The Anger That Never Comes Out
Understanding Anger • Part 2
A few years ago, my mother and I were having a conversation when she said I was an angry teenager.
She was right. I was angry.
As an adult, I can see that now.
Growing up, I didn’t think there was anything unusual about me. I thought I was a normal teenager. I slammed doors. I talked back. I lost my temper many times. I had an attitude. I chalked it up to moodiness, hormones, and showing my independence.
As I grew up, some of those behaviors went away.
I learned how to control my reactions, handle conflict differently, and semi-function as an adult.
I assumed the anger had gone away.
What I’ve come to understand is that there were many reasons I was angry back then. I write about most of them in my memoir, The Angry Daughter.
I can look back at that teenage girl today with an understanding I didn’t have back then. She wasn’t just moody. She was hurting.
The problem was that getting older didn’t automatically resolve the reasons behind the anger.
I just became better at hiding it.
What Is Silent Anger?
Silent anger isn’t always expressed. Instead of yelling, confrontation, or obvious signs of frustration, it’s suppressed, minimized, or turned inward.
Sometimes, it doesn’t feel like anger at all.
That’s what made it so difficult for me, and others, to recognize.
As I got older, I became much better at controlling what other people saw. I could be hurt and still pretend I was okay. I could get upset and say, I’m fine. I could disagree with someone and decide it wasn’t worth saying anything because I didn’t want the conflict.
I wasn’t slamming doors or yelling anymore. Instead, I was pretending I was fine.
At the time, I probably would have called that maturity.
Now I’m not so sure.
How Silent Anger Shows Up
One of the reasons silent anger can go unnoticed is that many of the behaviors associated with it are actually rewarded.
You’re easygoing, helpful, dependable. You don’t make a big deal out of things. You take care of everyone and keep going even when you’re exhausted.
That’s the version people like.
The problem comes when being “easygoing” means you never say anything when something hurts or bothers you. Being dependable means you don’t ask for help. Keeping the peace means you’re always the one expected to give something up.
That’s where resentment can start creeping in.
You may find yourself irritated by things that shouldn’t bother you that much. You might replay conversations in your head and think of everything you wish you’d said. You’re exhausted from doing things nobody asked you to do, and somehow still hurt that nobody noticed.
None of that feels like anger. It feels like being tired. Or being sensitive.
Does any of that sound familiar?
Ten years ago, if someone had asked me if I was angry, I would have said no.
I wouldn’t have been lying. I really didn’t think I was.
Why Some of Us Learn to Go Silent
I don’t think most people consciously decide to suppress anger.
We learn what happens when we express it.
Speak up enough times and get met with conflict, and you stop speaking up. Share how you feel and watch it get minimized, and you stop sharing it at all. Get told you’re overreacting, too sensitive, difficult, dramatic, or angry enough times, and you start questioning your own reactions before anyone else gets the chance to.
Sometimes, keeping the peace simply becomes part of your identity.
You become the person who can handle it. So you handle it. Again and again.
What Happens To The Body
This is the part of silent anger that interests me most, because emotions aren’t experienced only in our thoughts. Our bodies participate too.
If you’re constantly monitoring other people’s moods, avoiding conflict, holding back what you really want to say, or preparing yourself for someone else’s reaction, your nervous system can spend a lot of time on alert.
Over time, stress can impact sleep, digestion, muscle tension, headaches, energy levels, and the ability to truly relax. That doesn’t mean silent anger causes every physical symptom or illness, but suppressing emotions while remaining in a prolonged state of stress isn’t nothing.
For me, I believe it turned into an autoimmune disease that impacted my liver. A few years back, I learned in Traditional Chinese Medicine, anger can affect the liver.
I now know that, but not when I was diagnosed in my twenties.
For years, I was much more interested in what was happening with my body rather than what I was feeling. I wanted to understand the symptoms without considering whether my emotional life belonged in the conversation too.
Eventually, I started making that connection.
What Happened When I Finally Acknowledged It
Facing my anger didn’t make me angrier. It did the opposite.
Once I started looking at why that teenage girl had been so angry, there was suddenly context for it. I could see the experiences behind the reactions. I could understand why certain things hurt as much as they did and why I had responded the way I had.
I didn’t need to keep defending the anger or pretending it hadn’t existed.
I could finally process it.
And as I worked through the hurt that I’d buried, particularly in therapy and while writing my story, I noticed that the anger began to lose some of its power.
There was less to suppress because I wasn’t fighting so hard against what I felt.
Surprisingly, my liver enzymes began to decrease.
For me, letting go didn’t come from deciding I shouldn’t be angry anymore. It came from finally allowing myself to understand why I had been angry in the first place.
I look back at the teenager who slammed doors and lost her temper differently. I don’t just see a moody teenager with an attitude.
I know what was happening in her life and how she was responding to it.
I also know what she couldn’t understand yet.
Maybe that’s one of the problems with silent anger. When the outward signs disappear, everyone assumes the anger did too.
Sometimes we assume it ourselves.
But just because no one can see your anger doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
And sometimes the only way to finally let it go is to stop pretending it never had a reason to exist.