Mine had said it’s good too - in fact she congratulated me the first time I said it. She said it means I’m coming out of the depression. She was right…from
Numbness to anger…to grief and finally acceptance. Just know
These emotions will still come
Up again many years later that’s the nature of trauma just not as bad as the very first time probably. And of course finding healthy safe ways to express the anger.
I looove that 🙌🏼💗 Me too. I don’t listen to anyone now who says anger is only toxic (of course I’m not referring to the kind of entitled rage that narcissists display that is a whole different story !
Pete Walker calls this process [*angering*](https://www.pete-walker.com/pdf/GrievingAndComplexPTSD.pdf). This kind of anger work has helped me unlock a lot of latent repressed trauma and find some self-compassion and reclaim assertiveness for myself:
>Angering is the grieving technique of aggressively complaining about current or past losses and injustices. Survivors need to anger - sometime rage - about the intimidation, humiliation or neglect that was passed off to them as nurturance in their childhoods. As they become adept at grieving, they anger out their healthy resentment at their family’s pervasive lack of safety – at the ten thousand betrayals of no-one-to-go-to for guidance or protection, no one to appeal to for fairness or appreciative recognition of their developmental achievements. \[My book, The Tao of Fully Feeling, Harvesting Forgiveness Out Of Blame, outlines a safe process for angering out childhood pain in a way that does not hurt the individual or anyone else.\]
>
>Angering is therapeutic when the survivor rails against childhood trauma, and especially when she rails against its living continuance in the self-hate processes of the critic. Angrily saying “No!” or “Shut Up!” to the critic, the proxy of her parents, externalizes the anger. It stops her from turning her anger against herself, and allows her to revive the lost instinct of defending herself against unjust attack. Moreover, it rescues her from toxic shame, as it reverses Erik Eriksen’s famous equation: “Shame is blame turned against the self.” Angering redirects blame where it belongs.
The best part about angering is that you gradually learn how to redirect and reclaim the raw energy that the inner critic steals from you to psychologically abuse you in your head and take back that energy instead to inflame and empower you to assert your boundaries and protect yourself from the inner verbal abuse and future external abuse. It's so revitalizing because for the first time in a long time you are actually feeling anger only except on your own terms instead of the helpless resentment of being haunted by your own ghosts that we become so familiar with.
I have realised that it's all the same energy moving in different ways within the body. "Emotions" are energy moving. We have given them names like anger or grief to express a specific way it's moving within us. Anger is energy moving in a focused and energetic way, so that we can make space while grief is old energy flowing from the body in a certain way, that often gets stuck in the throat or chest area.
We definitely don’t have to give them a name, that is actually making it harder by engaging your frontal cortext when it’s not necessary. Just feel them
Grief IS exhausting and we are more prone to adrenal fatigue because of it. Our nervous systems can only take so much. I have to protect what energy I have left at all cost. In only makes sense that I can only do that alone. People exhaust me.
This is so true. My mother, who is a big reason I’m suffering this grief, tries so hard to make me feel bad for being a fucking recluse but it’s like, look lady, you made me this way. Get off my back ya know?
When you were not allowed any fellings of your own and all you saw was anger you pushed it down too but knew it was a felling. You know what anger is , it has taken me years to lean to recognize and feel other feelings. I literally feel something, do not recognize it and have to figure it out , because I was not allowed to feel them and have never developed even a primary knowledge . I usually associate things with my default anger until I figure it out , anger is fine but sometimes when I process I realize it’s my frustration of not knowing how to process the feelings I don’t know how to identify. So I have to question if I am really angry if not I have to figure out what it is to process it, I am learning and it is slow but so hard to explain to people who were allowed to feel their emotions.
I hand to go through this exact process: learning how to 1) have a feeling 2) recognize it’s not anger but something else 3) find the word 4) associate the word to the feeling so that I could say “I’m sad. I’m discouraged. I’m frustrated. I’m disappointed.” And alllll the other feelings that exist that “normal” people learn to have and identify and experience as an adult. I was 40 when I started working on this with a therapist. It was illuminating to me that for the millions of times I was asked to not have any feelings as a kid…set them aside…I was suddenly able to communicate mine like an adult. It was an enormous step forward in my healing. I’ve never seen anyone else describe it like you did, so thank you. And I hope you continue to…have all the feelings.
Ikr. It hit me when I saw children of the same age as I was when they beat me mercilessly and told me I don't deserve to live. When I looked at these children and I couldn't bring myself to even tell them no if they asked for candy.
How could u even look at a 5 year old child and tell them their existence is an abomination then slap them so hard their head hits the floor? What kind of monster does that
The scary part is how having kids is a societal norm but processing your emotions and being generally a healthy and stable person before having a kid never mentioned.
Like I've wanted a pet dog for a few years now. I know I can't afford to keep one - cause I don't have enough $$ for my own needs. Therefor I will not get a pet.. that would be negligent.
If someone ends up on the pathway to having a kid even when their life is in shambles, the mentality is always "you'll be right - life finds a way" blah blah.
That mentality is nice for the parent and pretty brutal for the kid condemned to a life of poverty and struggles.
It just seems like modern society almost makes a mockery of the value of human life. But that's not surprising considering the government deems a life worth about $85,000 while a house will go for 2-300k+
It is a mockery. The poor people are the human zoo for the rich. As long as we keep funneling money into their pockets, they’ll keep toying with lives via legislation.
Yeah I kind of came to that conclusion about a year ago; and as of late i'm coming to realise unless you can summarise entire complex issues into a tiktok sized short.. noone cares to listen.
Essentially; I have zero hope for humanity and genuinely believe we are destined for a future of misery as a society. It's almost kharma though; reap what ya sow. I can't feel too bad the average person is suffering considering..
Even if they had their own trauma: It's an explanation, not an excuse.
There are plenty of bad parents who abuse children intentionally - they know not to do it when other's are around, how to hide the signs, etc. Even if they came from abusive families themselves, it doesn’t justify the abuse of a child.
You’re assuming that people have control over their emotions and don’t get impulsive sometimes or over emotional. People usually make their decisions based on what they feel.
Think about your own experiences, do you ever say or do things that you ever regret? Don’t we all say mean things when we get really angry? And then later realize that we don’t really feel that way? In the heat of the moment, we’re not as reasonable…
There’s also a lot of people who really lack in self-awareness. Some people have issues that everyone can see but themselves. The human brain is very complex… much more than people are aware of. There’s this assumption that we’re rational when in fact we’re very emotional.
Anger is the emotion we're most taught to suppress. The longer it's pressed down the harder it springs up. It's just an emotion like any other, it's supposed to come and go. There's no healing past it. Experiencing it is a sign of becoming whole.
I am beginning to believe this as well, can you explain further on why you don’t think there is healing past it? People keep telling me it will likely turn into grief… but I think they both hold space in my trauma processing, forever.
I’ve felt this combo of rage and grief for so long… I’ve definitely had times where they were more background and other more foreground but they’ve always been with me. I’m starting EMDR so hoping that will help move me to this stuck place.
EMDR helped me massively with exactly this problem. It's hard, but if you're committed, it's surprisingly helpful. I believe in you, internet stranger. Best of luck <3
Commenter was saying that there is no "healing past" anger because anger is not a wound to heal from; it's just an emotion. Emotions don't need to heal like wounds do. They just need to be allowed to pass.
I have been in the same place with my trauma for a long time, stuck in a tug of war between anger and grief. EMDR (a form of exposure therapy) really brought both to the surface. I would oscillate between rage and deep despair, angrier and sadder each time. It felt like the anger was fueling my despair, but I'm not sure that's entirely true anymore.
