Full of Rage? Here’s How to Deal

By Leslie Price

I don’t think I’m the only one who has experienced a surprising, perhaps unprecedented, amount of anger recently. In my case, the trigger was the anticipation of school starting, and with it the realization that this year was not at all going to be the return to normal that I had hoped.

I could see it unspooling before me, and the more I ruminated, the more angry I felt. It was so easy to spiral about the continued instability, the feeling that after so many months of this I still couldn’t return to a normal work life due to repeated quarantines, and then of course, there was the anxiety over “virtual school.” I was clearly feeling sorry for myself, but my victim complex was shot through with rage instead of sadness. This quote, from a clinical psychologist, sums up the feeling pretty well: “We all thought that we would be in a different place by this point in the pandemic, 18 months in, and there’s just a general frustration that this is still happening and we are still having to deal with so many losses.”

The anger didn’t feel helpful or generative, and it would burn so hot that I’d exhaust myself. The only thing that tempered it was running, which I had never really enjoyed but subjected myself to because it seemed to release adrenaline and muted my emotions down to a manageable level.

Last month, writer Charlie Warzel published a piece in his newsletter Galaxy Brain about the “deep, seething rage” he was seeing and experiencing. “What I can’t seem to get past is the sheer amount of anger out in the world right now,” he says. “Whether that anger is righteous, productive, or completely and totally unjustified obviously matters in terms of how much credence to give it. And yet, when it comes to our collective misery, it doesn’t really matter where the rage is coming from — we feel it all the same...The main question occupying my mind is: Where does all that rage go?

I have this thing that happens sometimes where I get the urge to just throw whatever I’m holding. Usually my phone

Other normally even-keeled women I’ve spoken with are feeling similarly. “I have this thing that happens sometimes where I get the urge to just throw whatever I’m holding. Usually my phone,” says one 40-something. “That didn’t happen pre-pandemic. I used to feel frustrated or sad or whatever, but this is like pure, burning anger.” Said another, “I rarely felt anger before. I also am just so not emotionally regulated [right now].”

Detoxing from this anger was a new challenge that I felt unprepared for. So I spoke with an expert to help me get to the roots of the emotion, and how to handle it.

“The function of anger, in the way that I think about it, is to help you make something just again. When there’s something unjust, when there’s something unfair, something is blocking a goal of yours, anger comes up to help you make things right and fair,” says Andrea Gottlieb, director of  the Dialectical Behavior Therapy program at Sheppard Pratt. “The purpose the emotion serves, essentially, is to motivate you to do that.”

When you think about anger in those terms, it does make sense — and it also offers relief, doesn’t it? Maybe this is hokey, but it feels kind to say to yourself that yes, an ongoing pandemic isn’t fair. It’s okay to feel this way. Even if this sounds like the type of thing you’d communicate to a child.

Problems arise, Gottlieb says, when your response doesn’t match the moment or situation. “If it fits a situation, we say use that emotion to fight for what is just, to make a plan and problem solve, to find something that works for you,” she says. “What you don’t want to do, though, is let your anger guide an action that is stronger than the situation calls for. We want to channel what we do to meet the intensity of a situation.”

If you’re struggling with anger, Gottlieb recommends trying to “soothe your body — like breathing, or body scans — and then just observing your emotions and your thoughts. Your emotion isn’t the problem, the situation isn’t a problem, it’s just the unpleasantness of feeling the emotion.”

In my case, the anger faded as the school year went on and after facing a recent 10-day quarantine with my kid. It was exhausting, and I didn’t get much done, but we were okay. And in the end, I felt immense gratitude for that fact. 

Previous
Previous

Tell Me Things Are Going to Be Okay

Next
Next

How Amina Akhtar Changed Her Life at 40