A drug named Anger!

Image courtsey: IMDb

 

"Because I think you're addicted to being angry. And sometimes I think that you enjoy being like this."

-Working Moms, S06E09 'Buried', 17:21

Lionel could muster up some courage only when he knew there was a closed door between himself and Anne and after she had had the biggest breakdown (quite literally) after knowing about the kiss Lionel and Tomé shared. Upon being asked why didn't he tell Anne about the kiss proactively, the words he spoke sounded both sensible and nonsensible (in the scene). But if you give it a thought, they only made sense after all.

Anger is a perfectly valid feeling under justifiable circumstances, but justifiable is a very subjective term. In my view, if people cannot get a grip on things one after another, they tend to get angry. How very presumptuous of me! Well, perhaps they would feel confused, lost, or overwhelmed at first (in my opinion), but if they fail to understand something over and over again, then the anger is bound to enter the system at some point. This anger, if not channeled out correctly, accumulates within and explodes at a worse possible point or a circumstance making everything even more complicated.

It's not only anger that must be channeled out. Every feeling that we feel, should be acknowledged and channeled out correctly.

This particular scene from the show powerfully shows how unchecked and unsupervised anger hurts you along with everyone else around you in the end, both physically and mentally. We see that Anne, on an unconscious level, is aware of her out-of-control anger but she's unable to accept it consciously. Her anger management trainer is right when he says that 'acceptance is the first step toward anger management' and Anne could only see it when her anger had done enough physical damage to her. Needless to say that it had already done enough mental damage to her as well but either she's yet to realise it or they're yet to show it in the show.

What pled me to pause the show was Lionel's dialogue. "Because I think you're addicted to being angry. And sometimes I think that you enjoy being like this." Flashed before my eyes a list of people in my life who live this way. It struck me that it's a conscious choice people make to live in anger OR they choose to stay angry, obliviously! Now, you can't make someone see it who's far into this state of mind. They have to undergo the due sufferance before seeing what they need to see. And the degree of this self sufferance is often more than that of the ones around them undergo.

It is perfectly okay to feel angry on, at, about, or toward something or someone, but it is equally important to acknowledge the anger and later let go of it. Else you let it live rent-free in your head and take control of your brain and gradually, you start feeling homely with this state of mind. You would feel restless without being angry at something. Eventually, the latter part of having it directed at something or someone falls down and the anger becomes otiose.

Anyway, this is just something my mind spiraled into after listening to Lionel's dialogue. But I also took it as an opportunity to check if there's unknown and ungoverned anger living inside my head rent-free!

P.S.- There was none. :)

Aditi Kapadi,

15/05/2022, 10.20pm