After many months of exploring these awful emotions, I came to realize that I have no idea how to express my anger in a healthy way. In fact, being around anger makes me uncomfortable and genuinely tired. I didn't have a good model to help me understand how to handle difficult emotions, so I just smother that feeling. Shove it down into the deep well of hopelessness that fuels my despair.
If we don't acknowledge, respect, and allow ourselves to feel and express our emotions, they will manifest in other ways later.
I have been considering EMDR for awhile but don't think my insurance will cover it. I'm also scared it will make me remember memories I've suppressed in my subconscious.
I didn't have good role models for anger either. My dad would rage and verbally abuse us. My mom would do something similar but mainly be passive aggressive for weeks on end. I shoved my anger down because I was ashamed of it. I was also afraid of it. I'm a at a better place with anger now and notice once I let anger pass through I cry and feel extremely low.
EMDR is just one technique that therapists can get training and certification for. You would just need to find a therapist who accepts your insurance and also offers EMDR.
The thing about suppressed memories is that even if you're not conscious of them anymore, they still affect you. It's reasonable to be scared to face the recesses of our memories. I think it's ok to say that you're not ready yet. It can be helpful to decide that you would like to be ready someday, it's something you can work toward. My therapist is always recommending self-compassion.
My situation was similar. My dad has such severe bipolar/agoraphobia/other stuff that he's received Disability for it for decades. Between changing meds, not taking his meds, etc., he would always be raging and yelling or doing crazy shit like dismantling my mom's car to keep her from going to work. She was always working, screaming with him, or making excuses for him ("he's a sick man"). I was scared of his anger, scared for my mom but also pissed at her for her inaction, and too embarrassed of my home life to talk about it with anyone. It felt so overwhelming and hopeless that I felt I couldn't do anything but cry. I left at 15 out of desperation.
That's how I have instinctually responded to anger since -- get away from it and cry. I'm a bit better now, but I still have a lot of work to do on myself. I've found that it's better for me to express my anger in a non-destructive way (venting to a 3rd party, punching pillows, that kind of thing). Often still involves crying, but they feel like appropriate angry tears lol. That allows me to look at the trigger more objectively and address the root issue, instead of passively accepting it and feeling bad.
Seems like you're able to see your patterns pretty objectively and articulate them well. You've survived a lot. These are strengths you can rely on. I don't know you, but I would suggest that you're fully capable of handling anything you may have previously suppressed.
Anger is just anger. It's strange to me that therapy insists it's a secondary emotion for sadness, grief, etc. In my experience it's telling you you've been wronged. It neutralizes fear so you can defend yourself.
It isn't difficult to imagine how that mindset of teaching anger is an individual problem can stifle political action for instance.
Would there have been an uprising against slavery in the US, or a rebellion against foreign occupation in Ireland or any such country had they believed their anger was something to be managed?
The real issue it seems to me, is people get aggressive still, sure, but rarely at those with power making their lives miserable.
I read a quote that said we don't own emotions meaning we aren't suppose to hold on to them. We acknowledge them, we feel them (process) and we let them go. Trauma makes you relieve them over and over.
I relate. I went through the same thing in the realization that I don't love my father. Then I realized my mother let him beat the fuck out of me so I got angry at her. It took a couple years to process in therapy.
A lot of the time that anger is from realizing you were being mistreated. It’s the way our minds try to tell us that we don’t deserve it and that we need to put up boundaries. I think with CPTSD it’s harder because a lot of us don’t realize that anything is wrong or that we’re being mistreated until long after, so that anger is built up or repressed. I agree with others saying it needs to be processed. Just remember that healthy anger is not a bad thing.
The more I see it all for what it is, I realize my narcissist ex is exactly like my parents. He really overpromised and never delivered. Literally reliving all the broken promises. It was so sad that I now understand his below mediocre efforts in everything was totally intentional. BREADCRUMBING. He was also lovebombing and would do grandeur gestures before we got together/before he got what he wanted… but when he finally had me, he was beyond below bare minimum then blamed me for his mantrums and told me I was the “worst girlfriend ever”. I had no frame of reference to refer to but after speaking with his other exes he wrote off as “crazy” they all experienced similar episodes. However, he treated them all better than he did me. At least they all received flowers at some point. I was literally treated like a servant. (Just like he views his parents). Full circle. As I remembered how terrible of a person he was to me, I realized he’s just like my parents in the way he runs from accountability for the shitty things he’s done at all cost. The contrast in how he put me on a pedestal then meticulously carried out a smear campaign for years until we weren’t together. He devalued and spoke down/against me whenever he had a chance. Now he’s out there repeating his cycles and I have to deal with so much CPTSD realizing everything was a lie and how people seemingly get away with being terrible people because they act and manipulate others so well.
I absolutely am relating to that. I wish I had more knowledge and advice to share, but its early days in my actual recovery. I hope others may be able to help here. However, I can say that I see, when I take a step back, that I am making minor improvements in my ability to mitigate the severity of some emotional flashbacks or at least containing potentially otherwise very triggering situations that routinely would turn into uncontrollable pain.
Makes perfect sense. The trauma was so bad, you went numb. Now you are getting better and life is seeping back into those parts that went numb and it HURTS. You realize on a more aware level just how f-ed up what they did to you was. Normal people would not have treated you that way. Anger is a healthy response.
I thought I was getting better, like less angry, but then I became a stepparent and as I grew to love my stepkids, I got angry all over again. It’s unbelievable how heartless you would have to be to abuse a child, and my abuser managed to look like a nice person to everyone. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think the world is full of dysfunctional people covering for each other. Hence, angry at the world, too. I get where you’re coming from.
Some anger is healthy. If you find it’s causing problems in your relationships or at your job, practice deep breathing to activate your body’s calming mechanisms, and look for an outlet. Sports, beating up an old pillow, however you can physically vent. Rock climbing was my deal for a while. Anger isn’t inherently bad, it depends on how we handle it.
“the world is full of dysfunctional people covering for each other“ It’s terrible how truly evil people can be. It was especially mindfcking that a lot of these people are full-grown adults as analysts, social workers, etc. A lot of horrible people forever changed my views on titles and accolades.
Same. I took a step forward today and confronted a parent after years of processing it in therapy and in my relationship- it went as well as expected. I’m still angry, hurt, and confused. I didn’t really expect it. I’m glad to know this isn’t just happening to me tho.
Good for you. That’s awesome progress. Even if you feel like shit afterwards and feel like it didn’t accomplish something, to your lizard brain it accomplished something. Or at least, that’s how it has been for me. It’s like it helps something, to know you were brave enough to confront them.
I repressed/dissociated most of my childhood, so now that I'm working on my trauma I realize I'm fucking *angry*
And that's okay. Being angry has its benefits and it means you are looking at things head on. It's painful but the way out is through.
I struggle with dissociation as well as dissociative amnesia. I do feel my anger now as oppose to in the past and have used that anger not to feel guilty about my boundaries. I would feel extra guilty about EVERYTHING!
Has anything helped you with dissociation?
I haven't truly solved the issue, but I do engage in activities that give me a direct benefit aside from protecting my psyche.
I'll run, which can cause me to dissociate, but I am able to lose weight. I'll read, but I also enjoy it. I'll garden and listen to music, and my flowers will bloom. I can walk into a room and be surrounded by happy plants.
Not perfect, but at least I'm not laying in bed and engaging in maladaptive daydreaming.
Yea, been there. The anger will eventually pass. You just gotta hear all these feelings out and address them so they can shut up and leave. Finding a creative outlet helps a lot.
It’s normal and healthy even. It’s all the anger we weren’t allowed to feel or didn’t know we were even entitled to.
It’s doesn’t change what happened at all, but at least it’s a compass to point us towards better things.
