By Dr. Laura McGuire
Irritated. Livid. Pissed. Peeved. Enraged. Furious. Outraged.
All words for the emotion I fear the most: anger.
When dating someone new, I always tell them that I don’t “do” anger. I’ve had unwarranted anger wielded against me before, and I know how lasting those marks can be. Anger is unpredictable, unfair, and terrifying. I can’t handle another person’s abuse, another relationship spent walking on eggshells and fearing rage.
I almost never express anger. It is an emotion I find foreign. If you hurt me, I’ll be sad, afraid, frustrated, or disappointed, but never angry. I wouldn’t dare to allow myself to feel this most awful of emotions. I would never allow myself to feel the thing that has been weaponized against me. I can’t get angry and I won’t.
Or so I thought. Perhaps it was the months of quarantine coupled with having relentless social injustice splashed in my face like ice water day after day. The gasping for air between one emotional assault after the next—something about watching our nation ignore the most vulnerable as our livelihoods dissolve, paired with my own economic uncertainty. There was a too familiar sound in the voices of the beaten and murdered that spoke to my own survivor’s heart. I could no longer just be sad for all of us collectively and individually.
As much as I have hated anger, I am coming to appreciate the teacher that it can be. Anger doesn’t have to be all consuming or pointless—it can help us to better understand what we can no longer tolerate. In our society right now, anger is burning like a forest fire—consuming the underbrush of structural inequalities that have poisoned our world and prevented growth.
It is anger that gave us Pride. Stonewall wasn’t born of disappointment or calm resolution, but of profound and radical fury. Anger tells us that we are worth more than our struggles. Anger demands change now. For victims of interpersonal or social injustice, it is the emotion that fuels us to stand up and fight, no longer willing to wilt under that weight of depression and surrender. Anger forces us to care and to demand better.
When we get angry, it can help us to identify our allies—to see who can hear and affirm what we are living through, and who tells us that anger is not an emotion we are allowed to process. In my life and in society at large, I hear voices pushing back, dictating that we can only get mad politely. That anger must be palatable, digestible, comfortable—especially for those who stand to benefit from our meekness. This is, of course, a complete lie. We need to feel anger—in all of its manifestations—in order to heal and change.
I am ready to learn from anger. I am willing to accept the bridges it burns, clearing away the people and habits that have held me back. I will not use my anger to harm the innocent, but to make the culpable uncomfortable. I am honoring my queer ancestors as I embrace the frustration that I experience on both a personal and global level. I will not only mourn with those who mourn but will also rage and scream with those feeling righteous and valid pain. I will feel my anger.
