I knew someone who reacted to every perceived slight from other people with anger. He’d tell me about something that had happened that made him feel bad, and he’d say, ‘I felt frustrated and angry’, or ‘I felt sad and angry’, or ‘I felt hurt and angry’, or ‘I felt embarrassed and angry’. Always angry, whatever other emotions were going on. It seemed to be his default setting.

Some people are just given to it. All of us have flashes of anger from time to time, but this is about those people who seem to spend a lot of their lives angry. It bubbles so close to the surface that it takes very little for it to erupt in another outburst.

Think about how you feel when you get angry. You become intimidating so it makes you feel, at least to some degree, more powerful. It’s a positive driving action, not a passive one. And this is the key to understanding angry people. Their anger is a cover for an emotion that makes them feel weak and helpless. They hate that feeling, so they cover it up with a response that makes them feel powerful and in control – anger.

We’ve all done it. Your child runs across the road without looking and almost gets hit by a car. You scoop them up into a big hug and then instinctively get angry with them. What you really feel is fear,⁴ but that’s a helpless and unbearable emotion, so you mask it with anger, which makes you feel powerful and in control. It makes perfect sense.

Routinely angry people are doing this most of the time instead of just occasionally. I can’t tell you why some vulnerable people cope in this way and others don’t – we’re all different and there will be countless factors which determine any given person’s response. For example, it’s not unusual in men who were told as kids that ‘big boys don’t cry’ and have found a less vulnerable way to express their sadness. What I can tell you is that angry people are sad – or hurt or scared or ashamed, all of which are pretty sad states too.

It’s also helpful to know that their outbursts will be sparked by situations in which they feel powerless in some way. If they feel slighted, or embarrassed, or think they’ve been ignored, or are fearful of failure or of retribution, these are the times you can expect them to regain a feeling of power and control by lashing out.

There may be very little you can do about the friend, relative, co-worker, colleague you know who is so angry. The root causes probably go back a long way. But just understanding that they’re deeply sad on some level might help you to cope a bit better with being around them. They may not come across as a sympathetic person, but they probably deserve sympathy nonetheless.