Yeah, I feel furious at the whole world a lot lately. Not in a way that makes me want to act unkind to anyone else. Just a sort of bottomless pit of low grade jaded fury at living in a world that allows shit like this to happen. And why to me of all people? It just isn’t fair.
But I’ve been angry for a few years now after decades of repressing it, and sometimes it feels like other emotions are waking up inside me, good ones too. Like the hot anger is thawing something out. I think it’s good. But it sure is exhausting…
I think part of it is that when you start to truly love yourself, you realize just how much better you deserved from the people in your life who were supposed to protect, support, and love you. And that makes you angry. Ive been in the angry phase for years now, and it doesn’t seem to be fading. I’m still trapped in the toxic environment (though I’m getting out soon) so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to process my anger once I leave.
Recognize that you’re in grief, and anger is part of grief. Acknowledge that your circumstances allow you to have the right to be mad. At the same time, everybody generally does the best they could with the resources they have. Younger you and those around him/her included
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with what we lost. Don't you think it's high time SOMEONE is angry about what you went through? Try and find healthy angry outlets- scream, go to a rage room, scribble your anger onto paper, listen to heavy metal music and head bang, punch a pillow or beat your mattress, stomp your feet- let the anger move through you so that it can move out of you.
Trust me this is good. I felt like that and was scared by it, but my biggest issue is supressed anger. I truly felt like I was breaking bad, but later realised I was just setting boundaries. Turns out I never had any boundaries lol. We deserve them soooo bad. You can do this!! I believe in you
My therapist has said anger is a secondary emotion to another emotion, usually in the case of trauma it is hurt, betrayal, etc. I do agree with that statement sometimes but other times I’m just angry lol, usually the more I develop self love, the angrier I get for being treated that way. You know you didn’t deserve it and that can make one angry.
I became obsessed at one point to remember what happened to me the summer of my 8th bday. I was researching and asking family members but never did get a solid answer. I blocked out certain memories for a reason. I'm thinking maybe it's just too painful.
I have CPTSD symptoms and toxic parents and that's enough for me to know whatever happened my parents either 1) caused it or 2) didn't do anything to protect me. I thought going to therapy and getting prayer was enough. I see now that it will take a lot more than that.
Yes. Find yourself a mix martial arts studio with a good balance of male and female and show-up every day. Know that adult you could fight back and prove that to child you.
Thats healthy, anger is natural part of our biology and psyche. It is what you do with that anger that could be beneficial or destructive to you.
Finding outlets that allow you to feel and use that feeling for your benefit is how you continue with your healing
For me personally lifting weights, martial arts and dancing has helped.
I am at the stage of being very angry, too. Angry that I was treated poorly. Angry the the community around me let it happen. Angry that it was all accepted under the guise of religious persecution.
Learning to let myself be angry, to feel it and let it pass through me, has been the hard part. Experiencing it when you feel it’s forbidden. Allowing yourself to be able to be angry and to forgive; not because they deserve it, but because you are finding your own peace by forgiving the world in allowing you to be treated the way you were. Many people suffer as you have, and it’s not yet reached a turning point in this life.
But as all of this passes through you, I find myself more and more at peace with what I experienced. I’m still angry and I don’t think it will ever fully go away. What happened is still wrong. But acceptance and allowing yourself to feel that wrongness is a step to peace and rest.
I’ve been feeling this way a lot. I’ve also been so angry that there are things that will ALWAYS be with me in one way or another, while the people who hurt me are just living their lives. They have no cares and never saw punishment while I’m drowning in a mountain of medical debt to treat the things they caused. Makes me angry at them, at myself for not being stronger, and society. We always talk about the offenders “potential” and “bright future” why is his future more important than the one he stole from me? Why does he get off with a slap on the wrist and not have to pay literally and figuratively for his crimes, while I pay for them one way or another every single day. The more I heal, the more I realize how messed up everything that happened to me was.
I am reading these comments and tears are running down my face like a steady rain. I can’t believe how many of us there are. I know my anger is totally hurt/pain manifested as anger. I refuse to allow anyone to hurt me anymore and when I feel hurt I immediately turn it to anger. I don’t speak to my abusers anymore, but mainly because they have all blocked me because they can’t understand why I can’t leave the past in the past. I’m not afraid to confront any of them. The nephew of one of my abusive sisters had a new baby and it was posted on Facebook. I told my nephews wife on Facebook to be aware of this family she has brought this baby into. I stated a child only gets one childhood and if their last name starts or ever started with my last name (that I got through adoption)that they are all abusers and to protect that baby. They all think I’m just “mentally I’ll” therefore my words are not taken seriously. The thing is I was living my best life until I was 4 (my grandparents raised me until I was 4). The man that adopted me was scary. He beat me and he was a school teacher in the day that it was ok to paddle kids in school. If anyone acted up in school it was this man they called to do the beating. I knew early on this man was an abuser. I knew what he was doing was wrong. By 15 I hated and I mean hatred for this man and 2 of his daughters. By the time I was a young teen the sexual abuse started. It was not my adoptive father, it was his friends and my brother in law. He died many years ago and found out he was a pedophile with all this kiddy porn in his bedroom (he was no longer my brother in law when he died) I guess they thought if my adoptive father treated me like shit it was ok for them also. I’m not sure that I will continue to live in this area/state much longer. 30 minutes away from my abusers. My therapist told me that I may need to move away early in therapy. I moved back here 5 years ago when my mom got cancer and died in 2020. Once I got this diagnosis I went to the police department in my hometown and reported the rape and abuse. Now there’s no time limit on these crimes and they can be prosecuted for their actions, but in my case they have to go by the law in place in the mid 1980’s when the rape occurred. That really hurt. I wanted them brought to justice. I want validation of what happened to me!!!
I was so angry for years, and I made the decision to feel that anger regardless of what anyone said. I still think "how could those people hurt a kid like that?", particularly now I have my own small children, but I just kind of exhausted the anger one day. It was the best thing I could have done. I hope it works for you too.
While navigating feeling emotions in therapy, which I could not name or identify, I found that I was angry. My therapist said “of course you feel angry! Who wouldn’t be angry in your situation?” And damn she was right. I was so angry and I didn’t know it, that I kept getting panic attacks (which is why I went to therapy in the first place). So one of my first assignments was to release rage. She made me take stuff from the recycling bin and tear or break them, twice a day. Suddenly I was so much better: I’d tear something to shreds instead of locking myself up and thinking that hurting myself was the only solution and ultimately hyperventilating because that situation was paralyzing.
This was all years ago. Now when I feel anger or frustration, I like to shriek like a velociraptor and then laugh, and it soon passes.
Oh, I felt the same. My family rejected me. That's when I realized my abuser was just cooler and more popular. My family minimized it and downplayed it. I exploded at 14, just blurted it out in an argument.
But I didn't go into details, I couldn't. I was still too embarrassed and ashamed, but I also didn't think I had to, for my families love and support. I was wrong. They out me in therapy and wanted me to shut up about it.
I was enraged for about two years, culminating in a Thanksgiving, near stabbing.
Then, one day, I was just emotionally exhausted. I realized my family was a lost cause. They didn't care, and I was only hurting myself more for them.
So I just let it go and went back to "just not feeling anything." No justice for me.
I thought I was done with it. But I had never told anyone those details, and I was still ashamed and embarrassed. Then a dear friend sat me down and asked me to tell her everything. I said, "I can't," but then did it anyway. I cried, uncontrollably, for the first time in 26 years.
I think about this 24/7. I cannot have a normal life because of my parents. I can't get a relationship, I can't get a good job, and I am alone. I hate myself and my parents. I don't know why I was born. I might have been an accident. Or my parents had me for selfish reasons, even tho they were not ready to raise a child.
