The Utility of Anger

One of the most interesting relationships in my life is the one between me and my emotions. For better or worse, I don’t waste a moment with any of them.

My happiness, whether it’s quiet contentment or loud exuberance, is like a swell of waves crashing against the shoreline. My sadness churns like a maelstrom in the ocean, threatening to take me into its depths at any given moment. I indulge in pleasure, I let confusion surround me, I treat frustration as a wall to be run through. I feel everything deeply.

Everything, it seems, except anger.

I’ve spent much of the last 5 years being the angriest I’ve ever been in my life. It’s like a hot coal got implanted into my sternum after my ex-husband told me he was unfaithful, and every so often some invisible being sticks a barbeque lighter into my chest to add some additional heat.

Former friends’ deception? The coal gets hotter.

Coparenting struggles? The coal gets hotter.

Being undervalued and underpaid in my career? The coal gets hotter.

Every instance of being disrespected, taken for granted, or my kindness being taken for weakness? The coal gets hotter.

The interesting thing is that while a passing stranger may very well be able to pick up on my happiness or sadness or frustration, those closest to me don’t know when I’m angry — or just how angry I am — because I feel incapable of expressing it.

Actually, let me clarify that. I’m able to express my anger to the people I vent to, but never to the people who have hurt me. The coal gets hotter every time, but when I face the choice to either express my anger or smother the embers, I instinctively choose the latter. Something stops me from yelling, from saying I’m angry, from telling them how they’ve offended or disrespected me. I go numb, unable to react to the burning in my chest. The most I do is distance myself, limit their access to me, or if I’m unable to break free of them completely, change my expectations of who or what they are in my life. But do they ever truly know I’m angry, and just how angry I am? No.

This video of Maya Angelou from a 1984 interview has given me a lot to consider, because I know I am nowhere close to her level of anger consciousness. What could my anger look like if it was creative, meaning that it produced some new outcome? What could my anger feel like if it was healthy? How much of my anger is true anger, and what has mutated into bitterness? And what exactly is the blockage that stops me from expressing myself in the first place?

I guess the answers to these questions will start to present themselves when I raise this at my next therapy appointment — but this awareness has forced me to consider what I neglect in myself when I don’t let myself be angry. Not only that, it’s made me think about what the utility of anger is.

Anger gives people a clear idea of where my boundaries lie. It teaches them what to do and what not to do. It allows them to learn about me. It gives them an opportunity to do better. Anger is useful — and as I write this I think, the expression of anger might be the final boss to defeat before I ascend to the next level of self-confidence.

Maybe I struggle to express my anger because I feel no one will care, so why bother? If you’ve read this far, I think you’ve accompanied me to a moment of enlightenment. People have shown me that my anger is of no importance to them and somewhere along the way, I started to believe it. And that coal has sat there, being reignited over and over again, while I do nothing but let the flames and smoke irritate me from the inside out.

Anger is not shameful, disrespectful, or indulgent. Like Ms. Angelou said, anger is a fire, and fire is a purifier. I need to let it purify me and make my relationship with my emotions complete. Neglecting my anger has meant neglecting myself and ignoring a tool that could change things for the better — and I refuse to allow that any longer.