The Perils of Anger
The morning I fully realized my son wasn’t going to catch up with his peers, I slammed my coffee mug down so hard that it cracked. My wife flinched. I didn’t apologize. I was too busy being furious at the world, at our circumstances, at her, at myself—though I wasn’t ready to admit that last part yet.
Anger is seductive. It feels powerful when everything else in your life feels out of control. It gives you energy and motivation to act—in unwise and destructive ways. But like most dangerous attractions, anger promises protection while quietly destroying everything you care about. I spent years learning this lesson the hard way. I hope by sharing my journey, I might help you find a shorter path through the wilderness than the one I chose.
Breaking Free from Anger
Anger is an unpleasant feeling generated by a negative state of mind. Anger seems simple on the surface—that hot flush in your cheeks, the tightness in your chest, the words that spill out before you can catch them. But beneath that surface reaction lies a complex mental process that happens so automatically we rarely notice it.
Of all our emotional disturbances, anger announces itself most clearly. There’s no mistaking its presence when it fills your body and mind. It doesn’t sneak in like anxiety or depression sometimes can. It kicks the door down and makes itself at home.
For anger to arise, your mind must first focus on something specific—a person, situation, or event. You decide (often unconsciously) that this focus is undesirable or problematic. Then something fascinating happens: you zoom in exclusively on the negative aspects of whatever you’re focused on, magnifying them while completely filtering out any positive or neutral qualities. This mental close-up creates a distorted picture.
The doctor who delivered a difficult diagnosis becomes “that horrible doctor who ruined our lives.” The school administrator who suggested a different classroom for your child becomes “that heartless bureaucrat who labeled my baby.” This exaggeration isn’t intentional—it’s how anger warps our perception.
Next, you assign blame. “That doctor caused this pain.” “My spouse’s family history created this problem.” “The school system is making everything worse.” Notice how in each case, responsibility shifts outward, away from yourself. Finally, anger creates a powerful urge to push away, harm, or eliminate whatever you’ve identified as the problem. This desire to attack or escape is what we recognize as the feeling of anger.
I wish I could tell you this process is rare, but we encounter triggers for anger thousands of times each day in varying degrees. The good news—and I mean this sincerely—is that each of these occasions gives us a chance to practice acceptance and grow. Each moment of potential anger becomes an opportunity for spiritual development.
Most importantly, understanding this process shows us something crucial: anger isn’t an inevitable response to outside circumstances. It’s created through a series of mental steps that we can interrupt at any point.
This means each of us is 100% responsible for our own anger. That’s a hard truth to swallow, but embracing it is the first step toward freedom. With practice in acceptance, non-retaliation, and forgiveness, anyone can overcome anger. Eventually, it simply stops arising in situations where it once felt unavoidable.
Anger from Loss
Most people react to loss with anger. When I first suspected my son might have autism, my immediate reaction wasn’t grief or concern. It was rage. Pure, unfiltered rage. Anger is the path of least resistance. It requires no discipline, no maturity, no spiritual strength. It just happens. And like most things in life that come easily and naturally, anger is rarely never helpful.
What we don’t often recognize is that anger actually functions as a shield against sadness. The heat of rage feels better than the cold emptiness of loss. Anger gives us something to do with our pain—somewhere to direct it besides inward. “I’m not heartbroken that my child won’t have the life I imagined,” we tell ourselves. “I’m FURIOUS at the doctor who missed the signs,” or “I’m OUTRAGED at the school system that won’t provide proper support.”
Anger provides a false sense of strength when we feel most vulnerable. When you’re angry, your body floods with adrenaline. Your heart pounds. You feel powerful, ready for action. This fight-or-flight response has its place in true emergencies, but as a chronic state, it’s devastating to your health, relationships, and spirit. Some people manage to forge their anger into determination, and that can sometimes look like progress. “I’ll fight this diagnosis,” or “I’ll find a cure no matter what it takes.” But determination fueled by anger feels like having a gun to your head. It’s exhausting, unsustainable, and ultimately harmful. Anger is designed for quick bursts in response to immediate threats—not as a long-term motivational strategy.