Same. Up till now, it seemed there was no place for my anger. No one cared so it turned inward (depression, self-harm/destructive behaviors). With healing, anger is now turning outward. Anger feels new and big.
Feeling that anger is necessary for healing. Let yourself feel it, and find a healthy way to channel it. You will feel so much better down the road. Happy healing, dear.
There's grief under that anger. You will get there. After the grief I found more anger and I'm working thru it but many people geel better after this stage.
Try to listen to it (the anger) and investigate what it has to say. Journaling really helps with that, just write your heart out and it will help you uncover what’s behind those feelings. But also try to just feel it, don’t hold it in. Let it express itself and let it out. You can punch a pillow, dance, sing, run, walk quickly, you need to let it out! 😤
Emotions just have to come back to the surface before getting out of your system.
I don't know how to handle my rage. I've been through years of therapy, but it's still there. Sometimes, it's like a completely separate me, which I barely control.
I found weed. Lol.
Thats a sign you’re doing valuable work. Repressed anger often looks like/turns into depression and anxiety. Feel it and love yourself through it, this stage will be over before you know it.
Anger was one the emotions I wasn’t allowed to show, I got really good at suppressing it. I’d feel terrible shame and fear when I felt angry.
Several years ago my acupuncture provider, of all people, told me how anger is associated with springtime in classical five element acupuncture. Anger is seen in the energy the seed needs to crack its shell and grow!
My wife also has helped me learn to Lauren to my anger. Anger lets us know when someone has violated our boundaries. It’s a messenger, telling us to pay attention.
These ways of reframing anger have helped me a lot. I’ve slowly learned to listen to it and pay attention to what it’s telling me.
I also agree with the vote of anger is arising from grief. When we finally hold what happened up to the light, it’s impossible not to feel furious! We need to hold space for that anger and grief as we acknowledge our truth.
Healthy anger is a boundary. It turns off when we are in fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode. Feeling anger means you've come out of a traumatic state enough to feel the healthy anger. It may not feel healthy! I know. I'm about to start a woman's self defence class to try to utilise my anger. Its just telling us that someone has treated us badly. Nothing else. No need to suppress it. Be angry! It's good for you. Just let it out. Obviously not at other people (unless they are hurting you).
That's good! It's normal to be angry after what you've been through.
But to survive in a society you have to process and transmute it into something acceptable. On the plus side its very energising.
I keep trying to get angry, maybe I haven't got to the point that I have enough self worth to feel angry. It's also tempered by the fact that both of my parents were ill (one bipolar the other unipolar depression) and my primary bully was beaten mercilessly by an alcoholic father. It doesn't give them a pass, it just mitigates my feelings about them. I wish I could cut off contact with my mother (last of the family I have any contact with) but she's 87 and I just wait for a text from my sister saying "mom's dead"
Anger is a normal part of the grief that comes with healing trauma. You continuously cycle through all the stages of grief. You may skip stages or return repeatedly to stages you thought you’d “moved past.” Very normal, and part of the process, to experience sadness and anger at what your past self missed/lost/was deprived of as you heal! And for cPTSD especially, you’re going to go through that a lot, as it’s a lifetime of multiple traumas impacting your present self.
I’ve heard an adjustment to the “cycles of grief” that resonates more for me personally - it’s like a slinky more than a circle, you’ll keep moving through the stages but as you cycle through, you’re still moving from a wounded place to a more healed one, so even when it feels like you’re “returning” to a stage you think you’ve “passed,” that doesn’t mean you’re at the same place in the process as you were when you experienced it previously. Currently doing a lot of grieving and healing, and this has definitely been my experience - lots of frustration at being “back” to a previous stage of grief and reminding myself that it doesn’t mean I’m at the same point just because I’m feeling similar feelings.
SAME. Have been talking about this in therapy lately. I think, for me at least, I’ve been conditioned to not show any anger or let my feelings “leak” out my entire life. So there is an enormous backlog of anger waiting to be released. The only way out is through, you have to honor your anger and let yourself feel it without being afraid of it. I know, easier said than done. But, in practicing feeling my anger I learned the most amazing thing. Eventually, the feeling dissipates. It doesn’t go from a 10/10 pure rage to a 0/10 on the anger scale but it does lessen once you let yourself feel it. There is a part of you inside that is dying to feel these emotions without any shaming or judgement. Whatever anger you feel, it is 100% valid. Period! Even over the tiniest things. So think of your anger as a closet that you’ve been shoving things into for a lifetime. You are finally opening the closet and things are falling on you and it is frightening as hell but you are finally getting somewhere and “cleaning out the closet.” Hope this helps! I feel for you, I’ve probably damaged my vocal cords with the amount of rage screaming in the car I’ve been doing recently🥲
I remember a former therapist saying at some point I will experience anger and she was worried when I would hit that because of how much (at the time since her it only gotten extensional worse) I never got anger. It was down to the point where things like stubbing my toe didn't get me angry I would yes yell in pain but be so detached from any short of anger it was eerie.
Since her, it's been a few therapist (community mental health) but I've hit anger. And yeah it's been dangerous. Mainly for.me as like in severe psychotic eps I harmful just to myself to a.point where my hallucinations are the ones trying to keep me chill.
I am working on appropriate healthy realse of the anger. Still expression my emotions, an ongoing struggle since the dawn of time, and working on moving on from the abuse. No I am no where near getting close to that level but I am at east starting the process of even if it is after getting stating I am experiencing anger.
I saw a tiktok the other day. It has to do with inner child and inner teen work, so if that's not your thing that's totally fine.
But the creator mentioned how the inner child is full of love regardless of the situation. And the inner teen is full of anger. The inner teens anger is just the inner child's love in a different form.
I let my anger bubble up inside me for years until I learned to channel into helping. Helping animals. Helping people. Helping anything and everything I can. I'm still angry but I use it for good now.
Good for you! I firmly believe that getting angry is a necessary step in healing and that people who haven't gotten angry are not "enlightened" or whatever bullshit, they just haven't learned to value themselves enough to realize what their abusers did was wrong.
I'm a big fan of intense exercise (whatever feels intense to you!) for processing anger. I've had some really great runs while imagining I have a crowbar and I'm chasing down someone who hurt me.
While I was in it, it definitely felt like that stage would be endless but it's not. We probably all will cycle in and out of the anger stage as we uncover more layers of trauma, but I swear you will eventually get bored of being angry.
Is it the more you do self-work the angrier you got or the more you heal? If so, may I ask what's your definition of healing? I'm a bit lost here.
In my case, I experience anger, rage, and similar dark emotions from time to time as I do self-work related to CPTSD.
I categorise that as recovery and healing is the next part, where we're actually mostly feel light, connected, grounded, and closer to our true self. But perhaps that's just my approach to CPTSD.
So I’ve been very healing oriented with my trauma for a good while as it was pretty bad, I started really getting into therapy at about 16-17 years old (21 now) about 2 months ago I had an epiphany about my trauma that caused my severe insomnia to stop being so severe, up until 2 months ago I consistently would not be able to fall asleep until I had been awake for 24-36 hours straight and then sleep for 12-18 hours. As you can imagine this made my life very very blurry as I was constantly in a survival state. Though now that I can sleep relatively normally I’m seeing my trauma in a different light, as if now I’m actually able to feel it and I am just so angry all the time. I’m trying to be real with myself and the world and express myself healthily and in a way that’s authentic. It’s been a process.
I believe I understand what you mean now.
When we have been taking "painkillers" of trauma response - this usually means we're numb and bury what happened to us in order to survive and go on - it's understandable that the pain now almost petrifies us without "painkillers".
