Teenage Anger – How to overcome this in 2024?

Introduction

It was 3 pm and mother was waiting for the door bell to ring. It was time for her son to return home from school. The next minute the door bell rang, but it was not once or twice. Jhon kept pressing the bell switch continuously. The mother paced towards the door, already knowing something was wrong. As she opened the door, Jhon almost pushed his mom out of the way and rushed towards his room, throwing his bag on one side, banging the door behind and jumped into the bed, shouting, ‘please do not disturb me, I’ve had my lunch’.

 A friend had betrayed him by leaking his secrets and the whole class was bullying  him. Jhon’s heart was pacing with anger and thoughts of isolation, shame and embarrassment had overwhelmed him.

Lets see what just happened. Most of you would be thinking that similar events are normal and natural. That does not mean you need concern!  So lets see what happened  to Jhon next.

The situation was not going to end in the next few hours. Jhon decided not to go to the school the next day. He didn’t want to share anything with his parents. Staying locked in the room and ruminating thoughts of the incident kept on triggering his anger, not only on his friend, but this time, all the other classmates who were bullying him. He knew in his thoughts that the news would spread to the whole school the next day. He knew he couldn’t do much about it but soon his anger took shape of resentment and started planning and plotting his revenge.

 That’s quite a dangerous response! Whether revenge or no revenge, both situations take a great toll on the mental health of Jhon, and he would not be the same person again.

If you are experiencing something similar. This blog is going to give  solutions to all the questions arising in your mind.

Teenage Anger

Anger is a form of emotion and has both positive and negative effects. Like any other emotion, if it goes out of voluntary control, has devastating psychological and physiological consequence. As the emotion rises, it becomes a war like situation between symptoms like, racing heart rate, hypertension, slowing down of digestion, higher inflammation, shallow breadth.

Where people with no anger at all have greater chances of being abused or stepped upon, people who do feel angry, may be able to speak out against the external emotional stimulus and be safer as a result.

Symptoms of teenage anger

 For those, the anger does not end here, the common symptoms are:

• Irritability with self or others
• Snap immediately when asked a question
• May simply be angry all the time
• Covering up a depressive episode
• Demonstrate anger in a hostile way through violence, bullying or threatening others
• Indulgence in un-lawful activities
• Being argumentative all the time
• Behavior changes like rash driving and constantly risk taking.

These symptoms may come under the umbrella of ‘conduct disorder’, generally characterized by the inability to control impulsivity or follow the rules.

Some additional issues may also be noted:

• Becoming easily frustrated
• Escalate from calm state to furious state in just a moment
• Throw anger tantrums
• Face disciplinary action at school
• Be neglected by peers

This may lead to alcohol or drug abuse to numb their anger and calm themselves. It is therefore recommended to call for help. Timely interventions yields miraculous results. The reason why I say timely intervention is important, so that lesser areas of  your life are disturbed and you still have good coping mechanisms.

Initially, the anger could be just due to hormonal changes or mood swings. For girls, it could be during periods. For boys, it could be mere bad choice of friends leading to poor academics and parental pressure.

But whatever the cause, the coarse correction is easy. As it persists for longer periods of time, it takes shape of a habit and personality.

Most of the time it is observed that even the child is unhappy about his/her own anger response. They definitely try to get rid of it. Many are successful but for others, it just keeps growing without them noticing it, as its a slow process.

The first area that gets affected is parent child relationship. As the child starts spending most of his/her time on social media, parents get irritated and results in constant quarrels between not only the child and parents, but also amongst the parents. They try to control the child in ways they think is right, but this method always backfires.

Frustration creeps in the home environment and each member is disturbed. Comparisons start with others regarding grades and general behavior. The child is hurt, sad and isolated, unknowingly adding fuel to fire.

Parents start discussing their child’s behavior with friends and family. This leads to feelings of embarrassment and shame. Overwhelming stress leads to helplessness, jealousy, rejection and loneliness. Continuously maintaining this state for some time leads to mixed anxiety and depressive episodes.

So many emotional sufferings at the same time leads to a perceptional shift forming negative beliefs like feelings of ‘not being good enough’, low self image, low self esteem, low self confidence, guilt and many times, suicidal ideations.

How to manage teenage anger

Anger is an emotion and not a mental health problem if felt sometimes. Feeling angry more than usual or all the time indicates that you mental health is poor now. If it is disturbing your daily activity for long, then we can say it’s a mental health problem. Therefore, till the time it’s reached a stage of mental health disorder, being self aware about your emotional regulations can help you in many ways. Other ways of managing anger are

• Identify your triggers
• Share with someone, preferably with your parents
• Mindfulness meditation is of great help
• Distract yourself by smelling something strong
• Exercising or learning music or perusing your hobby

If none of the self help strategies seem to work for you, then talk to your family therapist.

Counseling:

            Taking help of counseling can be of great help. Now-a-days, online counseling is also available.

Benefits:

            By expressing your thoughts with experts, you can externalize the emotion, which, otherwise was disturbing your inner peace. You can feel relaxed and get insights from our experts, and resolve the problem.

Counselors have long experience in dealing such conditions, in a safe and secure manner. Incase you are still hesitant to ask for help, this might further harm your body chemistry in many ways and can lead you to bipolar disorder, psychosis, delusional disorder schizophrenia etc.

Awareness is the key. Help is available, you just have to ask for it. You are not alone. You can take our guidance towards a healthy and happy life. That’s your fundamental right!