Areas › Anger › What anger actually is
Live under enough strain for long enough and anger stops being an event. It settles into a new normal, and it can feel as though your character has changed.
Ask what has been running in the background: money, pain, night shifts, a job that grinds, somebody ill at home. When those ease the baseline often comes back down, which is not what would happen if this were simply who you now are. Where they cannot ease, the question becomes what small relief is available anyway.
Qur’an and Sunnah
We shall have removed all ill feeling from their hearts (Quran 7:43). What has built up in a heart is spoken of as removable rather than as the shape of the person.
وَنَزَعۡنَا مَا فِي صُدُورِهِم مِّنۡ غِلࣲّ تَجۡرِي مِن تَحۡتِهِمُ ٱلۡأَنۡهَٰرُۖ وَقَالُواْ ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِي هَدَىٰنَا لِهَٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهۡتَدِيَ لَوۡلَآ أَنۡ هَدَىٰنَا ٱللَّهُۖ لَقَدۡ جَآءَتۡ رُسُلُ رَبِّنَا بِٱلۡحَقِّۖ وَنُودُوٓاْ أَن تِلۡكُمُ ٱلۡجَنَّةُ أُورِثۡتُمُوهَا بِمَا كُنتُمۡ تَعۡمَلُونَ
We shall have removed all ill feeling from their hearts; streams will flow at their feet. They will say, ‘Praise be to God, who guided us to this: had God not guided us, We would never have found the way. The messengers of our Lord brought the Truth.’ A voice will call out to them, ‘This is the Garden you have been given as your own on account of your deeds.’
Qur’an 7:43read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
A prospective study of adolescents found that difficulty managing emotion predicted later increases in symptoms and that symptoms also predicted later difficulty, so the relationship ran in both directions over time. Neither side behaved like a fixed setting. It was observational and set in adolescence, a period of unusual change, so how far it carries into a settled adult life is unclear.
McLaughlin KA, Hatzenbuehler ML, Mennin DS, Nolen-Hoeksema S. (2011). Emotion dysregulation and adolescent psychopathology: a prospective study.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
A raised baseline is usually being held up by something, so it can come down when that something shifts.
This one is still a draft. It is waiting on a scholar and a clinician to read it before it is published.
Near this one
A cut heals and stops being news. An insult from years ago can still get your heart going, because the part of the brain that keeps threats on file does not heal in the same way.
How you show anger was taught to you long before you had any say. Some households raise their voices and forget it by supper, others go quiet for three days.
People say true things when they are angry, even when they say them badly. Listen past the delivery for what is being defended.