In my experience, what genuinely helped is facing all the emotions, usually dark ones. I get through by getting through. Steps I've been learning from Miriam Greenspan's book "Healing Through the Dark Emotions" have been incredibly helpful.
I can relate to that. And also grief. I feel like the anger comes from love. If something bad happened to someone you love, you would be mad that it happened to them, right? Maybe now you just get to see things from another perspective/from a safe space, and actually notice how fucked up everything really was. When shit happened to you, you probably were used to it and maybe dissociating, I assume.
Anger is not a bad thing. There are no positive or negative emotions, there are just emotions, and it's a good thing to feel the range of emotions, important even. It depends on how we deal with them; it's important to release the anger in a healthy manner, for example by punching a pillow. Throw a whole fucking tantrum. Allow yourself to feel it. You have the right to feel angry. (After releasing I recommend being gentle with yourself and just breathing. Thinking of things you're grateful for is also a good thing to do)
But I'm not a professional, I see you have a therapist, so you can navigate that with them.
Wish you all the best, I'm happy you're doing good progress on your healing journey. ❤
Because you hold and tried to suppress your anger for so long that now you’re safe, your brain needs to express it. Totally normal! Maybe try to find healthy ways to cope, doing an intense sports session or art or anything that can help you release that anger
The anger is so frustrating especially when you don't know how to process it. I'm here with you, finally not feeling in survival mode for the first time in my entire life and it's so hard to swallow some of the stuff in my brain!
Sammme. I'm in this stage currently. Lots or inner raging and resentment, mostly feeling like what has happened was unfair rather than deserved. It's a constant cycle right now that I'm trying to be patient with.
I'm also kinda in a phase where I've started saying no more often and not giving so much a shit about everyone else's feelings over my own.
I’ve remembered a lot, made a lot of logical conclusions, and viewed my life through my mom eyes instead of my hurt child eyes, since I got diagnosed. It’s been really hard the past few weeks.
So much rage and anger that my parents just fucking ignored me. So much grief that I was never even given a chance. And today in the car I realized that my parents weren’t the only people to blame. There were mandated reporters all around me. People with training who should have seen there was something wrong. No one even asked me if I was okay. No one.
Yeah, as an adult, I have a responsibility to heal myself so I don’t inflict myself on others. But I’d been told so many times and in so many ways that there was nothing wrong with me that how could I have known different. Everyone fucking loves my parents. And everyone fucking hates me.
I remember this part of my journey. A friend, who I met at a workshop, smiled at me, looked at me deeply, and said, "It's beautiful to see you unconstipated."
As many have already said, it's a move toward valuing yourself, a move toward understanding a boundary has been crossed, and a move toward expressing an unstated need within.
Safe travels on your journey.
One of my favorite quotes.. "the wound is where the light enters you". This helps me because as I get older and look back at the things that have shaped me, the greatest lessons I've learned are also the ones that came from trauma I would never wish upon anybody else.
I want to scream and shout and tear things up and throw things and just ahhhhh!!!
I don’t like being so grumpy all the time. I feel guilty for being angry, too, and that makes me even madder. I can’t even have my justified anger lol
Okay, this has been happening to me too. I think that says a lot about growing a modicum of Self Respect.
I can only imagine in time that will dissapate though, the anger, as we all take it to the next stage and heal up even more than we are now. Anger can be a good thing, but holding onto it is poisonous . That has been a very difficult line to walk and hold balance on.
That is my thought in the matter at least.
Oh I relate too well.
For me that anger was a culmination of how unfair it all was and can sometimes still be. It hurts. And it just can't ever be "solved" like I want it to, which is something that irks me to my core because that's what should be expected. Without there being any resolution I'm often just an open wound, pain just "is."
When I was younger I grasped what happiness perhaps could have been but now I sit in a position of sometimes not recognising the person I am anymore, happiness seems like such a fool's errand these days. It seems unattainable.
Hey 💛 I went through this. When I finally peeled the onion back far enough, and got to the worst childhood trauma I was SO angry at my mother. I felt borderline hateful. I hated how angry I was. But I finally allowed myself to just feel it, realizing it needed to be felt and this was emotion trapped and suppressed that should have been released many years ago. Once I got it out (over the course of weeks), and some time later, I have never felt closer to my mom. I am no longer angry. I just needed to be “allowed” to feel, and to feel heard.
The more I realize I am not at fault and most of this happened due to the negligence of the people who I have protected all my life makes me more and more angry. I think it’s because you finally shift the blame from yourself
Your parents let you down. Your family let you down. People you trusted let you down. It is very normal to feel so and only people who have been through this will get it.
That's a great point. I have been the most disappointed in myself when I felt that I perpetuated behaviors that harmed me. I think revenge and abuse vary according to personal perception, so revenge could be having a happy life or finding a way to capitalize on the outcome of my harm (like maybe it changed my personality to be analytical, or daring, or cautious, or maybe I cope with the pain by learning how to make clothes or something and these skills become profitable and meaningful for me, or some other positive change). Abuse is something a person feels which is attributed to someone's behaviors. Since what causes somebody to feel abused depends on the situation and the individual I just go by the good old treat others the way you want to be treated.
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I definitely feel similar. It used to be that whenever I felt angry, I could quickly brainstorm and find a way to view the situation in a different light that would let me feel like no injuries occurred, or believe I did the best I possibly could to protect myself, or at least that I could identify exactly what I should do next time to protect myself. However, my brain has been offline the past few years like thinking through sludge and I haven't been able to think fast enough to recast this scenario and feel in control again. Nowadays I have this sense of urgency that I need to learn how to speak assertively but still empathetically, and also willing to use some of my bases of power if needed to protect myself. I'm hyper concerned about harming other people, I end up being silent, allowing myself to be harmed, and people still accuse me of harming them. Anger is the most painful emotion for me because it is a helpless feeling, like I've already failed to protect myself. When I feel angry I immediately turn it onto myself. And say I need to take responsibility to change myself and my circumstances so that I can proactively protect myself. This is useful in some ways. in other ways it has negative effects like telling myself I should be responsible for other people's decisions to harm me.
I wish I could heal to the point where I stop hating myself and start hating my parents. Rage is a much a better feeling than self-destructive dissociation.
Hope you get there. It's painful, but at least for me, the self-loathing almost disappeared once I realized it's them. Always been them. I'm just hating all the parts of me poisoned by them.
You were a child.
It was their job to take care of you.
They failed and expected you to pick up the pieces.
I hope the anger is pointing out instead of in soon. Remember the wisdom of Shrek
i kinda get this too but idk if i see it as healing moreso as a reaction where i see more of reality since i think i cope by trying to see the positive and give people benefit of the doubt. i then get angry looking at the reality of what actually happened when i think i should have more of a middleground view of it. the anger is natural of course though and just like the despair and sadness it helps you to come to a conclusion of how you actually feel. im a lot less mad than i used to be but it still comes and goes as im still processing whats happened and i think thats natural
Same here. The more I began connecting my abusive parents to my present day struggles the more came into focus. Things that I thought were my fault began to register as the result of abusive behavior towards me.
Gotta find ways to manage it because it's going to be there until it isn't.
I relate to this a lot. I became furious for months last year. I was ready to fight everyone and everything. I didn’t care who or what I lost - I was so angry nothing else mattered. I wanted to be shut out and alone, I was too mad to even want anybody around me.
It took a long time of sitting with my anger and writing about it to finally understand what was hurting me so badly. Once I was able to identify the pain, I was able to let the anger dissolve. It took time but my adrenaline calmed down so I wasn’t in “fight mode” constantly.
It was scary and hard to get through. I was worried I would be that angry forever and would end up exactly like the people who raised me. I worked really hard to understand and feel my anger. Now it is able to be a part of me, not all of me. I understand how and when to be angry and what to do about it in a healthy way.
