Why do I feel angry over small things?

My body froze for a millisecond. Something passed from my mind to my chest; indescribable, but unmistakable. I was typing a message yesterday and asserting myself there. But my memory. My oh my.

I was anywhere between surprised and shock. This little message to the person who doesn't even matter to me made me angry? Why did I feel angry? Why do I feel angry over small things?

But now as I type this I sit to wonder if the anger and rage that lasted for a millisecond, was it even about that situation? I have a hard time recollecting what triggered me. Like usual my legs restlessly shaking, up and down.

A sense of some weird current sort of thing, but this is so different from the previous one. This is mild, this is like from anxiety. It's tingling. Argh, so hard to explain. It's like when you go for your TENS, the physiotherapy machine thing. It's that. It's strange that I enjoy it when it's coming externally but almost annoying that right now when it's not external. I feel it in my chest. My eyes stop to stare at a single thing as I start to zone out. I feel lightheadedness, almost like I will faint. But except not.

I start to recollect and think, I haven't gotten this angry. Oh wait, it's my PMS. Makes sense. But except it does not. There was no need to get angry. I write usually from my memory and it's strange that my fingers stay up in the air pausing before I sit to type each sentence. How is this not coming naturally to me? Perhaps is anger something that I feel is unnatural?

It's hard this time. Not being proud in my mind as I sit to type. My left foot resting on my right making a shape of 4 as I move my foot with speed. There is something about anger that makes me not move forward, holds you back. Perhaps the memories that it can't access, or the shame that it can bring up. And as I type I sense my toes tight, tongue thickened and my jaws clenched. It feels so uncomfortable to sit with this. I feel guilt as I try to remember moments when I have gotten angry. Almost like I was not supposed to. I was not allowed to.

I kid you not but every other client or person I have spoken to about anger didn't fail to mention, "I used to be very angry all the time before." And what best to finally start with about anger? I remember being a very short tempered girl. I was angry, rebel, a teenager teenaging? Except no. I was suffering, struggling. I didn't have the words or the language to not only articulate but the capacity to know what it was. I held my anger in my forehead. I wonder why. What made a young girl who is trying to make sense of the people, herself and the world around her so angry? What could possibly be wrong with her. I can visualise myself looking into her eyes while she is angry and I feel teary, sad, irritated and almost unfair that this is happening to her. But yeah, hormones are to be blamed right? During that time, it still is blamed. I feel the disgust on my face as I type that. But I also happen to remember something my interim therapist said: how can someone not be angry if they were in your place after having things to deal with. Anger is what made you survive.

I vaguely remember this incident where the entire day I was a cranky kid. Crying, irritated, angry. I troubled the person I loved the most so much. I sit with guilt when I type this. I was angry for no reason. She was crying the whole time because I put it all on her. I don't remember the reason but I do feel the ache of the situation, the trouble I gave her. I remember at the end of the day when my aunt took me out I called her right after having something great to eat for snacks. I told her sorry and I told her I understood why I was angry. I was actually hangry all this while. She burst into tears. I could hear her sob. I still feel it in my chest and I get teary. This somehow turns out to be my last memory of becoming this angry. I think this was when I had decided to stop getting angry. And I was so successful at that.

I do remember situations before when I unreasonably got angry and made her suffer, almost blaming her for all the wrong things happening. I remember getting a haircut, a teenager but also a child who had some weird obsession and connection with hair, who'd end up crying every time I cut my hair. But this time I was old enough. I heard the person I loved the most tell the barber to cut my hair short. It didn't go as I planned and I threw a fit all over again. I blamed her. It almost felt like the roles were reversed. Like a child shouting at the person she loved most for everything she did wrong and how it messed things up. My shoulders start to shrug as I feel the pain in my eyes, the guilt in me, the eyes watery. She didn't deserve this suffering. She deserved better.

But I was not angry at her. I was probably angry at the caregiver who let me and herself suffer at the hands of others, who was helpless and didn't stand up for herself, which also meant she didn't save me from the suffering she herself had to go through. The tears finally came out as I typed this. I can feel them sliding down, touching my cheeks and the periphery of my chin. I was mimicking what I saw. What I knew. What I could not hold. I was angry but also suffering to get out of the misery that I felt. The time in my school when I was alone sitting, crying, helpless, clueless, needing her. I could see and feel as a child that she wanted to be there by my side but yet she felt like her hands were tied.

I have time and again seen the suffering, the helplessness and the embarrassment in her eyes. And it was not only from when it was for me. All this while it was for her. About her. To be seen and stood up for.

I was angry because I didn't know what else I was allowed to be. Vulnerable? Crying? No, never. How can anyone in my place not be angry if they had to go through what I had to. If they had to constantly be consumed by feelings of hurt, pain, suffering, helplessness, unpredictability. Who suffered unimaginable consequences by caregivers for standing up for themselves as a child. But that was not it right? It didn't stop at family. It was ongoing at school. For the teachers I looked up to who disappointed me, failed me, and couldn't save me. But also the fairly naive friends who themselves were bringing and reenacting versions of themselves they found at home to survive. With whom I felt lonely. With those who I wanted to be chosen, to be heard and feel safe. I was chasing, enmeshed in this whole play of being the adult children at our homes.

I find myself angry to date. Grieving a recent loss of a relationship, loss of a beautifully intentionally imagined future I always longed for, which I had hopes of getting. I sit with grief but I notice myself not allowing, or having a hard time allowing, those same people to show up for me. I am mad at them for not showing up but I am also mad at them for trying to show up. And it absolutely makes no sense, except it does. It does probably to the little child in me. But I am learning. I am slowly allowing myself to let people show up for me. And my oh my, it's hard.

I have probably 50 plus messages in my group chat that I have to go back to. But yet here I am, angry, unreasonably. But only different this time. This time, this anger only I can see.

If you felt anger that doesn't quite make sense, the guilt that comes with it, the feeling you were never allowed to feel it in the first place, we're here.

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Written by Tanisha Sanghavi

Tanisha is a counselling psychologist and co-founder at Therapea, working with young adults on food-body relationships, attachment, and complex trauma. Work with Tanisha →