Writing Characters With "Anger Issues"
[Plain text: Writing characters with "anger issues."]
Number one, please stop saying anger issues. Anger issues does not mean anything. It's not a medical term, not a diagnosis, and not even a term that will substitute emotional outbursts, emotional dysregulation, or anger attacks. "Anger issues" can mean anything, it's not always indicative of a disability.
Emotional outbursts, emotional dysregulation, and anger attacks are also only symptoms, symptoms that can appear in a large range of impulse, conduct, mood, and emotional or emotion-impacting disborders. This long list includes (but is not limited to;)
Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Episodic Dyscontrol Syndrome (differential diagnosis for IED)
Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder
Autism spectrum disorders (keep in mind that this source is kind of bare-bones)
Bipolar Disorder
Borderline Personality Disorder
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
Frontal Lobe Disorder
Again, these are only a few of the many, many disorders that can cause emotional dysregulation. Each one is very different and highly varied in causes, presentation, severity, and other symptoms. I couldn't possibly get into all of them in one post. The following disorders will be getting their own posts on specifics about the disorder and how I would like to see it represented in media;
Intermittent Explosive Disorder
Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
Frontal Lobe Disorder
But, in general, what would I like to see more in characters with emotional dysregulation?
An actual diagnosis. Not just "anger issues" or "bad temper," but "This character has Intermittent Explosive Disorder" or "This character has Frontal Lobe Disorder."
Episodes and outbursts not being played for laughs. They're extremely embarrassing and can have a major impact on our lives. We can lose relationships, be fired from jobs, be expelled from schools, or even wind up in handcuffs and prison over our outbursts and that's no laughing matter.
The other symptoms that come with an anger attack! These can include shaking, racing heart, chest tightness- like an anxiety attack. We get very similar physical symptoms.
Characters being held responsible for what they do when they have an outburst. Look, anger attack or not, we're responsible for paying for something if we break it. If we hit someone, that's still never okay. Just because we did it during an anger attack doesn't mean we get a free pass.
At the same time, characters not being demonized for having emotional dysregulation episodes. We are still just people. We have emotional outbursts, but that doesn't make us monsters unless we choose to be.
Coping mechanisms! People with emotional dysregulation do use coping mechanisms to try and regulate our emotions before we lose control. I've noticed that a combination of both anger coping mechanisms (counting down from ten, counting to ten in Spanish, etc) and anxiety coping mechanisms (five things I can see, four things I can hear, etc) can help before an anger attack or as it's winding down.
Characters with these symptoms who are people, not just their emotional dysregulation.
Scenes that actually portray how horrible having one of these episodes feels. They're terrifying, they're overwhelming, they're stressful, they are the character at the end of their rope. Portray that. I want scenes like when a character gets so stressed and overwhelmed that they start throwing stuff or swiping everything off the desk or yanking books off of shelves, scenes that get that kind of sympathy and serious nature.
Things I would like to see less of
The abusive partner. Yeah, abusive partners can sometimes have a pattern of getting really angry, but when their freakouts look exactly like my anger attacks it perpetuates a stigma that affects me and people like me in real life.
Really, I'd like to stop seeing episodes that look exactly like mine being assigned to antagonist characters just to make them seem like a terrible person.
Episodes being played for laughs or secondhand embarrassment. If you're writing Fred Duke's anger episodes from his first episode appearance in X Men Evolution, where every episode was played up to humiliate him, please stop.
Closing Thoughts
Anger issues and bad temper are not a valid diagnosis, I can't help you until I know the diagnosis you mean to portray. And please, please, please do research on what these disorders actually are and how they impact us. I am begging you.
Mod Aaron