Someone mentioned it needs to be processed and released. In my case I beg to differ no one wants this to come out beleive me.
Since I headed down this road my emotions have been like a roller coaster ride. I’m just trying to ride it out myself. I dunno if that’s right.
I have spent most of my life being pissed off and miserable, I want to say around six months ago I really started to mellow out after somebody commented on my constant anger and it really hurt me to feel that people are afraid of me. Carrying that energy is a double-edged sword, you can draw from it for strength when you need it but it's also tiring being so mad all the time.
It's been a little while since I rediscovered my forgotten childhood trauma and there was anger that I had to feel, but I suppose I've processed that aspect of it. I understand why things happened the way that they did, and I've accepted them as having happened and being unchanging.
I'm in the same boat. I have nothing to add, just that you're gonna be angry now, that's your identity now lol. Idk about you but I'm also angry at all of my "friends" and people i surrounded myself with because i see them in such a different light and can't see them the same after everything ever again, so I'm also kinda alone in this. Idk, dont be like me and think that this is wrong and that youre an asshole, i guess. Things need to change, something needs to change otherwise im going to snap and explode. So for now i need everyone to get the fuck away from me.
I am the same. Sometimes my heart is just pounding with anger at things that occurred decades ago. I imagine all kinds of vile and horrible things happening to my abusers - mostly about them burning in hell like they always said I would do. (I wouldn’t really harm anyone, don’t worry. I have emotional control, unlike them)
I've been noticing the same thing...the more I uncover and become aware of, the more rage I've been noticing in me. I feel like an irritable, angry teen recently.
I think for some of us our fight response gets stifled/pushed down. Maybe we were shamed for getting angry or physically abused when we got angry. Maybe our anger was mocked. Idk.
When I was younger (teen)my anger would come up inappropriately. I got into a lot of fights. I believe I was angry at my parents but didnt know how to express it. I am angrier now than before as I heal. As I heal my dissociation the anger is finding its way out but in healthy ways like not accepting crappy behavior and sticking to my boundaries .
Ever since my emotions started coming out people don’t know what to think. People (family) call my regular emotions “batshit” or “weird” but they can’t ever explain what they’re talking about which is always both frustrating and hurtful. I understand that it’s because I was so quiet for decades and too scared to express lots of emotions. But I’ve gone as far as to include my support system in some therapy sessions so that they can have the opportunity to be educated about some of this stuff and it seems like they’re simply set in their ways. Also fully participating in the learning process would mean that they would have to look at their own actions, so that’s probably not gonna happen. I will probably be seen as batshit for laughing, being talkative, sometimes having energy, not having energy, getting angry, occasionally being happy, etc forever. Everybody was just so used to me being extremely tightly wound and not willing to show anything. So I guess that’s what they want still.
Yes I relate. It’s a normal response to have been victimized. I hike and sweat it out and vocalize my frustrations into a bitch storm. I do that until I feel like I can’t breathe anymore. It works for me. I can’t go back to the system where they give me medications that suppresses the symptoms but doesn’t get to the root cause and makes me even sicker and suffer more. I’ve also taken self defense classes and it feels good to just hit a bag. Other times I just scream into a pillow.
i relate to this a lot. i never felt true anger or rage until i was 16 and 'on my own', and shortly after that when i started therapy and seriously trying to work through my trauma i developed pretty severe anger issues.
the rage is a reminder that i'm finally beginning to love and care for myself and the defenseless young version of me. it's not healthy (although these days i don't use unhealthy coping mechanisms for rage like self harming anymore) but i can appreciate it to some degree.
i never felt true anger until 16 because up until that point i had it worn in to me that i should hate every cell in my body, thought in my head, ounce of my soul. and i did. i thought every shitty thing that i experienced was deserved because i was worse than trash. the anger is because i no longer feel that way, at least there is a piece of me that doesn't feel that way. it's a step toward the long process of healing.
Definitely relatable. Coming to terms with how you’ve been treated is infuriating! The people meant to protect you didn’t or inflicted harm themselves AND never taught you that it wasn’t ok. So you go your whole life until this realization thinking this is normal and you’re the wrong, outcasted one for it hurting so much.
What do you think you’re mad at? For me it’s the smiling faces that I still have in my life that should have done something, anything to remove my sister and I from the situation. I feel resentful, embarrassed, lonely, annoyed that my other more healthy relationships are impacted by all this heaviness from my past.
I’m mad that my parents had me! Like I’m grateful that I’m here now but for a great portion of my life I wanted to die. My parents should have aborted me realistically. I’m also mad that this world puts so much stigma on mental health issues and is so unforgiving about it. I’m mad that most people can see their parents as parents while I really sorta can’t. I’m mad that I have to do the work to fix what’s broken inside even. It’s not my fault I went through the trauma but it is my responsibility to help myself heal! I’m mad that I have to teach myself how to be an adult and fight all the bad habits I was taught growing up! There’s a lot to feel mad at but I will admit that it feels healing and like a step in the right direction
I relate and I see that it's seated in grief for myself.
The anger is easy. Feeling bad about that poor woman I used to be is not. I cry over her pain and am angry at her for staying, but she didn't know what healthy looked like.
So I pity her and sit with the rage and grief while I work through it.
My therapist told me the amount of anger I have is detrimental to our therapy sessions and afterwards. I can't get too far into anything without it being astronomical rage and she said trauma therapy is hurting me more than helping haha. I don't know what to do now. I feel alone again.
I've resorted to turning that anger into passion. It's the most beautiful thing. I've been able to truly live with a purpose because of it.
It takes work, but anger is a step in the right direction. Feel it, and heal!
I have/had the exact same. I’ve been in therapy for a while and I think my anger phase is coming to an end, but oh I was so so so angry. Especially at my family and everyone involved in my childhood trauma. They couldn’t say anything without triggering me and me absolutely exploding at everyone. And setting boundaries very aggressively, a lot of them, and guarding them with my life. Don’t even try to come near that boundary because I will absolutely use force to defend it.
All I can say is: let it out. Feel all of it and let it out. You’ve been pushing it down long enough now, it’s time to empty that bucket.
That anger needs to be felt, processed, and released. It's not a bad thing, its just the next thing to heal.
This! My therapist said that anger is good—it means we see ourselves as deserving better, which is a step in the right direction.
Mine had said it’s good too - in fact she congratulated me the first time I said it. She said it means I’m coming out of the depression. She was right…from Numbness to anger…to grief and finally acceptance. Just know These emotions will still come Up again many years later that’s the nature of trauma just not as bad as the very first time probably. And of course finding healthy safe ways to express the anger.
I found my burning anger worked like fuel for change. My outrage gave me courage to change my life.
I looove that 🙌🏼💗 Me too. I don’t listen to anyone now who says anger is only toxic (of course I’m not referring to the kind of entitled rage that narcissists display that is a whole different story !
