By Lucy Terhar, TIWP Student

Anger. Where does anger come from? It never starts off as anger. It comes from somewhere. It comes from something or someone that makes you upset or annoyed. It might be a mask to cover up sadness. It could be a reflex to protect yourself from being hurt because you have been before and you wish to never feel that way again—so you put defenses around the castle of soft feelings that are made of anger and shoot arrows of meanness. You don’t like shooting people down but it’s better than being shot down and feeling that horrible feeling of hurt.

Anger might come from something someone says and does that annoys you— instead of politely asking them to stop or telling them that you don’t like what they said.

Anger might come from hormones. You don’t know why you’re angry because the thing the person is doing isn’t bothering you but you’re angry that they’re there, so you act like someone you don’t like being.

Anger may come from things in the past that are making you feel angry even though nothing in the present is. The past haunts us. What happens in the past stays with you and effects what you do or how you act in the future or present.

Anger can come from your personal space not being respected. As a kid or teen who lives at home, you probably don’t pay for your room, but you think of it as a safe space where you can sort through your feelings, take a break from life, and store your personal belongings, knowing others can’t touch them without your permission. Because it’s your stuff, right? Wrong! It’s your parents who own the house so they own your room and everything in it. You know they can do what they want with it, without permission. When they invade what you think is yours, it makes you angry. Every person is different and the way they live and act will most likely not be the same as yours. But under your parent’s guardianship you live and act how they want you to.

Anger come from not having control. Whether you’re a control freak or not, not having control doesn’t feel good. When you imagine something but then it doesn’t go the way you want it and it was the only thing you wanted—like that party you’ve been planning for three years and then everything goes wrong. You’ll feel angry because you don’t have control.

Anger comes from stress, little and big. There’s something you need to get done even though there’s not much time to do it, but you start it anyway, thinking positive that you’ll finish. But then time runs fast and you’re out of time. The stress that was built up on trying to finish gets released in anger at the fact that you didn’t finish. You ask nicely for just ten more minutes but you get rejected, which makes you more angry. You decide to release it by screaming and slamming things, yelling that you need only ten minutes over and over again, scared of the thought of what will happen because you didn’t finish.

Sometimes people are angry because something someone said to them hurt them. Humans can be like mirrors and reflect what they feel onto someone else who will reflect the feeling on. This can be good and bad. If you smile at someone who looks unhappy or if you ask what’s wrong, it might change their day and they might reflect what you did for someone else. But if you’re feeling hurt and put up your walls of anger and shoot out arrows of flaming meanness at someone, it might make them feel the way you’re feeling so they will pass along the meanness and hurtfulness.

You also shouldn’t bottle up feelings because if they get too full they might burst and a big explosion of meanness mighty come out and you’ll probably regret what you said or did because you had no control. It’s OK to have bad days, but make sure there are many good ones along with it.

Anger comes from someplace. Where does yours?