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Louise Thomas
Editor
Earlier this year I read a study that claimed that the way to eliminate angry feelings was to write your negative emotions onto paper, then shred, scrunch or bin them. It all sounds a bit “teenage sleepover”, but I can also see the logic. I might even try it myself.
But my own method for expelling and neutralising anger comes in the form of a “rage friend”. What’s a rage friend, you ask? Well, they’re a person we can share all our anger with, along with our irritations and those niggles we hardly dare speak aloud to most. And I can expel them without judgement – and, often, without advice in return.
In fact, I have a separate WhatsApp chat with my rage friend, somewhere we can shout into the digital void without it interfering with our day-to-day ramblings to one another. This means that at any one time we might be sharing a meme we find hilarious, discussing the merits of a recently released film, or finalising weekend plans in one conversation – and simultaneously, within the confines of our “rage chat”, be venting about a colleague’s laziness, lamenting the increase in our mortgages while our salaries seem to stay stagnant, or letting out a stream of consciousness about the way our partners communicate.
In short, everything and anything that royally pisses us off goes into that chat. And while that might sound as though we’re creating an ever-increasing vortex of anger, I’d argue that this setup is pivotal to existing more happily. Rather than encouraging rage, it gives us somewhere to channel it – and crucially, it keeps it contained.
Advice is great, but sometimes we just want to be heard, and then we can let it go much more easily than expected. As well as this, having a space where I can channel my anger stops me from spreading it willy-nilly about my life like a toddler holding a garden hose (a very real, and frequent, occurrence in my household).
While we might feel that venting to everyone and anyone who will listen will help us to chip away at and expel our anger, what it often does is keep us in that space of feeling charged by said incident. The more I discuss it, the more I feed the anger. And I’m not an angry person by nature, so knowing exactly where I can offload, rather than stew, saves me time and energy.
In fact, the reason a friend and I began our “rage chat” (the group’s actual name is just an angry face emoji) is exactly this. I’d sent a text to another friend, telling her that I “HAD” to tell her something that had enraged me. “I need your opinion,” I typed furiously. “I’m so annoyed.”
Dr Carolyne Keenan, clinical director at Lotus Psychology LtdWhen choosing a friend to vent to, it’s important to find someone who’s a good listener – someone who actually gets what you’re saying. You want someone who’s non-judgemental and won’t jump in with unsolicited advice or criticism. A friend who’s patient and can handle your raw emotions without getting overwhelmed or defensive is a gem
By the time she called me back, though, I’d more or less forgotten about it. I was poaching an egg, listening to a podcast, and generally not thinking at all about the earlier incident that had so upset me. Telling her the story only served to fire up my depleted anger all over again, and left me feeling akin to the water I was using for my egg: boiling. “This has to stop,” I told myself afterwards. “I’m wasting so much time and I don’t feel any happier.”
We live in a world where we are encouraged to talk, to share our feelings and voice our frustrations, and I wholeheartedly support that idea – but it doesn’t mean we should be rehashing our anger over and over again. Dr Carolyne Keenan, clinical director at Lotus Psychology Ltd, agrees. “There are so many benefits to having a rage friend,” she says. “If you know you can vent freely and then move on, it can be a very cathartic experience and really helpful in processing events in our lives that make us feel ‘rageful’.”
She explains that when we talk about something that triggers our rage, it can feel like we’re “opening the floodgates after holding back a torrent of emotions”. “By putting those intense feelings into words, we start to make sense of them,” she tells me. “It’s like untangling a knot; each word helps loosen the emotional tension. Speaking about our anger allows us to see it from different angles, sometimes even helping us to understand where it’s coming from and why it’s so powerful.
“Plus, when we share these feelings with someone who listens without judgement, it can be incredibly validating. That external validation can make the emotion feel less overwhelming and more manageable. Essentially, talking about our rage doesn’t just release pressure: it helps us to process, understand, and eventually find a way to move through it.”
The big question, though, is how do you choose your rage friend? For me, it was instinctive. I thought about who would “get” the idea of it, who might equally benefit from it, and who I would feel comfortable sharing with.
“When choosing a friend to vent to, it’s important to find someone who’s a good listener – someone who actually gets what you’re saying,” Dr Keenan advises. “You want someone who’s non-judgmental and won’t jump in with unsolicited advice or criticism. A friend who’s patient and can handle your raw emotions without getting overwhelmed or defensive is a gem.
“It’s also helpful if they’re supportive, offering comfort or encouragement without making the conversation all about them. Ideally, you want someone who can help you gain perspective, gently nudging you to think about your feelings in a constructive way. Trustworthiness is key, too – you want to feel confident that what you share stays between the two of you. In short, look for someone who’s empathetic, calm, and has your best interests at heart.”
And Becca Post, founder of Forward Healing Therapy, encourages finding a rage friend with whom you can separate whose rage is whose: “Often when friendships are built on really intense emotions, people tend to get sucked into each other’s feelings, which can create a sense of codependency. You should set clear boundaries for venting and raging, and make sure that you are problem-solving, or both [establish] that you are just venting.”
When I tell Dr Keenan that my own rage friendship has helped me live a happier life, she isn’t surprised. “I think there is something very special about having someone you can trust to listen to you in a calm, non-judgemental way – we need to look after those relationships,” she says. “Being able to offload is really important. It’s a bit like carrying a backpack full of rocks around – we need to drop the weight to be able to keep going, or it just wears us down.” Though she, like Post, notes: “We have to be quite boundaried with ourselves, so that we aren’t always moaning to the same person and we maintain some balance in the friendship.”
And this is key, as another of my friends learnt when – on my advice – she created a “rage friend chat” of her own. “I loved the idea when we discussed it, and given that you were already taken, I found another friend who I felt comfortable enough with, and who shared similar anger levels with me, who was open to setting up a similar arrangement,” she shares. “But I actually found that the balance of anger to any other conversation was off.”
For her, the venting side of things took over. She found that, as time went on, she stopped sharing the happy, funny or interesting sides of life and instead would only be in touch as and when she felt she had a vexation to share. “It hasn’t damaged our friendship in the long run, thankfully,” she says. “I just think that perhaps – though I love the idea – my choice of person wasn’t right. I think they either need to be a good enough friend that you know you’ll always be able to retain lighter sides of your friendship, or a friend who you aren’t massively reliant upon or in touch with elsewhere – but still trust – so that you aren’t giving anything up.”
Perhaps having a rage friend isn’t for everyone. For me, though, it’s been a powerful antidote to overthinking and negative overfeeling. It’s helped me live a calmer, happier life, and has meant I’ve been able to “declutter” various other relationships and make those more positive spaces to exist in, too.
And if you’re worried about polluting a bond with a friend by turning them into a “partner in rage” (as my husband refers to it), don’t be – for me, it’s been an exercise in cementing our platonic commitment to one another. Every time I share something that has sparked anger in me, there will be at least three times where this offloading has allowed us to engage in softer, warmer, more uplifting conversation elsewhere.
As my own rage friend said to me a while ago, “Thanks for sharing, now close this conversation and get on with your day.” Now, doesn’t that sound like a relief?
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