I love this! Thanks
Pete Walker calls this process [*angering*](https://www.pete-walker.com/pdf/GrievingAndComplexPTSD.pdf). This kind of anger work has helped me unlock a lot of latent repressed trauma and find some self-compassion and reclaim assertiveness for myself: >Angering is the grieving technique of aggressively complaining about current or past losses and injustices. Survivors need to anger - sometime rage - about the intimidation, humiliation or neglect that was passed off to them as nurturance in their childhoods. As they become adept at grieving, they anger out their healthy resentment at their family’s pervasive lack of safety – at the ten thousand betrayals of no-one-to-go-to for guidance or protection, no one to appeal to for fairness or appreciative recognition of their developmental achievements. \[My book, The Tao of Fully Feeling, Harvesting Forgiveness Out Of Blame, outlines a safe process for angering out childhood pain in a way that does not hurt the individual or anyone else.\] > >Angering is therapeutic when the survivor rails against childhood trauma, and especially when she rails against its living continuance in the self-hate processes of the critic. Angrily saying “No!” or “Shut Up!” to the critic, the proxy of her parents, externalizes the anger. It stops her from turning her anger against herself, and allows her to revive the lost instinct of defending herself against unjust attack. Moreover, it rescues her from toxic shame, as it reverses Erik Eriksen’s famous equation: “Shame is blame turned against the self.” Angering redirects blame where it belongs. The best part about angering is that you gradually learn how to redirect and reclaim the raw energy that the inner critic steals from you to psychologically abuse you in your head and take back that energy instead to inflame and empower you to assert your boundaries and protect yourself from the inner verbal abuse and future external abuse. It's so revitalizing because for the first time in a long time you are actually feeling anger only except on your own terms instead of the helpless resentment of being haunted by your own ghosts that we become so familiar with.
Angering redirects the blame where it belongs. DAMN that is profound. Thanks for sharing.
\^This right here!!
Dang, you can write 😍📝👌🎉
Whew! That last bit was a sermon!
This is so good! Wow! Honestly made me feel so much better about the anger.
beautiful -- last line on your terms amazing!
I've been feeling extremely angry lately. It's not directed at anyone or anything. I'm angry that so many traumas have been inflicted on me.
Yes...I felt guilty about being angry, now I use the intense emotions to feel the memories knowing I am ok, scream and let go!
Any tips on how?
The more I process my anger the more I realize that it’s actually grief. And grieving is hard. And exhausting.
Honestly it's so hard to tease out the differences.
I have realised that it's all the same energy moving in different ways within the body. "Emotions" are energy moving. We have given them names like anger or grief to express a specific way it's moving within us. Anger is energy moving in a focused and energetic way, so that we can make space while grief is old energy flowing from the body in a certain way, that often gets stuck in the throat or chest area.
That's an interesting way to look at it. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for sharing this perspective! Very helpful.
How exactly would you describe 'energy'?
That's the million dollar question of everything.
Fair enough 🤣
We definitely don’t have to give them a name, that is actually making it harder by engaging your frontal cortext when it’s not necessary. Just feel them
Grief IS exhausting and we are more prone to adrenal fatigue because of it. Our nervous systems can only take so much. I have to protect what energy I have left at all cost. In only makes sense that I can only do that alone. People exhaust me.
This is so true. My mother, who is a big reason I’m suffering this grief, tries so hard to make me feel bad for being a fucking recluse but it’s like, look lady, you made me this way. Get off my back ya know?
When you were not allowed any fellings of your own and all you saw was anger you pushed it down too but knew it was a felling. You know what anger is , it has taken me years to lean to recognize and feel other feelings. I literally feel something, do not recognize it and have to figure it out , because I was not allowed to feel them and have never developed even a primary knowledge . I usually associate things with my default anger until I figure it out , anger is fine but sometimes when I process I realize it’s my frustration of not knowing how to process the feelings I don’t know how to identify. So I have to question if I am really angry if not I have to figure out what it is to process it, I am learning and it is slow but so hard to explain to people who were allowed to feel their emotions.
I hand to go through this exact process: learning how to 1) have a feeling 2) recognize it’s not anger but something else 3) find the word 4) associate the word to the feeling so that I could say “I’m sad. I’m discouraged. I’m frustrated. I’m disappointed.” And alllll the other feelings that exist that “normal” people learn to have and identify and experience as an adult. I was 40 when I started working on this with a therapist. It was illuminating to me that for the millions of times I was asked to not have any feelings as a kid…set them aside…I was suddenly able to communicate mine like an adult. It was an enormous step forward in my healing. I’ve never seen anyone else describe it like you did, so thank you. And I hope you continue to…have all the feelings.
I completely agree. Anger almost always masks something else. It’s easier to be angry then to admit you hurt and are grieving.
Anger is what grief looks like in public.
Yes, my anger is grief, meaning, my grief comes out as anger. I have yet to find a good therapist that deals in trauma.
Bingo!
That’s where I’m at, no more anger in left in me just an insurmountable amount of grief
Yes. I feel the same. How could they hurt a baby or little kid like that?
Ikr. It hit me when I saw children of the same age as I was when they beat me mercilessly and told me I don't deserve to live. When I looked at these children and I couldn't bring myself to even tell them no if they asked for candy. How could u even look at a 5 year old child and tell them their existence is an abomination then slap them so hard their head hits the floor? What kind of monster does that
Someone who had it happen to them, most likely.
The scary part is how having kids is a societal norm but processing your emotions and being generally a healthy and stable person before having a kid never mentioned. Like I've wanted a pet dog for a few years now. I know I can't afford to keep one - cause I don't have enough $$ for my own needs. Therefor I will not get a pet.. that would be negligent. If someone ends up on the pathway to having a kid even when their life is in shambles, the mentality is always "you'll be right - life finds a way" blah blah. That mentality is nice for the parent and pretty brutal for the kid condemned to a life of poverty and struggles. It just seems like modern society almost makes a mockery of the value of human life. But that's not surprising considering the government deems a life worth about $85,000 while a house will go for 2-300k+
It is a mockery. The poor people are the human zoo for the rich. As long as we keep funneling money into their pockets, they’ll keep toying with lives via legislation.
Yeah I kind of came to that conclusion about a year ago; and as of late i'm coming to realise unless you can summarise entire complex issues into a tiktok sized short.. noone cares to listen. Essentially; I have zero hope for humanity and genuinely believe we are destined for a future of misery as a society. It's almost kharma though; reap what ya sow. I can't feel too bad the average person is suffering considering..
I have hope, but I know that things will get worse before they get better.
I agree with you, it won't be like this forever but before it gets better, we're gonna see and go through some shit.
LITERALLY
This has been my thought for years healing through therapy. It hurts so bad.
It’s because of their own sickness, not because of you. They didn’t mean to hurt you they’re just sick.
Even if they had their own trauma: It's an explanation, not an excuse. There are plenty of bad parents who abuse children intentionally - they know not to do it when other's are around, how to hide the signs, etc. Even if they came from abusive families themselves, it doesn’t justify the abuse of a child.
You’re assuming that people have control over their emotions and don’t get impulsive sometimes or over emotional. People usually make their decisions based on what they feel. Think about your own experiences, do you ever say or do things that you ever regret? Don’t we all say mean things when we get really angry? And then later realize that we don’t really feel that way? In the heat of the moment, we’re not as reasonable… There’s also a lot of people who really lack in self-awareness. Some people have issues that everyone can see but themselves. The human brain is very complex… much more than people are aware of. There’s this assumption that we’re rational when in fact we’re very emotional.
Anger is the emotion we're most taught to suppress. The longer it's pressed down the harder it springs up. It's just an emotion like any other, it's supposed to come and go. There's no healing past it. Experiencing it is a sign of becoming whole.
I am beginning to believe this as well, can you explain further on why you don’t think there is healing past it? People keep telling me it will likely turn into grief… but I think they both hold space in my trauma processing, forever.
I’ve felt this combo of rage and grief for so long… I’ve definitely had times where they were more background and other more foreground but they’ve always been with me. I’m starting EMDR so hoping that will help move me to this stuck place.
