The upside of anger in trauma recovery.

You don’t owe anyone an apology for feeling angry. 

You don’t owe anyone an apology for feeling, well, anything, actually. 

We don’t ask for our feelings. We experience our feelings. 

Our feelings very often represent gut-level understandings of whether something is “for us” or “against us;” safe or dangerous. 

The fact that our nervous system registers something as safe or not-safe isn’t a reflection of the kind of person we are, or what our priorities and values are. Feelings are, much like trauma responses, largely reflexes. 

Cognitive therapy emphasizes how our feelings are frequently reflections of our thoughts and beliefs, and that’s true enough— but we need to understand that those thoughts and beliefs are rarely conscious or chosen. Most of the time our thoughts and beliefs are very much on autopilot, determined by our conditioning. 

Many people reading this have been conditioned to feel guilty for things we feel— especially anger. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that we have no “right” to feel angry— under any circumstances. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that anger is only experienced or expressed by bad, destructive people. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe that anger is the enemy of emotional progress and peace. 

We’ve been conditioned to believe anger is “immature.” That it necessarily leads us to being “mean.” 

None of those things are true. Not inherently. Not all the time, for everyone. 

Anger is a normal human emotion. The only reason it exists at all anymore is because it was selected for at some point in our evolutionary history— which means it has survival value. 

Anger, in the best of circumstances, provides us with energy and focus we need to defend ourselves, our loved ones, and our resources. 

Anger is often the first step toward crawling out of the emotional pit of depression. 

And I can assure you: anger is very often an INVALUABLE part of trauma and addiction recovery. 

We don’t need to apologize for getting or being angry. That’s an emotional reflex. Every human being in the history of human beings has gotten angry at some point. 

We may choose to apologize for how we’ve expressed or responded to angry feelings in the past— but that’s very different from apologizing for experiencing the emotion itself. 

I’ve seen many trauma survivors only start to make real progress in recovery when they’ve gotten in touch with their anger. 

I can tell you, in my own journey, there have been certain positive things I simply would not have ever done had I not gotten good and angry first. 

When we get angry at the right people, situations, and institutions, the world changes. 

Getting angry is often he first realistic step toward holding certain people and institutions responsible for the pain they’ve caused. 

Trauma recovery asks us to refuse to demonize who are are and what we feel. 

We may not be thrilled that we feel angry at some times— and that’s legit. I don’t like feeling angry. Anger usually exists because something has happened, that should’t have happened. 

But resist the urge to stigmatize your anger. 

Resist the urge to deny it or disown it. 

Own your anger. 

It’s really important— and, in trauma recovery, really useful.