Nobody Warned Me About the Rage
Nobody warned me about the rage.
They warned me about the uncertainty. The “who am I now” self-doubt that comes when you stop being the version of yourself everyone was comfortable with. People love to talk about the tender, Instagram-ready middle or end of transformation. The journaling. The therapy breakthroughs. The quiet walks where you begin to find yourself again.
But nobody told me about the part where you want to burn it all down.
I didn’t grow up angry. I grew up pleasant, easy to be around. The kind of girl who made adults say “she’s so mature for her age” - which, if you translate that, means “she doesn’t bother us.”
I wasn’t taught how to be angry. I was taught that anger wasn’t something Good Girls did. It was something we tamped down inside ourselves because, if someone were to see us get angry … Sadness wasn’t great either - it was too messy, too much, too inconvenient. The acceptable emotional range was somewhere between “fine” and “great,” and I learned to live inside that narrow band so well that I stopped being able to feel anything outside of it.
I didn’t lose my emotions, I rerouted them. Into my jaw. Into my shoulders. Into the 3 AM thoughts that wouldn’t stop spinning. Into the resentment I couldn’t name and the anxiety that had no obvious source and the bone-deep exhaustion that no amount of sleep could fix (if I could even sleep).
I wasn’t angry. I was a woman who clenched her teeth so hard at night her dentist ordered her a night guard and told her she had literal cracks in her teeth from holding myself so tightly.
When he asked if I was stressed, I went the Good Girl route.
“No more than usual,” I said. As one does. (Surely the dentist doesn’t want to know about my stress levels. He’s just being kind …)
The rage didn’t show up when things were bad. It showed up after.
After I started making changes. After I set boundaries. After I stopped giving myself away and started telling the truth. After I’d done the brave thing and expected to feel free.
Instead, I felt furious.
Not at one person. Not about one thing. At all of it.
At every room I’d walked into and made comfortable at my own expense. At every time I’d softened my voice so someone else wouldn’t have to deal with my actual opinion. At every “I’m fine” that was a lie I told so fluently I actually thought it was the truth.
At the people who benefited from my Good Girl-ness and never once asked what it cost me. Not because they were cruel - but because my warmth was so convincing they never thought to question whether it was free.
And then there were the ones who intentionally took advantage, knowing that I was the pushover, the one who would step in, fix things and hold my tongue or gnash my teeth instead of speaking up.
And underneath it all - the deepest layer, the one that really burns - rage at myself. For being so good at the disguise. For every time I chose someone else’s comfort over my own truth and called it “keeping the peace.”
That’s the rage stage. And nobody tells you it’s coming because it doesn’t fit the transformation narrative. It’s not inspiring. It’s not pretty. It’s not something you can put on a coffee mug (or is it? 🤔).
It’s just a woman standing in the middle of her own life, looking at the years behind her, and thinking: What the hell was I doing?
Here’s what I’ve learned about the rage, now that I’m on the other side of the worst of it:
It’s not a detour. It’s not a setback. It’s not evidence that you’re “not healed yet” or “still stuck.” That rage is the healthiest and honest thing you’ve felt in years - because for the first time, you’re actually feeling it instead of rerouting it into your body, your anxiety, your need to control every detail of your environment.
Anger is a signal. It’s your nervous system telling you that boundaries were crossed. Values were violated. Parts of you were ignored - by others, yes, but also by you.
And the women I work with - the high-performing, hold-it-all-together, “I don’t think of myself as an angry person” women? They’re not lacking anger. They’re drowning in it. It’s in their jaws and their insomnia and their snapped responses and their resentment and their over-functioning and the way they control every small detail because controlling the world is the only safe way to manage what’s happening inside them.
The anger was never the enemy. The silence around it was.
If you’re in the rage stage right now, I want you to know something: there’s nothing wrong with you.
You’re just thawing out.
And the people who are uncomfortable with your anger? The ones who want the old you back?
They’ll adjust. Or they won’t. But that’s not your fire to put out anymore.
Until next time,
I’m writing a book about this - coming in June 2026. The chapter on anger is one of the ones that shook me up, cracked me open, and poured me out - and it goes much deeper than I can here. If the rage stage is where you are right now, I see you. Reply and tell me what you’re angry about. I have a feeling it’s been waiting a long time to be said out loud.
The Good Girl Exit™ is a space for women who are done performing and ready to actually arrive - in their work, their leadership, their lives, and themselves. If this resonated, subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next. Visit www.thegoodgirlexit.com for more information on coaching and other programs.