Signs of Anger Issues and Finding Help to Deal With Your Anger

Our emotions are an important part of who we are. They enrich our experiences and motivate us to express the very depths of ourselves. Seeing a child smile and laugh draws out our own spontaneous joy, and we can’t help but feel good at that moment. Other emotions, like anger or sadness, are equally part of us, and we need them to experience life fully.

Rethink anger and its value.

Many people would look at anger and consider it a negative or unhealthy emotion. Often, the reason for this is that we feel angry at things, and in those moments we would characterize as negative.

Additionally, when we experience the anger of others, it tends to be a negative experience. No one wants to be at the receiving end of a tirade at the grocery store or the ball game. Too many expressions of anger tend to be unpleasant because they are often uncontrolled, disrespectful, and hurtful.

Anger is a natural, healthy emotion that helps us navigate the world. Our anger typically alerts us when a personal boundary has been violated, or if an expectation has been disappointed. We get angry at external events such as a traffic jam that impedes our progress, and we also get angry when we experience failure or are humiliated. In these and other instances of feeling angry, anger alerts us that something has gone awry and needs to be addressed.

It matters how we respond to our feelings of anger. It’s better for us and the people in our lives for us to express our anger in a clear, assertive, and calm manner. Instead of suppressing or repressing anger, it is better to articulate it. This enables us to do something about it and not allow it to fester and become resentment or express it in harmful ways.

Signs of anger issues.

How do you go about ascertaining that you have anger issues and that your anger outburst wasn’t the result of low blood sugar or getting a poor night’s rest? We all have our moments of letting anger get the best of us.

The key thing about pinpointing anger issues is whether your unhealthy expressions and dealings with anger are a thing of a moment or part of a consistent pattern in your life. If, upon looking back, you find that there is a pattern in your life of unhealthy anger, that’s a very good indicator that you have anger issues.

Some of the signs of anger issues to look out for include the following.

There are certain places you’re banned from because of past angry behavior.

Whether it’s a pub, the gym, your kid’s school, or the local skate park, if you acted inappropriately in a public place to the extent that they decided to ban you, that is a good sign that you struggle to control your anger and may have anger issues. If your anger makes you break the boundaries of social propriety, then it is likely that your anger is in charge, and not you.

You’ve gotten in or are currently in trouble with the law because of your anger.

Similar to the above, if your anger leads you to break the law, whether by trespassing, causing or threatening to cause damage to persons or their property, or in an incident of road rage, that may indicate that you have anger issues. You may have gotten arrested because of the incident and ordered to have court-mandated anger management counseling. This is a sign that your anger is out of control and needs to be addressed.

You have discord with your coworkers, friends, and family members.

If your loved ones say that they think you have a problem with anger, or if they have distanced themselves from you as a result of your behavior, that’s a good sign that your anger is out of control. If you have damaged relationships with others, whether clients, coworkers, friends, or family, because of things you’ve said and/or done in anger, that is a sign of uncontrolled anger that needs to be reined in.

You feel angry a lot of the time.

There’s no doubt that anger is a useful emotion, but there is a point at which it moves beyond that to become a hindrance in a person’s life. If the dominant emotion in your life is anger, that is a problem because other emotions aren’t getting enough room to be experienced and expressed. It makes for an unbalanced life, and one that is likely not pleasing to the Lord.

James wrote, “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” (James 1: 19-20, ESV) Letting anger lead the way in your life is a mistake.

When you get angry, you either suppress it or think of expressing it through aggression and violence.

Keeping anger under wraps may seem like a good idea, but it has many unfortunate consequences. Through one’s upbringing, social position, or personality, they may find it hard to express their anger outward and clearly, which often leads to using sarcasm, sulking, the silent treatment, and other passive-aggressive ways of expressing anger.

This is often unpleasant for everyone concerned, and it isn’t the best way to express felt needs. Both suppressing anger and expressing it through aggression are unhelpful in negotiating the balance between expressing your needs clearly without hurting others around you.

You nurse grudges and think about getting revenge. 

Anger is meant to move us into action to remedy the breach of a personal boundary or an unmet need or expectation. We can do this in healthy and unhealthy ways, and one unhealthy way is through holding onto anger by nursing a grudge against someone else.

Deliberately holding onto anger is just another way for anger to retain control over your life. When that anger turns into resentment, it can have many negative consequences on one’s physical and mental health.

The signs of uncontrolled anger will look different from person to person, but it is a big problem if you want to have functional and healthy relationships. In the short term, unhealthy expressions of anger may seem to get results, but over the long term, they tend to cause alienation and resentment in relationships, and to their ultimate breakdown.

Holding onto anger may also cause health problems such as high blood pressure and increased risk of heart disease, and that’s to say nothing of the aftermath of broken relationships.

The role of anger management counseling.

Anger is a healthy emotion that can be handled in unhealthy and unhelpful ways. To begin overcoming unhealthy expressions of anger, a good strategy is to go for Christian anger management counseling.

Through therapeutic techniques such as stress inoculation, in which your counselor will create and put you in scenarios that may spark your anger, your counselor will help you navigate your responses to anger and formulate better coping mechanisms. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can also help by isolating unhelpful patterns of thinking that feed into angry behavior and replacing them with more positive patterns.

Through Christian anger management counseling, you can begin to learn how to control your anger, understand your anger triggers as well as how you progress through the various stages of arousal toward anger.

Counseling can also help you understand the impact of your anger on others around you, and help you begin to move toward them to repair broken relationships. Additionally, you can learn how to express your anger constructively, and how to calm yourself when you’re feeling angry through relaxation techniques.

Your counselor will help you establish a healthy relationship with your anger that allows you to honor God, yourself, and others. If your anger is out of control, reach out today to inquire about Christian anger management counseling and make an appointment with a counselor to begin getting that anger under control.