On the brighter side, you may have found that your anger sometimes brings you to the place where you are energized to right a wrong. You might be mad at yourself, someone else, or just life. And the targets of your anger may also be varied. There are whole spectrums of ways to respond to angry feelings. “What’s everybody so upset about?” But maybe you also forget how important the feelings of people you care about can be. It’s not so much a matter of repression as it is attitude. Or perhaps you’re so calm and self-assured, you remain relatively untouched by anger. In some extreme cases, rage can evolve into violent acts. You say things you wish you could take back. Too little control and you become erratic and perhaps even dangerous. Passive-aggressive behavior might turn into your go-to outlet. You smile even though it strains your face to do so. Whenever you are frustrated, you repress, repress, and repress even more. Maybe your parents taught you that anger was dangerous and destructive. With anger, too much control and you become bottled up and tense. There’s usually some sense of injury or insult involved. It doesn’t always manifest itself in the same way, and there is no singular reaction to it. That feeling that tightens your jaw and pushes a red blush into your cheeks. You’ve felt it… perhaps not over politics… but over something. Some days it feels like we live in a very angry world. If you listen to the current political discourse from around the world, anger is the engine that seems to be driving much of it. “If anger were mileage, I’d be a very frequent flyer, right up there in first class.” Gina Barreca The Three Bears of Anger: Too Little, Too Much, and “Meh”

Outburst anger issues test