A mother, her daughter, and two women named Cathy walk into a red-lit room dressed in motocross masks and jumpsuits. It’s not the start of a stupid joke, but a true retelling of a recent Monday night when I took my mom and her two best friends — yes, both named Cathy — to dinner, drinks, and a rage room.

When my family relocated to Florida, we moved in down the street from the Cathys, having no idea that they would become my honorary aunts and my mom’s ride-or-dies, raising their families side by side. Mom and I lived with my Aunt Cathy during my parents’ divorce, and when the apartments my mom and I lived in weren’t big enough to fit everyone, Cathy B. hosted all of my birthday and graduation parties. So when they were both in town to visit recently, I thought it might be the perfect time to treat the ladies to an evening of angry fun.

It just so happens that I recently wrapped up a year of trauma therapy after going no contact with my dad, and with Aunt Cathy having just finalized her own divorce, the fury was very much in the room with us. So, we did what the girlies do best: we stopped for margaritas and Mexican food on the way. We chatted over dinner about the good things happening in our lives now and bad things that have happened to us in the past. We let our anger bubble up a little bit as we paid our bills.

At the rage room, we signed our waivers, zipped up our mechanic suits, donned full face masks and selected our weapons of choice from a wall of tennis rackets, wrenches, hammers, crow bars, and even bowling balls. Our kind hostess led us into a room with red light bulbs, “Anger Management” spray painted above the door, and a giant galvanized metal target covering the back wall. She showed us where some of our larger items were sitting – an old mirror, a coffee table, a printer – and the crates of ceramics and glassware that were ours for the smashing. Then she said she’d be back in 30 minutes and shut the door, and I told the Alexa piped into the room to play angry rock music.

And then we just starting busting sh*t up. Cathy B. tossed crystal glasses into the air and Aunt Cathy batted them down with her hammer. My mom plopped a black printer on a table – a generous term for a group of metal barrels with plywood on top – and set about smashing it to smithereens. I zeroed in on the ugly wall mirror framed in dried sticks and gleefully sent my crowbar slamming right into its center.

And then we just starting busting sh*t up.

And you know what? It felt so good. Propped against the wall, I broke the frame into as many tiny pieces as I could, and when I was done, I flung those pieces as hard as I could against that giant metal target. It was a tantrum and an exorcism of all the anger I’d held in my whole life, not able to feel or show my emotions about my dad’s treatment of me, all of which had resurfaced during therapy and had nowhere to go. I could feel it in how irritable I had become, my temper rising up at minor inconveniences and normal frustrations dealing with my 3-year-old son. Each time I’d think to myself, ‘no, don’t get angry, don’t be like Dad.’ But in a strip mall rage room, for 30 minutes there, I could be as angry and violent and destructive as I wanted, and it was not just normal, but encouraged.

My mom hooped and hollered as I slung a plate into the wall like a discus. Aunt Cathy handed me another, and another, again and again. Cathy B. slipped out of the room and asked for another box of old porcelain for us. We all cheered when Aunt Cathy put her old iPhone (a source of much stress) on top of a barrel and decimated it, Otterbox and all, with her hammer. It all felt like the 2024 suburban version of witches dancing naked in a circle in the woods. There we were, wreaking havoc and delighting in it, and there was no one around to snipe at us about it – though after seeing us swing those crowbars around, I doubt they would’ve.

In a world that feels increasingly unsafe for women – one where I can’t be online without seeing misogynists mouthing off about “your body, my choice,” or the face of another woman who lost her life as a result of abortion bans – it felt so incredibly good to be outwardly angry, instead of sitting silently and scrolling onward. To exact some vengeance on inanimate objects, yes, but in my case, to let all that rage out of my body after dredging it up and “letting myself feel it” for the past year in therapy. When we hung up our wrenches and hammers and walked out, an untold amount of broken glass lodged in the soles of our sneakers, it’s safe to say we all felt a bit lighter.

Katie McPherson is the Associate Lifestyle Editor at Romper and Scary Mommy. She loves reading, kickboxing, horseback riding, and rotting on the couch after a long day. She married her college sweetheart, and now they have one son, a very large dog, and achey joints.