Coming to Terms With My Father’s Anger and My Own: Some Hills Aren’t Worth Dying On

Even at a young age I felt the force of my anger and how it set me apart from others. I observed other sons interact with their fathers and I saw they were loved and supported. As a result, they held a calm, patient completeness I marveled at. My father seemed to relish my mistakes as an opportunity to belittle me and aggrandize himself.

At twenty-eight, my life broken by alcohol and drugs I reached the conclusion that I needed help. I decided I didn’t want to self-destruct like the old man did. How could I stay sober and deal with my anger, anxiety, depression and shame? Today I’ll share how I’ve learned to better cope with my anger and how you can too!

Self-Compassion

If you have trauma one essential first step to dealing with anger is to have self-compassion. Self-forgiveness is essential to spiritual growth and to recovery. You deserve a better life. You don’t deserve what happened to you. Understanding this was my first step to health and a happier life. I was not a “piece of shit.” I didn’t deserve to be abused and I needed to stop blaming myself!

Accountability

The next step is accountability. Your trauma isn’t your fault, but your anger is something you must learn to be responsible for. Awareness of how your anger affects others is essential to progress—and you can develop better ways of responding.

Self-Care

Part of self-compassion is to practice disciplined self-care. With untreated trauma we don’t believe in the importance of treating ourselves well. Not doing so decreases self-esteem and increases anger. Another step to regulate my anger was to take better care of myself. If I’m getting sufficient sleep, eating well and getting enough exercise, then I am likely to present the best version of myself. If I’m tired, haven’t worked out for a while and am eating poorly then I’m prone to losing my temper.

Self-Check-Ins

We can also monitor anger on a 0–10 continuum: 0 = completely calm, 10 = dysregulated. When I sleep well, eat regularly, and exercise, my number tends to stay lower. Fatigue, junk food and inactivity push it into the danger zone. Regular self-check-ins help catch and contain anger before it becomes difficult to control. Do self-check ins throughout the day, say three to five times, first thing in the morning, mid-morning noon and so on.

Emotional Regulation

If at some point you find your irritability spiking up from the lower end of the zero to ten scale then take corrective action. Take a break from whatever is irritating you and do some square breathing: inhale through your nose for a count of six seconds, hold for four seconds, then exhale around eight seconds, emptying your lungs. Repeat four times or more if necessary. Listen to a calming song or take a quick, brisk walk. Then return and re-engage. Remember, taking responsibility for, and effectively managing your anger will help you to get a permanent handle on it.

Stress Management

Stress is often unavoidable, but you can reduce its impact. Build routines that support calm: a consistent bedtime, a short evening wind-down, and time for activities that replenish you (a walk, reading, journaling). I used to sleep until the last possible moment then rush out the door late for work, already irritated and stressed. Now I aim for adequate sleep with quiet mornings, and time to start the day in a constructive frame of mind. Remember, progress is a collection of small, steady habits.

Managing Resentment

Another key to better managing our anger is to stop “reinforcing our resentments.” Learning to do this was a big factor in helping me to controlling my anger better. Most of us form our resentment based on our expectations and judgement of others. Interrupting the cycle of resentful thinking leads us to resolving the conflict we have with others. When they don’t meet our expectations, anger rises. We ruminate with accusatory thoughts like, “how could they do that!?.” It’s beneficial to consider why they’ve reacted as they did. Learn what the other person’s perspective is, then seek compromise and resolution. The more you practice this, the better you’ll get at it and the more quickly you’ll let go of your anger.

Steer Clear of Disrespectful People

I avoid negative, disrespectful people. Disrespect hits the scars left from my father. I don’t keep people who are disrespectful in my life as a general strategy. I’ve also learned to walk away from negative, disrespectful people I encounter haphazardly. Negativity is a poison I can’t afford to drink as despite my best intentions, being around negative people tends to make me negative too. Life is too short to spend in a negative mindset.

Some Hills Aren’t Worth Dying On

It’s always worthwhile to ask yourself whether a conflict is worth fighting over. Some hills are worth dying on, other squabbles are decidedly not. A stray dish left in the sink, a dirty towel on the floor can be annoying but neither is worth a big blow up. Sometimes walking away is the easiest and most sensible thing to do.

Don’t Drink the Poison

A helpful way to think of anger and resentment is the old saw, “being angry is like drinking poison and expecting the other guy to die.” Or envision a crown of thorns encircling your head. As your anger rises, your head expands and the thorns sink deeper in. Learning to better manage our anger helps us to live more happily, to enjoy ourselves and other people. The better we manage it the better we feel. Anger can be managed with a committed and thoughtful approach. Less anger means a happier, healthier life!

Please seek professional support when anger feels unmanageable. If you are overly aggressive, harming others, have persistent mood disorders, or trauma symptoms that overwhelm you.

Some helpful links below:

988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline

PTSD Screening Form
Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire
Information about Trauma-informed Care

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Previously Published on substack

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