angsty emotions were stirred up to begin with. While there are people who would be unaffected by such situations, I would be angered by them, for one reason or another.

Beyond day-to-day trivialities, I would be aggravated by people who behaved out of my expectations as well. For example, when my neighbors beat the sh*t out of their kids (to me this represented an inability to care for kids, which would stir me), causing their kids to yell and cry (which would frustrate me further). Or, when I worked with people who delivered subpar work. Or, when someone tried to get something out of me under the guise of friendship, which I abhorred since it violated my value of authenticity.

Damaging Effects of Anger: An Incident with a Friend

It didn’t hit me how damaging anger could be until I saw it on someone else.

It was a good friend who totally lost it with me. She was angry about something I had done, which I had no idea would upset her, and she took it to text messages to convey her anger.

The issue wasn’t that she was angry as much as how she chose to deal with her anger. For she went livid and began berating me via text messages, adopting a highly authoritative voice, putting me down, and attacking my actions and character. It was a complete 180-switch from the side of her I knew. Despite my best attempts to meditate, she refused to engage, but spoke in a high-handed way and continuously shut me off with mono-syllabic, terse responses.

In between her responses, it was clear that she was totally engulfed by her anger. I felt saddened, for this person whom I was communicating with was a far cry from the person I thought I knew. Here, I was speaking to someone totally livid, unconscious, arrogant, and unkind. It felt dark. It felt cold. It felt distant.

The anger was entirely in her court, for I did not feel angry at all. All I felt was sadness. All I wanted to do was to reach out to the friend whom I had known in the past two years, if she even existed in that consciousness, and reconnect with her. All I wanted to do was to restore the friendship which seemed to be breaking further and further with each passing second.

When it became evident that she had become totally consumed by her anger and there was nothing I could do to salvage the situation, I decided to stop trying. I sent a final message in peace (which received another mono-syllabic, terse response), and drew the line in my communication.

As I reeled back into my space, I felt a deep wave of sadness wash over me. Not anger, just sadness.

Then, I burst out crying.

I don’t know why I cried. Perhaps it was to release the sadness that had built up inside me in that 15 minutes. Perhaps it was helplessness from not being able to salvage the situation despite my best efforts. Perhaps it was from knowing that this friendship had reached the point of no return. Perhaps it was from the inability to comprehend why some people would want to use anger to handle their problems, or even hurl their anger at other people, when rational, conscious discussion can be an option.

I decided this was the last leg for this friendship, and there was nothing more I could do.

While it was a question as to why she needed to be so angry, the real problem for me (then) was how she dealt with the anger. That she chose to direct her anger at me and egoistically put me down, and high-handedly denied all attempts at remedy and mediation, made me realize this person was not someone I wanted to be friends with.

I realized I have little to no space in my life for reckless displays of anger, for anger had been such a dominant theme in my life since young.

I can’t choose the family I was born into, and if my family members happen to be angry people, then so be it — I shall deal with them accordingly. But I can choose who I spend my time with, and if I have a choice, I would rather not spend any time with angry people (other than my family), much less such an irately angry person, or people who have not learned to deal with their anger consciously.

Self-Reflection: Realizing the Damaging Effects of My Anger on Myself

While I didn’t feel any ounce of anger during the “conversation,” this episode made me think of the times I was angry. My experience with anger up till that point was as someone who grew up with and bore anger. This episode with this friend was one of the first times I got to witness anger as a third party (not including encounters with my family).

Being on the other end of the coin opened my eyes as to how damaging anger really is.

#1. Anger Has Damaged My Relationships

Firstly, my friend’s anger burned away the final ropes that held our friendship together.

Like I shared in part 1, because I was brought up in an angry household and knew how bad it was to be surrounded by anger, I make sure never to lose my temper at other people, no matter what happens. However, reflecting on my life, I could think of a past incident when my anger caused me to lose a budding friendship in school. I was unhappy about something that happened in my life and my friend was trying to appease me, only to be caught in my “fire.”

Honestly I don’t even remember what I said and I didn’t really direct my anger at him either (I was angry at the situation and was ranting), but it was enough to make him feel upset. Unfortunately, he refused to respond to any of my messages after that and I decided to stop trying too after the nth outreach attempt, so we’re no longer friends. If not for that incident, we might still be in touch today. We might be closer friends than we were. I will never know.

