“I hate myself when I get mad at my wife. I just lose it! I see red when Helena hasn’t done the household chores and there is no food in the refrigerator. I scream and lose control, but I just can’t stop. Then I feel like a monster when she cringes with fear and won’t talk to me for hours. Then I blame myself for driving her away. I hide in shame until she crawls out of her hole, forgives me, and makes me feel lovable again,” said 36-year-old Nolan, as he opened up in anger management class. After other group members acknowledged his disclosure, the instructor conducted a lesson at identifying triggers, pausing, breathing, and creating different response sets.
Nolan had described the condition of chronic reactivity involving screaming, attacking and then shutting down.
The classes helped Nolan to become more intellectually aware of his triggers, but didn’t help him become less reactive.
Why?
Because intellectual classes reach the prefrontal logical parts of the brain which disconnects from the amygdala and other emotional nodes during an automatic rage episode. So, speaking to Nolan’s prefrontal cortex in a class when he isn’t feeling the rage is futile!
Being reactive – the merging of helplessness and rage in the neural pathways
The lesson from the anger management class won’t be available the next time Nolan has what is known as a protest rage. Rage is nature’s biological mobilization engine. It is an instinctual evolutionary attempt to scream louder, demand attention, and force Nolan’s caregivers to re-engage – to validate his existence.
Repeated cycles of protest rage when Nolan was trying harder and harder to be seen, attended to and nurtured as a young powerless child evolved into a blueprint, where rage and helplessness become fused. The nervous system created a permanent neural pathway that equated ‘not being seen’ with ‘immediate danger,’ where explosive outbursts was the only survival strategy that worked.
Rage is an active, high-energy state.
Helplessness is a passive, crushing state.
The nervous system will choose rage over helplessness every single time because rage feels powerful, and that’s why the cerebral lessons in anger management classes are ineffective.
Being reactive – the addiction of empowerment
As a little child Nolan couldn’t compete with the attraction of his parent’s microbrewery and his efforts to engage them. Neither his brilliance, illness or disappearance succeeded, making him feel utterly impotent. From as far back as he could remember Nolan had always wanted his parents to acknowledge him and value him – but they only did so in the most cursory way, like when he got straight ‘A’s’ at school.
They were so involved in their struggling business making a special non-alcoholic brew for a growing customer base of young people looking for this stuff – that Nolan was a side show. He had to bring himself up, with the help of his best friend’s family. He was mad as he realized on a daily basis how he was less important than a beverage.
He often fantasized about smashing up the brewery and setting it on fire. The fantasies made him feel powerful and vindictive, imagining his parents realizing their mistake, begging Nolan’s forgiveness and promising that henceforth they would make up for their negligence and prove their parent worthiness – they would make him the center of their world and they would all prosper together.
These empowering fantasies were based on Nolan being reactive – spewing out his feelings that brought those that did him wrong to their knees. That was the sweetest part. It calmed his nervous system, allowing him to sleep with a sense of power rather than fear of being alone, unimportant and unloved. He became addicted to the visceral sense of dominance he experienced in his fantasies. He was high on the thrill of being able to bend his parents to his will as they drowned in guilt, offering a steady diet of abject apologies to Nolan who relished every morsel.
Being reactive – the survival value of rage, and it’s evolution as an adult defensive shield
The addiction to reactivity in childhood, evolved into a chronic adult shield of rigid armor for adult Nolan ensuring that he was never trapped in that intolerable childhood state of helplessness again.
Being reactive: how the addiction to rage based empowerment operates
• Instant Power Reversal: Nolan’s rage shattered a deep, underlying state of chronic helplessness. It turned his painful status of being small and ignored into a sudden, dominant force – the high!
• The Punitive High: By making his wife feel guilty for not fulfilling the role he gave her, he felt justified in attacking her so that she felt punished. The injured child inside Nolan felt vindicated.
• The Apology Fix: When his wife came out of her hole and asked for forgiveness, while simultaneously forgiving Nolan for his admonishments, Nolan got the ultimate dopamine reward. It mimicked absolute love and safety, proving he finally mattered and had control over his loved ones.
Being reactive – the shame of defeat when the high wears off permanently
Three years into the marriage, Nolan and Helena were miserable and worn out. They couldn’t continue their acting out behaviors by forcing one another to pay attention through attack, punishment and false power highs. Helena didn’t want to be cast in the role of Nolan’s inattentive parents, and Nolan hated himself for his reactiveness. It was not achieving the results in the same way. Helena was not willing to be blamed, get punished and ask for forgiveness and then forgive Nolan his reactiveness.
Nolan felt burdened by the guilt of pushing Helena away. He was scared that he would never be free of his reactivity and that he would be doomed to carry it with him and ruin any future relationships. He despised that side of himself and tried EMDR therapy, to process his childhood traumas. But it didn’t work. He couldn’t get rid of something so necessary and powerful until he did the work of understanding it’s purpose and letting it go only after his personal security needs were named and met.
Being reactive – metabolizing the helplessness and calming the rage cycle
Having tried various therapies and medications to manage his reactivity Nolan finally allowed himself the kind of relationship he yearned for, but didn’t dare expect – especially in a situation where he had to trust that a new therapist wouldn’t abandon him, or think him too much to deal with.
In a deeper, more relational and analytic individual psychotherapy Nolan discovered that he needed to be reactive for survival value. He learned that he operated on the fear that if he wasn’t vigilant and reactive – he would be screwed, taken for a mug and demeaned. That he might drown in shame and feel those young helpless existential fears again and not survive. He was terrified of being abandoned, having used up of all the performance tricks he conjured to entice anyone to want to be with him.
Engaging in a relationship with his therapist on a level where his most shameful fears were understood, normalized, and soothed, he was able to feel more secure. He had space to explore his unique talents and his authentic spirit; which when set free was attractive and desirable.
Nolan began the mourning process of not getting seen and attended to in his childhood, as he allowed his adult self to receive it and nourish him. As he owns his humanity and early trauma he hates himself less and less. His reactivity will always be a part of him but he doesn’t need to use it to be validated or valued as a person. He is no longer afraid of pushing people away and despising himself for his reactivity. He is now a magnet that attracts people because he has digested and absorbed the ingredients that led to his reactivity.
© Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2026
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