What Is Anger?
Anger is a feeling just like any other feeling - but the difference with anger is that it holds far more connotations than other feelings because it has the power to affect those around you in dramatic ways. It is an intense feeling and can have frightening proportions - it can be destructive and feels destructive in us.

Anger is a powerful force - locked inside it can cause tremendous self damage in depression and physical pain - out of control and externalised it can cause violence and emotional and spiritual damage to others.

However, anger can be also be very positive - it can provide the motivation for change and healing.

Anger And Abuse
Abuse victims often appear outwardly placid and compliant but inside are filled with rage and hostility and anger.
Anger towards many different people:

Underneath Anger
Anger is a secondary emotion - with anger there is always another more basic emotion which lies underneath.
This is pain in some shape or form often:

Victims of abuse often experience all these types of pain underneath their anger.

Why Is Anger Frightening?
Anger is especially frightening if you have been surrounded by conflict, anger and violence as a child, either directed at you or else directed at another family member. Anger is also frightening if there was no conflict in a family as it is a completely unknown quantity.

Anger is frightening in ourselves because if we tap into pools of unresolved anger - rage - we feel out of control and unsafe.

Rage Versus Anger
Rage is a pool of unresolved anger that has been building up for years.
The expression “the straw that broke the camels back” is very appropriate for tapping into rage. For abuse victims they often have years of unexpressed rage that may suddenly be ignited by a present day anger. This can be extremely frightening for the person who is angry and for those around them. Tracing the roots of outbursts of rage and rooting them in a past event empowers you to have insight and control over your anger.

Dormant Anger:
However, many victims of abuse many not feel or look angry but in fact their anger is held inwards and surfaces in different ways:

Repressed:
Through depression, tiredness or physical ailments.

Fantasy:
Often in fantasies and daydreams we express anger that we are too afraid to express in real life.

Transference:
We can often react angrily to certain people even though they may have done little to harm us. This is because someone in our present life reminds us of someone in our past with the same resulting emotions in us.

Processing Anger
As a society we haven’t practised expressing anger appropriately – so we are not used to feeling angry and it feels very unsafe. For abuse victims especially we need to process our anger and rage – and there is a lot to be angry about! This is difficult and often lengthy to do – sometimes you need another person e.g. a counsellor to help you.
When you have experienced an angry outburst that you didn’t feel in control of try and write down what you felt later or if you have time then and there.

Thinking these things through and writing them down helps you to feel more in control.

We need to trace the roots of our rage and by processing it – release it – to free us to express anger which is relevant to the situation we are facing.

This will help us:

Things to think about: