Dear Meghan,

It is important for you to develop more effective social skills. Good social skills correlate with success in life. People with poor social skills are at higher risk for problems in school, at work, in relationships, and are more likely to be involved in the legal system.

Unlike abilities, skills are learned through practice. Because you have been struggling with anger issues, you have had less opportunity to practice effective social skills. The good news is with effort you can “catch up” by working on developing more effective ways to interact with others. But first, you need to address your anger issues. You should also know that for adolescents specifically, anger could sometimes be a symptom of underlying depression. So the first step is to connect with a licensed mental health professional to determine if the issue is depression, anger, or both. Then, working with the therapist, you can develop a plan to address these challenges, along with developing more effective ways to interact socially.

You may be surprised to learn that most people with anger issues are actually unassertive, which means that they are unable to express their negative feelings diplomatically. When this occurs, those negative feelings build up like a pressure cooker and eventually, usually over something fairly minor, the person explodes because those feelings have to come out. By learning how to better deal with and express negative feelings, you can dramatically reduce the number of angry episodes that you have. The most important fact is that you realize it’s a problem and want to get help. Those that do not are at risk of eventually finding themselves in jail for aggressive behaviors. Luckily, there are highly effective anger management techniques that you can learn, and with practice you can dramatically reduce the intensity and frequency of your angry outbursts. You just need to put effort into finding the right counselor that you can relate to who is experienced in helping teens deal with anger issues.