Anger is Not “Out There”
Anger is not caused by the outside world, despite our beliefs to the contrary. Do these sound familiar? “You make me so angry!” or “If the insurance company hadn’t denied our claim, I wouldn’t be furious right now.” or “Anyone would be angry in my situation.” I’ve said all of them and more. Most of us grow up believing that our anger is a reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances. This belief is profoundly comforting because it absolves us of responsibility.
If something or someone else causes our anger, then what choice do we have? We’re merely responding naturally, right? And if we’re not responsible for becoming angry, then surely we can’t be held fully accountable for what we say or do while angry. It’s a convenient story we tell ourselves, and it’s entirely false.
The truth—and I learned this through years of painful self-reflection—is exactly the opposite of what we tend to believe:
- Anger is not caused by other people or their behavior
- Anger is not caused by external events
- Anger is neither unavoidable nor uncontrollable
These statements might seem radical, especially if you’re in the midst of a situation that feels anger-worthy. But I promise you, accepting these truths is the beginning of freedom from the tyranny of your own emotions. The first step toward overcoming anger is recognizing that you are 100% responsible for it. No one “makes” you angry. You create your anger through your own thought processes, and therefore, you have the power to uncreate it.
Don’t Blame Others for Your Anger
Some people treat every interaction like an accounting exercise, mentally recording each perceived slight or offense. They’re constantly evaluating, judging, and assigning blame. Interestingly, they rarely keep similar records of kindnesses or positive actions—just the negative balance. This mental ledger of grievances becomes dangerous in two ways. First, it provides ready ammunition for future arguments. (“Well, what about last Christmas when you said…”) Second, it feeds feelings of resentment and jealousy that poison relationships from within.
Blaming others for our anger serves one primary purpose: it relieves us of responsibility. Human nature stubbornly resists accepting fault, especially for unpleasant emotions. It’s much easier to say, “You made me angry” than “I chose to become angry in response to your actions.”
When we assign responsibility for our anger to others, we make it nearly impossible to resolve. After all, if someone else caused the problem, only they can fix it. We become helpless victims of others’ behavior rather than masters of our own emotional responses. The habit of assigning blame also hardens into resentment and hatred over time. The longer we maintain our grievance ledgers, the more enemies we create, and the more bitterness we carry.
Even when someone genuinely wrongs us—and yes, that happens—maintaining anger only compounds our suffering. The person who practices patience and refuses to harbor ill will has fewer enemies and, somewhat paradoxically, experiences less harm from others. This isn’t easy.
“Justifiable” anger is the hardest to overcome precisely because the justifications often feel so legitimate. Your anger might be completely understandable to everyone. You might have every right to be furious. But feeling and sustaining that anger still carries all the negative consequences, regardless of how warranted it seems.
I’m not suggesting you become everyone’s doormat or ignore genuine problems. You can still make sound judgments about who deserves your trust and time without maintaining a catalog of grievances. There are people I prefer not to spend time with, but I don’t carry anger toward them. Instead, I feel compassion for their challenges while choosing not to get entangled in their drama. The “blame game” isn’t about setting reasonable boundaries—it’s about sustaining anger through careful recordkeeping of others’ faults. And it serves no one, least of all yourself.
Anger and Your Special Needs Child
When I finally realized my son wasn’t developing typically, I hit what I call the “anger trifecta”:
- I didn’t get something I desired (a neurotypical child)
- I lost something I thought I had (my imagined future with a typical child)
- I got something I didn’t desire (a lifetime of specialized caregiving)
And it wasn’t about something trivial—it was about my family, my legacy, my whole life plan. The stakes couldn’t have been higher, which made the anger burn that much hotter. I focused obsessively on the condition, judged it as terrible, resisted accepting the truth with every fiber of my being, and desperately wanted to change reality. In short, I created perfect conditions for anger to flourish.
