The Road Rage Remedy

Photo by Maurício Mascaro from Pexels

Imagine mild mannered me calmly listening to some of the most rageful men suburban Detroit has to offer. As a mental health counselor in Livonia Michigan, such a large percentage of my client caseload has focused on anger management that colleagues laughingly dubbed me “the angry man whisperer”. This nickname was given to me for several reasons.

First, I am extremely calm in the presence of angry people. For example, I was once punched in the face by a Chinese neo-Nazi and still able to maintain enough composure to calmly clear up our misunderstanding. (perhaps a separate blog post for another day)

Second, I’m able to have compassion for these men, men that would perhaps be written off immediately as stupid and entitled, dangerous and crazy.

Third I see beyond the angry, macho façade. And make no mistake, it is a façade! Because behind that violent, manly exterior lies a deep well of sadness, fears and insecurity.

If business ever dried up, I could stand at the corner of 10 mile and Middlebelt road handing out business cards to all the men losing their minds in road rage incidents. Like Sigourney Weaver’s penthouse apartment in the original Ghostbusters, there is something about that particular corner that attracts the inner ghouls of people’s anger in a way I’ve never seen elsewhere. They honk and swear and try to run people off the road into telephone poles. We used to live right around the corner from there, and I’ve heard stories about grown men fist fighting each other like schoolyard boys while waiting for the light to turn green. That intersection is a local anomaly, with a heavy flavor of suburban Detroit’s simmering fury. But, to be fair, southeastern Michigan is a cross section of America and road rage is all the rage everywhere in this country.

At first glance, road rage appears clownish, something worthy to be mocked. You’ll see these guys in their Ford F150s or (even more macho) Dodge Ram trucks cruising down the freeway or the parking lot of a local grocery store. They drive right up on your bumper and seem exasperated that you won’t get out of the way. Seemingly out of nowhere these road rage people appear and have reached their limit with you instantaneously. They may honk, or swerve, yelling obscenities at you. My favorite is the guy who drives along side of you and yells at you to “roll your window down” so he can give you an earful of his vulgar tirade.

Why are you in such a hurry sir? Why are you driving like you’re carrying the nuclear football and if you don’t get downtown in the next seven minutes the whole city will explode?

Perhaps some knight in shining armor will emerge from the traffic to stand up to this bully? They’ll race up along side of him to cut him off, or intentionally drive slow in the left lane to send the road rager into a rabid fit. The two motorists duel back and forth, essentially turning rush hour into the Playstation video game Twisted Metal while the rest of us hang back and tried not to get killed. Perhaps our hero races off and road rage guy follows in hot pursuit. They’ll exit the freeway eventually and be trying to gouge each other’s eyes out at the corner of 10 mile and Middlebelt road.

***

The above-mentioned description could easily be a cheap laugh at someone else’s expense. The stereotypical angry male in an oversized truck makes an easy target for the butt of our jokes and eye rolling.  Perhaps I would thoughtlessly laugh along as well if I didn’t see what lies behind the mask of their rage.

I have learned that explosive anger - the kind that is clinically significant enough to ruin relationships, poison marriages, result in workplace termination or land a person in jail – is like a burning hot campfire. We may see the flare ups of the fire manifesting in road rage incidents. But for the person with rage issues, getting cut off in traffic is like tossing a cup of kerosene atop a steadily flaming wood pile.

While that moment in traffic may appear explosive and seemingly come out of nowhere, the logs are always hot and have been burning for quite a while. Yet, even more importantly are the smoldering coals which are the deepest and hottest part of the fire. Often those “coal level” issues have been simmering for years and even decades, creating a foundation upon which anger problems can continue to fester.

Anger “management” is really a misnomer, for the long-term solution is not to contain the blaze, but to remove the coals that keep it constantly hot. Behind the hot-headed truck guy persona that is erected to protect his fragile ego, one may find sadness, despair, low self-esteem, feelings of impotence, depression or even thoughts of suicide.

Sure, there are tools to utilize in the moment, to keep them from making a life altering bad decision – deep breathing, cognitive behavioral therapy, and mindfulness. So, in that sense it is “management”.

But to live free from the rage demon involves healing deep wounds, forgiving old hurts, and changing harmful life habits. Only then does the tough guy schtick become outdated and unnecessary.

We may see these hot heads out on the road, blowing up behind the wheel. Perhaps we feel rage at them as well, or maybe we just write them off as a bunch of stupid men-children.

But we rarely see the fire down below or the misery in which they constantly burn.