Living as a Chameleon: Girls,Anger,and Mental Health

Abstract

One’s practice as a school nurse affords numerous privileges. One that stands out in my mind is the privilege of bearing witness to the lives of countless girls as they navigated their own aspirations and the expectations of the culture. The stories they iterated to me in my school nurse office form the basis for this discussion regarding the relationship between anger and mental health. I’ve come to realize that as a school nurse, I was an anger-story listener. In so being, I was given the opportunity and responsibility to influence positive mental health for numerous girls and young women. This feminist qualitative research project explored girls’ lived experiences of anger. The findings suggest that experiences of disrespect, dismissal, denied agency, and a denial of the right to verbalize anger eventually led to self-silencing and an eventual disconnect from this important emotion. The girls described strategies associated with the societal response to their anger that are likened here to the ultra-adaptive strategies that chameleons show to survive.