Insights gained from embracing anger: A personal reflection

Four years of navigating relationship challenges, cultivating strength, and fostering discovery

Photo by Patrick Schneider on Unsplash

Anger. An emotion I often bottled inside as a kid. When it would show up, I would become explosive and hurtful.

As a teenager, anger showed up differently: I would rebel against the rules and experience serious mood changes and a mental health episode.

As an adult, anger became my teacher.

While I remember working through this emotion in therapy between the ages of 18 and 21, I was not prepared for the anger that was yet to come.

Big anger

Big anger showed up at my door, with very little explanation and no choice to let it in and live with me. Not to mention, at the time, it had been less than 12 months since I moved in with my boyfriend Luke (now husband). We had barely gotten used to this new dynamic.

Little did we know, we would spend the next four years navigating big anger more than we ever thought possible.

Our home was my favourite place.

Now, it was the furthest place I wanted to be, but the only place I could go.