It's all the rage!

Tell me, how many times in your life have you stopped to think about the difference between anger and rage? I would guess the answer to that question is a figure hovering around 0. But don’t fret! I am here to lend a helping hand and bring you the enlightenment you never knew you needed.

You see, the terms anger and rage are often used interchangeably and I think it’s about time we put a stop to that. Would you use firework and atomic bomb to describe the same explosion? Probably not. Would you consider your favourite hat to be the same as every hat you have ever worn in your entire life? NOPE! The latter comparison is actually a much better representation of how one might differentiate anger from rage. You may be curious as to how hats relate to this topic and the truth is, they don’t! However, keep that metaphor in mind as we move forward and hopefully you will catch what I am throwing quite soon.

This topic is one that comes up with clients pretty frequently and is something my therapist once helped me to understand. It was revolutionary for me and clients find it pretty darn helpful. The usual tale involves a person entering an innocuous situation or conversation and is met with what can only be described as emotional Armageddon. Their emotions fly off the handle and they are engulfed in an inferno of disdain towards something that is objectively quite harmless. This type of irrational, exaggerated response is rage. It is not in the present moment and is instead a collection of unexpressed anger from thematically similar situations of the past. For example, let’s say you are walking along the sidewalk, innocently sipping your java, when a jogger comes along and accidentally bumps into you, spilling your beverage and soaking your clothes. Now, if this experience is completely new to you, there may be a bit of anger at the situation depending on your mood that day, or you might even laugh at this objectively hilarious scene. If, however, you grew up with an older brother who taunted you incessantly and made a habit of purposely spilling your drink onto you every chance he got, you might find yourself loathing the jogger with the fire of a thousand suns. Profanity? Sure! Chasing him down? Maybe! This, my friends, is rage. It is not only the anger that you feel in the present moment for something or someone hurting you or overstepping your boundaries, but it is the anger of the present teamed up with anger of the past. It has had a LOT of festering time and it has been waiting to be released. When something happens that gives suppressed anger of the past a chance to be expressed, it can explode out of you without your realization or consent. Another example is someone dining at a restaurant and having the kitchen mix up a portion of their order. A person may be frustrated and annoyed for now having to wait longer for their meal, or a person might completely flip their lid and scream at the server for not listening to them (just like the person’s mom never did). Do we see the difference here?

Knowing how to differentiate these two emotional responses is helpful, but definitely not the last step in preventing future bouts of untethered rage. The most impactful way we can approach these experiences of amplified emotional responses is to sit down and reflect on them. The first step may be to notice that a response was outlandishly inappropriate for the situation. The next step might be to ask yourself if you have had any similar experiences in the past in which you felt powerless and unable to stand up for yourself or leave the situation. Ask yourself how that situation made you feel and if there was something you needed to do or say that you were unable to at that point in time. Is it helpful to give this to yourself now? Are you still holding resentment for these unmet needs? This step is generally a real doozy because some of the emotion that wasn’t processed during the initial (or subsequent if repeated) situation might float on up to the surface and be quite uncomfortable. It might take the form of anger, sadness, grief, embarrassment, confusion, worthlessness, you name it. It’s okay! As you spend some time processing and feeling emotions of the past, it is likely that you are reducing the possibility of a rage-filled outburst in a future similar context. Be cautious here and if the emotion that you uncover feels like it is too much to process alone, reach out to a professional.

So, there we have it. A quick and painless explanation as to why I discourage anger and rage from being synonymous. Simply put, they are not the same and should not be treated the same. Anger is a rational response to the current situation and rage is an irrational response that lives and festers in the past, waiting to be released in an inappropriate volcanic eruption. I hope that the next time you are engulfed in a fiery rage, you think of me, and instead of letting it take over, you take out your journal for some reflection time.