Hey Man: I'm a Guy, I'm Angry All the Time, and I Don't Know What to Do

Hey man, this lockdown is getting to me. I seem to have a lot more anger building up. It doesn’t materialise beyond hitting the mattress, but it’s still affecting my day and making me feel shit. There’s nothing specifically wrong, I just seem to have a shorter fuse than ever. How can I channel this? 

Hey man. Anger causes many of the toxicities that masculinity is responsible for in the world, from self-harm through to abuse, so it’s right to be checking in on yourself regarding how furious you’re getting. Having an awareness of our emotions is something men neglect all too often.

Anger is generally seen as a secondary emotion – it’s a reaction to how something made you feel. For example: If someone upsets you, the primary emotion could be sadness, but that sadness then spills over into anger. Psychotherapist James Hawes says the issue with this process is that “in men, anger can become the only emotion we've got a handle on, so we squeeze other problems through it, a bit like a channel”. 

Lockdown has stopped many of our decompression devices. The closure of pubs, barber shops and cafes means men can’t congregate and blow off emotional steam; no gyms mean many of us are priced (or spaced) out of a place to burn adrenaline and physical stress, and there’s also the loss of clubs, which means we can’t go around chatting shit and chuffing cigs with our new best mates all night long. Plus, many of us have a reduced social life, financial precariousness and/or we’re filling the days with extra work. Lots of people aren’t having sex. Life hasn’t been great for anyone recently.

This isn’t an excuse to be angry – it’s more a justification for why it feels like it’s easier to get more pissed off than ever before. But addressing and keeping tabs on that anger is more vital than ever. There are a few ways to do this. Hawes believes in anger awareness rather than management, and says we need to “become a lot more conscious of our feelings throughout the day, not just anger, but anxiety, sadness, hurt, disappointment or shame”. Ultimately, “anger is our emotional defence against difficult feelings”, he explains.

If we can learn how to process different emotions – whether it’s sticking on a good film and eating comfort food or speaking to a pal when we’re anxious – we’ll likely have less building up inside of us to eventually spew out as anger. 

Clinical psychologist Dr. Siobhan McCarthy adds that being aware of your first signs of anger is key to mitigating its impact on you and others around you.

“It might be a clenched fist or a headache,” she says. “As soon as you're getting those red flag symptoms or behaviours you can do something that's going to help you.” This can take the form of going for a walk or taking a bath, right down to splashing your face with cold water. Hawes calls this tactic an “emergency break” and also stresses the importance of doing it.

If you’re worried about punching a mattress, you’re probably not a bad person. If squeezing a stress ball or pillow isn’t doing harm to yourself, anyone or anything else, then that isn’t really the worst form of coping. But remember, things can escalate. Prevention is the cure, so hopefully having more of an understanding of toxic anger will help you become more aware of how to reduce it. If your rage begins to affect anyone else, it’s imperative to intervene and stop yourself. Free means of seeking help include talking to your GP or a support group such as Samaritans. Best wishes man. 

Hey man. I have a typical admin-based office job. It’s not stressful, and I get along with my colleagues but I can’t shake the feeling I didn’t figure out an alternate path.  I feel like I played life way too safe and it’s time I’ll never get back. 

I am feeling very down. I don’t respect myself anymore. I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing beyond simple financial stability. How can I accept my life?

Hey man. Feeling like you’re on the wrong life path is something most people struggle with at some point. But while low self-esteem and existential thoughts can happen to everyone, research suggests that overall, men have less job satisfaction and less life satisfaction than women. This disappointment is prevalent across all income, education, and employment groups.

So what’s the fix? Jack Worthy, a gestalt psychotherapist, says the issue of not feeling like you’re on a certain track in life is “the same you’ll have faced earlier in adulthood and again in retirement”. Making it over to the other side, he says, is “about finding things that give you a feeling of meaning and purpose”. Of course, that’s easier said than done when you’re already low.

We all have to start somewhere. The people who have figured out “remarkable living” did too. Psychologist Andrew Bridgewater says that it’s easy to get trapped by feelings of low self-respect and lack of achievement, and too often there’s an “illusion that we have to take a sort of quantum leap [to change our ways], but it's never like that”. Instead, he says, “a small step can have a big impact”.

Let’s start with your job. “Believing your job has to be a major source of identity or passion can really narrow the world,” Worthy points out. It’s OK to work somewhere you don’t find particularly meaningful. Instead, it’s about spending your spare time doing things you enjoy and find fulfilling. You probably know someone like this: They fill in Excel sheets on the weekdays and draw graphic novels while running ultra marathons all weekend. 

There are practical ways to kickstart a change in your environment and loosen the ties to the capitalism-owned desk you sit at on the daily. They include speaking with friends to see what they think you’ve genuinely seemed passionate about, and honestly asking yourself what you’d spend your day doing if you had nothing holding you back. 

Your passions might not be monetizable or fit a job description – but even if they do, we don’t have to find our deepest validation from work. If you know what your hobbies are, there’s a starting point. If not, friends might be able to help you figure out when or what you have been very enthusiastic about in the past. 

Only you can improve how you feel. Being open to your thoughts is a great way to quicken up the process. Planning ahead while in lockdown and taking time to think about what you really want could help you create a life that genuinely gets you out of bed in the morning. Keep the faith man. 

@_rhysthomas_