Trauma & Anger
ANGER AS A REACTION TO TRAUMA
You just witnessed a mall shooting and, thankfully, survived with no injuries to yourself. However, you saw several children and adults who were hit and the scene was pure chaos. After being interviewed by the police, you make your way home where you collapse on the couch, exhausted and spent. You begin to think about the experience and instead of experiencing gratitude that you survived or feeling sad for the shooting victims, you feel angry. You can feel your heart starting to race, you notice you’re clenching your fists, and you feel your face getting hot. You feel confused by these feelings and you don’t know what to do. Anger is often our first response because it’s the most accessible emotion and it’s protective. Not only is anger protective in nature, but it’s also a secondary emotion. There is ALWAYS something beneath that anger. But anger is so much easier than admitting that you’re fearful and it’s certainly easier that dealing with your sadness or insecurities. Who wants to admit to those emotions, let alone face and deal with them? The graphic below, developed by The Gottman Institute, whose organization specializes in a research-based approach to relationships, is a great example of how the root of anger can get buried beneath the surface.
MEET MARIA
Maria is a mom of 4 children and has been married for about 20 years. For the most part, she’s happy and active and loves being a mom, but she has an angry side that comes out in the privacy of her home. She flies into rages in front of her kids and will yell, scream, swear, throw things, slam doors, and blast music. Things can go from peaceful and calm in one moment to total chaos in the next. Maria is the survivor of a drug-addicted mom who used to rage and would hit Maria’s oldest sister in the head, repeatedly. Maria was terrified that she would be next, so she learned to be as good as she could be and she swallowed her fear and other emotions. The problem is that her trauma had to go somewhere and the issues remained in the tissues, as they say. Fast forward 30+ years and she is with a husband who doesn’t listen to her, doesn’t make her feel safe, and treats her like his hired help without paying her. All of those unprocessed emotions end up coming out as anger toward him and her kids because she’s not even fully aware of what’s beneath the surface. She is feeling the wounds of trauma and injustice, but it’s stuck in the back of her subconscious and comes out as anger in moments where she feels fearful or attacked or rejected by her husband, or after having an interaction with her mom or sister.
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”
HOW TO PROCESS & RELEASE ANGER
The first step toward processing and releasing anger is awareness and identifying the roots of the anger. Ego state therapy (parts work) is a great way to begin to understand the part of you who holds the anger. Begin by going inside and seeing if you can identify that part and then begin an internal dialogue. Do you remember Samantha? She suffered from sexual abuse at the hands of her husband and after getting out of the marriage, she suffered for years before ending up in a healthy marriage with a wonderful man. Sounds like a happy ending, right? Wrong. Samantha struggled with out of control rage that she took out on her loving husband. Her rage pushed him away and she found herself separated from him after he couldn’t take it anymore and feeling even more angry.
Samantha ended up doing some parts work with a trusted therapist and identified her angry part as The Hulk. Remember him? Bruce Banner, a brilliant scientist, was exposed to high doses of gamma radiation and, as a result, turns into a massive, raging, green giant when he gets angry. As Samantha began dialoguing with The Hulk part of her, she learned that he believed he had to yell and rage to be heard, since that was modeled for him as a child. Samantha began listening to him, daily, and they struck up an agreement that he could warn her about injustices or alert her to incoming danger, but he could NOT take over and go into a rage. She provided him with a compassionate and nurturing listening ear and he responded well. He was able to calm down and could help her in other, more productive ways. Essentially, she made friends with her anger and they worked together instead of against one another.
ARE YOU STRUGGLING TO MANAGE YOUR ANGER?
ARE YOU READY TO DIG BENEATH THE SURFACE AND HEAL AT THE ROOTS?
Begin Adult Trauma Counseling in Columbus, Ohio. You don’t have have to suffer any longer.