Then I went looking for someone to blame.
I somehow managed to ignore my own family history of developmental differences. I conveniently forgot about questionable choices I’d made during my wife’s pregnancy. I was mysteriously blind to every possible way I might have contributed to the situation.
Why? Because at my core, I secretly believed I was perfect and blameless. It sounds ridiculous saying it out loud now, but that’s the nonsense I told myself.
So if it wasn’t my fault, whose fault was it? My wife’s, obviously. She must have terrible genes. She probably ate something wrong during pregnancy. For no rational reason other than self-protection, I decided it simply had to be her fault, because there were only two of us involved, and I had already declared myself innocent. Angry people don’t mind being complete jerks, and I was no exception.
Some people handle this differently. They might suppress their anger, deny it, or try to ignore it entirely. I didn’t bother with such detours. I just became very, very angry. Anger toward a spouse is an extremely common first reaction to a special needs diagnosis. Some people, like me, blame their partner directly for the condition. Others don’t blame their spouse for the diagnosis itself but get furious about how their partner responds to it.
The truth is, everyone reacts to tragedy differently. Some people accept difficult news quickly and move into problem-solving mode. Others completely fall apart and sink into despair. Still others retreat into denial and act as if nothing has changed. When parents have different reactions, they often get angry with each other about those differences.
The stoic parent sees the emotional one as weak or dramatic. The emotional parent views the stoic one as cold and uncaring. Each becomes convinced their reaction is the only appropriate one, and the other must be wrong. This judgment creates marital conflict exactly when couples need unity most. Parents often reach out to friends or family for validation that their approach is right and their partner’s is wrong. Arguments escalate, animosity builds, and resentment drives a wedge between people who desperately need each other’s support.
Even when parents react similarly, it doesn’t guarantee a healthy response. If both parents retreat into denial, they might delay seeking necessary interventions. If both collapse into despair, they can pull each other deeper into depression as each feeds the other’s negativity.
Some parents direct their anger at their child. Obviously, a child didn’t choose their condition, but that doesn’t prevent some people from blaming them anyway. I didn’t fall into this particular trap, partly because I knew my son wasn’t responsible, but mostly because I already had a more convenient target in my wife.
Other parents get angry at their own parents—the child’s grandparents. “They gave me these defective genes,” or “They fed me too much junk food growing up, which damaged my DNA,” or “Their generation poisoned the environment and created this epidemic of developmental disorders.” (That last one was actually my pet theory for years, though I had zero evidence for it.)
I personally didn’t waste much energy being angry at my parents. Since I was taking absolutely no personal responsibility, I didn’t need to deflect any blame their way. If I had felt even slightly responsible myself, I probably would have found a way to scapegoat them too.
It’s God’s Fault
Many people, especially those with religious backgrounds, direct their anger toward God or fate. They might outwardly deny this anger—after all, good believers aren’t supposed to question divine wisdom—but inwardly, they rage against what feels like cosmic injustice.
“Why would God give me this burden?”
“What sin did I commit to deserve this punishment?”
“How could a loving God let an innocent child suffer?”
I didn’t focus my anger on God, not because I was above doing so, but simply because I wasn’t a believer at the time. Instead, I raged against my misfortune and “bad luck.” I knew a little about karma then, and I could have viewed my situation as the result of my own past actions. I could have taken responsibility that way. But I wasn’t in any mood to accept anything, least of all responsibility.
I misunderstood karma back then anyway. Some interpretations suggest that having a special needs child is punishment for previous sin or transgression. This view presupposes that having a special needs child is inherently bad, and therefore you must have done something bad to deserve it.
What a tragic misunderstanding.
When you eventually realize that your special needs child is a profound blessing, you begin to wonder what great deed you must have done in your past to deserve such an honor. If I had a past life, perhaps in it I failed to achieve the spiritual growth I longed for and needed something more powerful to guide me. Having a special needs child has made me a better person, forced me to grow in spirit, and improved my life in immeasurable ways. I now believe I must have lived with great virtue to have earned such an opportunity for growth.