#2. Anger Has Hurt the People I Love (Whether I Realize It or Not)

Secondly, my friend’s anger had caused me — at the very least, someone she used to care about — much sadness.

While I have never asked the people whom I had lost my temper at before whether I had hurt them with my anger, I think it goes without saying that I probably did. From my family to the friend I mentioned above (from school) to acquaintances here and there, these people had probably felt saddened, at one point or another, by the words I said or the things I did during my moments of anger.

As much as I might have been angry for good reason during my short outbursts, I never want to cause hurt to someone else. It brings me much pain to know that I had probably caused anguish to someone else at some point in his/her life, because of a moment of anger.

#3. Anger Has Hurt Myself

Thirdly, throughout the whole “conversation,” it was evident that my friend was utterly consumed by her rage. That livid, out-of-control, and unconscious individual sending those rage-filled text messages? I had no idea who that was. I had never seen her before.

I felt so bad for her. I could see her burning in her own flames and fraying her heart, body, mind, and soul in the process. And the worst thing? She probably didn’t even know she was doing that to herself.

Reflecting that onto myself, I realized this was precisely what had been happening to me all this while. My fits of anger whenever things went awry, my unhappiness towards people who had let me down before, and my dormant anger from past events… I was being burned by my anger all this while.

No wonder my dentist once asked me if I clenched my jaw a lot (I didn’t realize it). No wonder my face would sometimes feel tired towards the end of the day (from all the tensing of my brow muscles and forehead). No wonder I would feel scrunched up in my heart whenever something violated my expectations. I had been hurting myself all this while with my anger, without even realizing it.

And these were just the physical side effects. Can you imagine the spiritual implications? The wear and tear my soul had undergone? The fraying of my soul? Or the emotional negativity, angst, and unhappiness that I brought upon to myself? All these had been unnecessary.

Other Damaging Effects of Anger

The three effects I listed are not the only issues with anger.

Another, more serious, implication of anger is its far-reaching effects on innocent third-party recipients who have nothing to do with it. Consider that my parents’ anger has resulted in me and my brother becoming such angry people. Consider kids who grow up with deep mental issues due to anger issues with their households. Consider that I have many past coaching clients and course participants whose emotional issues and personal problems can be traced to a certain angry upbringing from their past. Consider that there are probably many more individuals out there, impacted by others’ anger, who live their lives as slaves to their anger without ever knowing so.

Even looking at it from a productivity standpoint, I observed that I would frequently get thrown off track by little irks and annoyances, such as being irritated with my neighbor’s kids’ incessant yelling and screaming, babies’ crying, people who impose on me, and people with a low comprehension ability. These feelings of irritation would never last long, probably for one minute or two; sometimes stretching to five or ten minutes, but they are disruptions nonetheless.

Realizing a Third Path (No Anger, No Avoidance)

I had never thought of these irks to be issues in the past, as I thought they were normal and part of life.

However, what if they aren’t normal? I had already discovered (as shared in part 1) that my anger to life’s little hiccups was not a “normal” occurrence.

What if being annoyed, irked, and angry are *not* normal, *not* necessary and *not* part and parcel of life? What if I have been so easily irritable and annoyed all this while because of latent anger issues and because I have simply *not* learned to deal with life’s little hiccups in an angerless manner?

What if anger doesn’t have to be the way? What if I can learn to deal with life’s issues and unexpected circumstances without anger? What if I don’t even have to be angry to begin with? Wouldn’t that be truly beautiful?

As I questioned myself, suddenly I got an aha moment. I realized that it is possible to have a life void of anger, and that the possibility lies in my hands, for I am the one responsible for my anger.

I realized that if I am to create or contribute to an angerless world, and if I am to become an angerless person, I have to start with myself first.

Continue on to Part 3: Healing From My Anger, where I share the six steps I’m taking to let go of my latent anger and turn into an “angerless” person.

This is part 2 of a 5-part series on anger where I share my history with anger, how to let go of anger, and how to deal with angry people.

(Images: Silhouette, Window, Alone)