Feeling Angry? There’s a Reason

I recently wrote about discovering this simmering anger inside of me, like a pilot light that never extinguishes. As a result, I’ve been delving into anger and came across some interesting information worth digesting.

Anger is not a primary emotion. I can be angry, but there is something else that is causing that secondary feeling of anger. There are many primary feelings: hurt, disappointment, confusion, inadequacy, dejection, helplessness, fear, guilt, etc. Discovering my anger isn’t enough. I have to discover what is triggering it.

It seems almost impossible to go through trauma and not have anger at some point. We are creatures of control, and when that control is taken out of our hands, we become extremely uncomfortable. We desperately want it back, and when we can’t have it back we can become angry. However, we cannot become “un-angry” if we don’t get to the root emotion that sparks it.

For me, that meant sitting down with a pen and a journal and vomiting thoughts onto paper. What I discovered was that I wasn’t just dealing with one anger trigger: I had multiple.

For one, I found that the Interstate 35W bridge collapse left me feeling devalued, and that made me angry. In my mind, I had been at optimum just at the point when the bridge below me collapsed. I was physically my strongest. I was emotionally present. I had just gotten engaged to be married. I had just started a new job in a new career field. I felt my life’s value was quite good and projecting upward. LIFE WAS BEAUTIFUL. Then — crash! Now, I had sustained permanent injuries. I was dealing with PTSD-like symptoms. I had lost my ability to cope and I couldn’t be my best for myself or those around me. What good was I now?

Second, the trauma had made me feel powerless, and that made me angry. I had been in complete control of my life. I felt that I had been pulling all of my own strings, and the results had been paying off. In an instant, I went from being Charles in Charge (excuse the dated reference) to not being able to feed myself or walk. I couldn’t bathe on my own or even use the restroom – humiliating! I laid in a bed hooked up to machines that kept me alive and managed my pain. And none of it was my fault.

That bridge collapse also opened up a door to past traumas that I had imagined would never be opened again. The brain injury I had sustained had caused me to lose my coping skills. Past experiences that had left me angry resurfaced. In order to deal with my anger today, I also had to go back and define the primary emotions for those as well. I won’t get into it here, but I also carried emotions of rejection and feeling unloved.

I’ve allowed “What if?” scenarios to fan the flames of my resentment. “What if I hadn’t been on the bridge when it collapsed? What if those other incidents in my past had played out differently? How would life be different today?” My perceptions default to the notion that life would be much, much better in their absence.

As I sat there journaling, I felt like a magician with one of those handkerchiefs that he pulls from his suit coat that keeps going and going and going. But I was also starting to feel relief by being able to identify the true triggers of my anger. I was also starting to realize that maybe, just maybe, there was no fork in the road back on Aug. 1, 2007, after all, and there was no alternative, “wrong” path that I had been plodding. Perhaps there were some misperceptions and  false beliefs waiting to be uncovered?