Where did all that initial anger go? For many years, I stuffed it away inside. It burned as a secret resentment for over a decade. It changed forms as my understanding grew. But it wasn’t until I truly saw my child as a gift that it fully dissipated.
If you’ve felt any or all of these angry responses, please know you are not alone. And if you claim you haven’t felt any of them, you’re either an extraordinary saint or so deep in denial that you’re lying to yourself. Everyone goes through this to some degree.
Hopefully, you’ve begun to recognize the futility of anger and blame. If you haven’t yet overcome your anger, please know that you have emotional work to do. The important thing isn’t whether you’ve felt anger—it’s what you do with that anger and how you move past it.
Resentment and Your Special Needs Child
When you discovered your child was different, if you’re like most parents, you got angry. The question now is: where did that anger go? Is it completely gone from your heart, or is it hiding in some forgotten corner of your mind? Anger that persists over time hardens into resentment, a chronic, low-grade hostility that colors everything in your life.
Do you resent having a special needs child? I did for about 16 years. My resentment lurked in the background. I would have vehemently denied its existence if anyone had asked. But it was there, whispering to me that I was burdened, held back from achieving greatness, unfairly constrained by circumstances.
I was a fool.
Do you resent your child for needing your help? Most parents expect their children to eventually achieve independence, move out, and allow them to enjoy their later years with the freedom to travel, pursue hobbies, or simply relax. When a child can’t achieve independence, parents face the reality of lifelong caregiving.
That’s my situation, and possibly yours too. This reality of lifelong dependency typically unfolds in one of three ways:
First, some parents grow openly resentful of the “burden” and often seek institutional care to relieve themselves of responsibility.
Second, others grimly accept their duty and care for their child for life, secretly resenting the sacrifice but carrying on from a sense of obligation. This group sometimes becomes prideful about their martyrdom, wearing their sacrifice as a badge of honor.
Third, some parents come to see their role as a blessing—something they feel honored to do and thankful for the opportunity to experience. This is the path I eventually chose.
Which one will be your fate?
Almost nobody willingly admits to feelings of resentment toward their special needs child. Such an admission feels shameful, even monstrous. But many harbor these feelings anyway, often without fully acknowledging them even to themselves. If you haven’t fully accepted your special needs child—truly accepted them exactly as they are—you’re likely harboring some hidden anger and resentment. Until you feel this resentment and see it clearly for what it is, you cannot release it. Once you recognize its presence, you can practice forgiveness and acceptance to make it go away.
Nothing Good Comes from Anger
Anger disturbs your peace of mind. It’s not a pleasant feeling, despite the momentary illusion of power it provides. It compels you to hurt other people—sometimes physically, but more often with words or withdrawal of affection. These actions inevitably lead to regret.
In fact, anger is the direct path to lifelong regret. It fills your mind with toxic, negative thoughts that pollute your perspective on everything else in your life. Physically, it elevates your blood pressure and contributes to heart disease and other health problems.
Anger is ultimately self-defeating. It promises strength but delivers weakness. It promises justice but creates new injustices. It promises resolution but perpetuates conflict.
Some people touch the hot stove of anger briefly, then immediately retreat into denial. Denial feels less painful in the moment. Many believe they can somehow reach acceptance by completely avoiding or ignoring the painful reality.
But avoidance doesn’t purge negative thoughts and feelings from your mind. It merely pushes them out of conscious awareness temporarily. The diagnosis—that thing you’re trying so hard not to see—remains firmly rooted in your subconscious.
This buried negativity is like a weed with hidden roots. It spreads beneath the surface, eventually overtaking your emotional landscape, destroying your peace, and often leading to depression.
The path through grief offers no shortcuts. You can’t skip the hard parts and still reach genuine acceptance. As we’ll explore in the next chapter, denial might feel safer than anger, but it creates its own particular kind of prison.
