Handling Someone Else’s Anger

Handling Someone Else’s Anger

Anger is a universal emotion experienced by people on so many levels. I sometimes sit and think about my own anger and how it translates as an array of emotions, and it can be very difficult to deal with at times.

For years, I was overwhelmed by anger and even rage, and it almost ate me alive and drowned me beneath a sea of bitterness. For the most part, it is not a good feeling to simply wallow in anger even though sometimes that was the path that I chose.

In actuality, anger is simply the recognition of an injustice. When we feel justice is not served, that anger can turn into deep-seated bitterness. Bitterness eventually leaks onto everything and taints everything in its path, including the beholder.

I have been angry … a lot. Sometimes I feel like there are residual effects of the anger that I have battled within myself. So I do understand, but it is a far different place to be when handling someone else’s anger.

Handling Someone Else’s Anger

Technically, when dealing with someone else’s anger, you really have no control of what that person does with their anger. You can only handle yourself and how you respond, but when doing so, handling someone else’s anger requires patience. A lot of patience. Handling someone else’s anger also requires insight and a lot of empathy.

From experience, I have found that insight into someone else’s anger has very little to do with their most current and seemingly obvious problem(s). Their anger actually has more to do with the entire makeup of who they are as a person and the injustice(s) they have suffered that can be a major trigger for the angry emotion in the first place. Oftentimes, a logical source is what they are dealing with on a day-to-day basis with their family of origin or just the simple complexities of this life.

The more I am around a person and get to know them, the more I am bound to experience bouts of their anger. It is always to my advantage to never ever take their anger personally. Most often, the person is not even angry with me even when their anger is projected towards me. In fact, sometimes the person cannot even verbalize what their anger is really about … especially if they have been angry for a very long time.

I stewed in my own anger for long periods of time and would often lose track of what I was so angry about. I also found that the anger I harbored (when not dealt with) always transferred onto other situations, thereby, building up over an extended period of time when I did not deal with it.

So, when I have had occasions to be around another angry person, I often know that the person is battling grave disappointment. The person has either been let down by someone or incurred an injustice by someone and are being ignored about it. Although this may not always be the case, it most often usually is the case, and I greatly empathize.

Yet, when handling the anger of someone else, it is never easy. All I can do is simply sit with the person when I am in their presence and “feel” or intuit my way through it. I sit in silence. I never judge … not even in my silence. I simply wait. I pray. I do whatever it takes to let them know that I am there (until I am not).

I learned a long time ago, and through so many varied experiences, never to pick up someone else’s anger. It is not my anger to carry. It’s theirs. They have to handle it. They have to deal with it. The way they deal with it is also their choice. Their anger has very little to do with me even if they are angry with me. The most I can do is accept responsibility for my part of their problems and move on.

Although I know there’s scripture that speaks of bearing another person’s burdens, I believe this in no way means that I am supposed to carry another person’s anger. I can be angry on their behalf, but even being angry on their behalf is my own anger. Instead, I choose to sit with the person until they are calm or calm enough, but ultimately, it is still their anger to bear.

Most times, sitting with them is all that is needed even if no words are ever exchanged. Sometimes it simply helps the other person to know that someone cares for them. Even if I realize that the anger the person bears has something to do with me, I still have no control or responsibility for their anger. So I do not take it upon myself to bear their anger.

Handling someone else’s anger is not something I want to do. I have enough of my own emotions to work through, and I simply do not wish to become that porous (like a sponge) with my empathy anymore. In doing so, I bear things that are never meant to be mine. In the long run, handling someone else’s anger is only setting myself up for blurred boundaries, an increase of my own anger, and a lack of peace.