Always Angry? Here’s What Is Going On
Find that you’re often irritable? Always snapping at people? Just angry constantly, beyond what is reasonable for the situation?
The good news is there’s nothing wrong with you :).
I promise you’re not just an ‘irritable’ or ‘angry’ person in some absolute sense. That’s total rubbish. There’s no such thing.
There’s a good reason why this is happening.
Why We Are Always Angry
In a nutshell: based on your experiences growing up, your nervous system has been powerfully conditioned to get angry in order to protect you from painful feelings of hurt.
These feelings were so painful or threatening that you couldn’t handle feeling them when you were small. And this could be something big like parents getting divorced or it could be something small like saying the wrong answer in class.
Anger was how you pushed down the hurt and removed the trigger (by using anger against others).
Essentially, vulnerability is understood to be dangerous and irritability is your protection against that.
But when you push that hurt down, it doesn’t disappear. It sticks around. And each time in life something or someone threatens to trigger the hurt, the anger jumps straight in. It’s so quick you don’t even notice that you’re feeling vulnerable or hurt.
But if this pattern gets too strong, you are never able to feel the hurt or be vulnerable.
And this hurt has to be pushed down into your body, where it builds up over time, needing more anger to cover it up, which pushes the hurt down even deeper…
Before you know it you need to be angry all the time, otherwise the backlog of painful emotion from your past will come flooding forwards uncontrollably.
Irritability and Chronic Triggers
This can particularly be the case if you live or work in an environment that is chronically triggering your hurt. For example, if you have a difficult home or work environment.
Here’s an interesting example. There are about 1.2 billion hits on Google when I type in “why is my husband always angry”. Wow.
I can almost feeeeeeel these dudes in my bones. I have been like it at times in relationships in the past: unable to feel and express emotions. Feeling trapped. Miserable. Deep down knowing what the hell to do or how I ended up so damn unhappy.
And the presence of a partner asking or inquiring almost anything, even a simple “so how was work?” is a reminder of all that hurt.
But can I be vulnerable about all of that? Hell no! So before that hurt gets anywhere near the surface…BAM!
The anger and irritation comes in to save the day.
These men don’t even realise they are feeling hurt and vulnerable. The anger moves so quick they literally don’t see it. Which is precisely why it works so well!
And couples can get into a dynamic where every little interaction is a reminder of all the previous unexpressed hurt, resentment, pain and so on, with the only solution being more fuel on the fire. More anger!
Until the whole relationship explodes.
Healing The Little Child Within
The reason this example is so instructive is it points so clearly to the root of it all: the lesson we learned as a child that we couldn't feel our hurt.
Within every irritable or angry person is a little child that feels very hurt and alone and who has been completely abandoned, pushed down and neglected. And who needs to be seen, heard, held and loved.
The way we move out of irritability and being always angry is twofold.
First, we talk to the angry protector part that feels like it’s dangerous to be vulnerable.
Secondly, we find the hurt, vulnerable part and give that expression. We feel it, listen to it, let it express, cry, sob…whatever we need to do allow this part of us—stuck and frozen for so many years—to move and pass through.
As you do this over and over again, you’ll find that it’s easier to be vulnerable. There’s then space to process the hurt, which means you don’t need to be angry to protect it as much.
Your system starts to come into balance again, with hurt and anger occasionally rising when needed but not stuck in dysfunctional loops.
If you want to learn more I’ve written two extensive guides that may be of use:
And you can always check out my free Nervous System Regulation Mega-Toolkit for over 115 different exercises and techniques to work with your nervous system and emotions.
