When Anger Was the Only Thing Keeping Me From Breaking

I used to think anger was a bad thing. The kind of thing you’re told to “control” or “let go” of because it’s unhealthy. But when your life flips upside down, when the people who were supposed to protect you become the ones holding you down, anger stops being just a feeling. It turns into something else entirely.

For me, it became the only fire I had left.

I wasn’t angry because of small things. I was angry because my life was taken out of my hands. Decisions were made for me. My freedom was stripped. My voice didn’t matter. And in those moments, anger was the only thing that made me feel alive.

It kept me from collapsing into that dark place where depression pulls you in. It was my shield. My “no” in a room full of people saying “you have no choice.”

People around me saw it as rebellion. I saw it as survival.

If I didn’t have that anger, I would’ve swallowed every hurt, every insult, every unfair rule until nothing was left of me. But anger made me fight, maybe not physically, maybe not even loudly, but inside my head, it kept whispering, “Don’t you dare give up.”

And that’s the thing nobody tells you: Sometimes, anger is not about destroying things. Sometimes it’s about holding on to the last bit of yourself that no one can touch.