Old anger

Some anger has nothing to do with this evening. You're in the shower, or driving, or lying awake at two in the morning, and you're in an argument with somebody who isn't there. It might be the ex who lied to you, or the boss who pushed you out and was promoted afterwards. It might be a parent, or the brother who handled the will. You put your case brilliantly and they have no answer. You've won this argument several hundred times, and you'll probably be arguing it again tomorrow.

The method in chapter 10 depends on a point that can be delivered. You cool down, find the point, and say it to the right person. Old anger is the case where that seems impossible. The person may be dead, or gone, or so sure of their own version that nothing you said would reach them. So the anger goes round and round.

The belief that keeps it going deserves respect. It says that holding on is the only justice you have. Nobody else remembers what happened, or nobody else cares. If you stopped being angry, it would amount to saying that it didn't matter, and they'd have got away with it completely. In that way the anger is being loyal to the person you were when it happened. It's also the only surviving record that you were wronged.

I'd ask who is paying for that record. Each replay brings the heat back. Your jaw sets and your heart rate climbs, and ten minutes of your morning go to a person who may not have thought of you in years. We saw in chapter 4 that going over a grievance keeps anger alive. With old anger that's almost the entire mechanism, because no new offences are coming in. The feeling is being kept going by replay. Meanwhile the other person pays nothing. It's like a trial that you reconvene every day, serving as prosecutor and witness, while the defendant never attends and doesn't know the court is in session.

So ask the chapter 10 question here as well. What do I want to be different? The answers fall into two groups.

Sometimes there's still something to be done. It could be a conversation you've put off for ten years, a formal complaint, some legal step, or a letter setting out what happened and how it affected you, sent with no expectation of a good reply. If something of that kind exists, part of the endless replay may be your mind pointing out that you haven't done it. Do it, or decide with your eyes open that you won't and that the price is too high. Both of those count as decisions. It's the years of being about to do it that keep the case open.

Sometimes nothing can be done. They've died, or they're out of reach, or you know from long experience that they'll never see it. In that case the anger is asking for something nobody can give it, which is a different past. I say this as gently as I can, because it's a sad thing to take in, and sadness is often what lies under old anger. This is my interpretation and not an established fact, but I think for many people anger is the easier of the two to feel. While you're angry you feel strong, and when you're sad you just feel the loss. A grudge can be a way of not grieving.

Letting go, in the sense I mean, asks less of you than you might fear. It doesn't mean deciding that what happened was acceptable, and you don't have to reconcile with anyone or let them back into your life. Nor does it require a warm feeling of forgiveness that you can't produce. You can keep the verdict. What they did was wrong, and you can believe that until the day you die. You can keep what it taught you about whom to trust and what you won't put up with again. The only thing you give up is going to the hearing.

In practice that's a small act you repeat. When the replay starts, name it. "That's the old case again." Ask once whether there's any action to take. If not, put your attention back on what's in front of you, the way you'd come back to a book after a noise outside. It'll start up again, maybe within the hour. Don't treat that as failure. The replay has had years of practice, and what you're doing is simply not practising it any further. Over months I'd expect it to come round less often and with less force. I can't promise it goes away altogether.

Some people find it useful to write a letter they'll never send, with everything in it. The test is the one from chapter 3, which is how you feel when you've finished. If writing it leaves you clearer and a bit lighter, that's fine. If it leaves you stirred up and drafting extra paragraphs in your head, it has become another replay, and you should stop.

One caveat. If your old anger is about abuse, violence or some other serious harm, I'm not suggesting you tidy it away with a technique from a short book. Anger of that kind is often tied up with trauma, and a good therapist is the right person to work through it with. It's worth seeking one out even if the events were a long time ago.