Areas › Anger › The fear underneath anger
Anger rescues you from an unbearable in between by handing you something to do. The relief is real, and that is exactly why it keeps coming back.
Fear asks you to sit in a situation that has not resolved yet, which is a horrible ask. Anger says no to that and converts it into action, and the moment it does the awful uncertainty stops. Knowing what the outburst is for, rather than only what it looks like, is what makes it possible to choose something else while the feeling is still there.
Qur’an and Sunnah
Do not worry, God is with us (Quran 9:40). That was said while sitting still in a cave with pursuers nearby, which is what staying with an unresolved thing looks like.
إِلَّا تَنصُرُوهُ فَقَدۡ نَصَرَهُ ٱللَّهُ إِذۡ أَخۡرَجَهُ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ ثَانِيَ ٱثۡنَيۡنِ إِذۡ هُمَا فِي ٱلۡغَارِ إِذۡ يَقُولُ لِصَٰحِبِهِۦ لَا تَحۡزَنۡ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ مَعَنَاۖ فَأَنزَلَ ٱللَّهُ سَكِينَتَهُۥ عَلَيۡهِ وَأَيَّدَهُۥ بِجُنُودࣲ لَّمۡ تَرَوۡهَا وَجَعَلَ كَلِمَةَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُواْ ٱلسُّفۡلَىٰۗ وَكَلِمَةُ ٱللَّهِ هِيَ ٱلۡعُلۡيَاۗ وَٱللَّهُ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ
Even if you do not help the Prophet, God helped him when the disbelievers drove him out: when the two of them were in the cave, he [Muhammad] said to his companion, ‘Do not worry, God is with us,’ and God sent His calm down to him, aided him with forces invisible to you, and brought down the disbelievers’ plan. God’s plan is higher: God is almighty and wise
Qur’an 9:40read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
What the research says
In a fear conditioning experiment, people who were allowed to make a protective response while facing a feared cue held on to the belief that the cue was dangerous, while those who could not do anything went on learning it was safe. Acting to end the discomfort preserved the fear that caused it. It was an artificial laboratory setup, so the mechanism is clear while the setting is nothing like real life.
Lovibond PF, Mitchell CJ, Minard E, Brady A, Menzies RG. (2009). Safety behaviours preserve threat beliefs: Protection from extinction of human fear conditioning by an avoidance response.. Behaviour research and therapy doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Why it works
Anything that ends a horrible feeling quickly gets learned quickly, whatever it costs you afterwards.
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
The part of you that flares learned to do it without a teacher, at a time when reading danger fast actually mattered. It is out of date now. It was never stupid.
Triggers come in different kinds. Some are about life and limb, some are things you learned to dread such as criticism or being shown up, and some are abstractions like unfairness. What helps depends on which kind you are dealing with.
Anger is often a bluff, a show of size put on by something that feels small. Knowing that is not an insult to you, it is probably the most useful thing you can know about it.