When you experience anger,
it’s almost impossible not to feel like a victim, for virtually all
anger can be understood as a reaction to what feels threatening or
unfair to you. In such instances, you feel unjustifiably attacked, taken
advantage of, betrayed, violated, or powerless. And your anger,
essentially retaliatory in nature, agreeably serves the function of
restoring to you a sense of righteousness and control, even dignity and
respect. Added to this, the energizing surge of adrenaline accompanying
your eruption further accentuates your sense of “wronged virtue.” So
naturally, you feel morally superior to whoever or whatever provoked you
in the first place.
There’s a perverse pleasure in getting mad. Despite the fact that
anger rarely solves
anything and frequently makes matters worse between
you and the person or situation that incited it, in the moment it still
affords you considerable gratification. However unconsciously,
self-servingly resorting to anger offers you the “reward” of both
comfort and consolation. And it labels the other as perpetrator—and you
as victim.
By definition, victims are always innocent: They’re at the receiving
end of someone else’s misconduct. So whether directly or indirectly, in
getting angry you’re getting back at them through emphatically giving
yourself the self-aggrandizing message that you’re above them. What they
said or did, you wouldn’t have done. In short, you’re better
than they are. After all, as petty as it may seem, arriving at such a
conclusion is pleasing; enjoyable. How can you not alleviate
whatever ancient feelings of inferiority or incompetence may yet be
residing inside you when you’re comparing yourself so advantageously, or
meritoriously, to another?
Consider. When is the last time you got angry? And the second before
your anger came to your emotional rescue, what were you experiencing? Anxiety? Hopelessness? Guilt? Shame?
Or might you have been battling with feelings of belittlement, being
discriminated against, disparaged, or put down? I think that if you’re
ruthlessly honest with yourself, one or more of these troublesome
feelings will reflect your experience—before, almost instinctively, you
turned to anger to validate or vindicate yourself.
Over a decade ago, I wrote a piece entitled “What Your Anger May Be Hiding.” And
one of the matters I addressed was how anger could be comprehended as
the “low road to self-empowerment.” For not only can it enable you to
fend off emotional pain tied to residual self-doubts from your past
(i.e., old—and as yet unrectified—beliefs about your not being good
enough), it can also help ward off immediate feelings of powerlessness.
Although almost nobody appreciates their proclivities toward anger as
coping strategies calculated to disarm, denigrate, or intimidate "the
enemy," I'm convinced that anger is employed universally to bolster a
diminished sense of personal power. Contrary to feeling weak or out of
control, the experience of anger can foster a sense of
invulnerability—even invincibility.
Having dealt with other pleasurable—or (pseudo)-empowering—aspects of
anger in previous posts, I’ll end by simply bulleting the most
prominent ones, including each of their almost inevitable drawbacks. So,
in addition to what’s already been described here, anger can assist you
in:
- Getting your way with others by intimidating them—but typically, it's hardly an enduring fix.
- Negotiating more effectively with others—but if your anger is clearly feigned, your stratagem will be recognized and make you much less effective (see, e.g., Todd Kashdan & Robert Diswas-Diener, The Upside of Your Downside, 2015).
- Energizing your entire system, and so increasing the vigor of your actions—but such "dynamism" is also likely to offend others, motivating them to retaliate against you.
- Obliging your listener to pay greater attention to what you’re telling them—but frankly, such forcefulness is probably scary to them, and so alienates them from you and damages the relationship.
- Protesting against something that feels unjust, hindering or handicapping to you—but unless such dissent is done with the required diplomacy, it can do more harm than good.
Can you recognize yourself in any of this? And if so, when you
believe others aren't treating you fairly, can you find better ways
(i.e., less objectionable to them and detrimental to yourself) of
conveying your thoughts and feelings?
ABOUT AUTHOR
Leon F. Seltzer, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and the author of Paradoxical Strategies in Psychotherapy. He holds doctorates in English and Psychology. His posts have received over 31 million views.
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