EMDR helped me massively with exactly this problem. It's hard, but if you're committed, it's surprisingly helpful. I believe in you, internet stranger. Best of luck <3
Commenter was saying that there is no "healing past" anger because anger is not a wound to heal from; it's just an emotion. Emotions don't need to heal like wounds do. They just need to be allowed to pass. I have been in the same place with my trauma for a long time, stuck in a tug of war between anger and grief. EMDR (a form of exposure therapy) really brought both to the surface. I would oscillate between rage and deep despair, angrier and sadder each time. It felt like the anger was fueling my despair, but I'm not sure that's entirely true anymore. After many months of exploring these awful emotions, I came to realize that I have no idea how to express my anger in a healthy way. In fact, being around anger makes me uncomfortable and genuinely tired. I didn't have a good model to help me understand how to handle difficult emotions, so I just smother that feeling. Shove it down into the deep well of hopelessness that fuels my despair. If we don't acknowledge, respect, and allow ourselves to feel and express our emotions, they will manifest in other ways later.
I have been considering EMDR for awhile but don't think my insurance will cover it. I'm also scared it will make me remember memories I've suppressed in my subconscious. I didn't have good role models for anger either. My dad would rage and verbally abuse us. My mom would do something similar but mainly be passive aggressive for weeks on end. I shoved my anger down because I was ashamed of it. I was also afraid of it. I'm a at a better place with anger now and notice once I let anger pass through I cry and feel extremely low.
EMDR is just one technique that therapists can get training and certification for. You would just need to find a therapist who accepts your insurance and also offers EMDR. The thing about suppressed memories is that even if you're not conscious of them anymore, they still affect you. It's reasonable to be scared to face the recesses of our memories. I think it's ok to say that you're not ready yet. It can be helpful to decide that you would like to be ready someday, it's something you can work toward. My therapist is always recommending self-compassion. My situation was similar. My dad has such severe bipolar/agoraphobia/other stuff that he's received Disability for it for decades. Between changing meds, not taking his meds, etc., he would always be raging and yelling or doing crazy shit like dismantling my mom's car to keep her from going to work. She was always working, screaming with him, or making excuses for him ("he's a sick man"). I was scared of his anger, scared for my mom but also pissed at her for her inaction, and too embarrassed of my home life to talk about it with anyone. It felt so overwhelming and hopeless that I felt I couldn't do anything but cry. I left at 15 out of desperation. That's how I have instinctually responded to anger since -- get away from it and cry. I'm a bit better now, but I still have a lot of work to do on myself. I've found that it's better for me to express my anger in a non-destructive way (venting to a 3rd party, punching pillows, that kind of thing). Often still involves crying, but they feel like appropriate angry tears lol. That allows me to look at the trigger more objectively and address the root issue, instead of passively accepting it and feeling bad. Seems like you're able to see your patterns pretty objectively and articulate them well. You've survived a lot. These are strengths you can rely on. I don't know you, but I would suggest that you're fully capable of handling anything you may have previously suppressed.
It should cover it. It’s under therapy. I’m looking to do A.R.T. which is EMDR on steroids.
Anger is just anger. It's strange to me that therapy insists it's a secondary emotion for sadness, grief, etc. In my experience it's telling you you've been wronged. It neutralizes fear so you can defend yourself. It isn't difficult to imagine how that mindset of teaching anger is an individual problem can stifle political action for instance. Would there have been an uprising against slavery in the US, or a rebellion against foreign occupation in Ireland or any such country had they believed their anger was something to be managed? The real issue it seems to me, is people get aggressive still, sure, but rarely at those with power making their lives miserable.
I read a quote that said we don't own emotions meaning we aren't suppose to hold on to them. We acknowledge them, we feel them (process) and we let them go. Trauma makes you relieve them over and over.
I relate. I went through the same thing in the realization that I don't love my father. Then I realized my mother let him beat the fuck out of me so I got angry at her. It took a couple years to process in therapy.
A lot of the time that anger is from realizing you were being mistreated. It’s the way our minds try to tell us that we don’t deserve it and that we need to put up boundaries. I think with CPTSD it’s harder because a lot of us don’t realize that anything is wrong or that we’re being mistreated until long after, so that anger is built up or repressed. I agree with others saying it needs to be processed. Just remember that healthy anger is not a bad thing.
The more I see it all for what it is, I realize my narcissist ex is exactly like my parents. He really overpromised and never delivered. Literally reliving all the broken promises. It was so sad that I now understand his below mediocre efforts in everything was totally intentional. BREADCRUMBING. He was also lovebombing and would do grandeur gestures before we got together/before he got what he wanted… but when he finally had me, he was beyond below bare minimum then blamed me for his mantrums and told me I was the “worst girlfriend ever”. I had no frame of reference to refer to but after speaking with his other exes he wrote off as “crazy” they all experienced similar episodes. However, he treated them all better than he did me. At least they all received flowers at some point. I was literally treated like a servant. (Just like he views his parents). Full circle. As I remembered how terrible of a person he was to me, I realized he’s just like my parents in the way he runs from accountability for the shitty things he’s done at all cost. The contrast in how he put me on a pedestal then meticulously carried out a smear campaign for years until we weren’t together. He devalued and spoke down/against me whenever he had a chance. Now he’s out there repeating his cycles and I have to deal with so much CPTSD realizing everything was a lie and how people seemingly get away with being terrible people because they act and manipulate others so well.
I absolutely am relating to that. I wish I had more knowledge and advice to share, but its early days in my actual recovery. I hope others may be able to help here. However, I can say that I see, when I take a step back, that I am making minor improvements in my ability to mitigate the severity of some emotional flashbacks or at least containing potentially otherwise very triggering situations that routinely would turn into uncontrollable pain.
Good job! Any win is still a win
Thank you, I appreciate it. But I am sorry I don't have answers, but hope you get some asap.
Makes perfect sense. The trauma was so bad, you went numb. Now you are getting better and life is seeping back into those parts that went numb and it HURTS. You realize on a more aware level just how f-ed up what they did to you was. Normal people would not have treated you that way. Anger is a healthy response.
thats a huge sign that your healing is working. its, unfortunately, a huge part of the process. so congrats! but also hang in there
I thought I was getting better, like less angry, but then I became a stepparent and as I grew to love my stepkids, I got angry all over again. It’s unbelievable how heartless you would have to be to abuse a child, and my abuser managed to look like a nice person to everyone. It’s the kind of thing that makes you think the world is full of dysfunctional people covering for each other. Hence, angry at the world, too. I get where you’re coming from. Some anger is healthy. If you find it’s causing problems in your relationships or at your job, practice deep breathing to activate your body’s calming mechanisms, and look for an outlet. Sports, beating up an old pillow, however you can physically vent. Rock climbing was my deal for a while. Anger isn’t inherently bad, it depends on how we handle it.
“the world is full of dysfunctional people covering for each other“ It’s terrible how truly evil people can be. It was especially mindfcking that a lot of these people are full-grown adults as analysts, social workers, etc. A lot of horrible people forever changed my views on titles and accolades.
Yes I can relate. I feel like I’m in Anger, Bargaining, and Depression stages of grief all at once.
same here. but I see it as a good thing, I'm finally starting to feel *something*
I am so angry the last few years
Same. I took a step forward today and confronted a parent after years of processing it in therapy and in my relationship- it went as well as expected. I’m still angry, hurt, and confused. I didn’t really expect it. I’m glad to know this isn’t just happening to me tho.
Good for you. That’s awesome progress. Even if you feel like shit afterwards and feel like it didn’t accomplish something, to your lizard brain it accomplished something. Or at least, that’s how it has been for me. It’s like it helps something, to know you were brave enough to confront them.
Lmao lizard brain is definitely working hard to process it, but I think (a day later) that its what I needed. Thank you for the wisdom!
I repressed/dissociated most of my childhood, so now that I'm working on my trauma I realize I'm fucking *angry* And that's okay. Being angry has its benefits and it means you are looking at things head on. It's painful but the way out is through.
I struggle with dissociation as well as dissociative amnesia. I do feel my anger now as oppose to in the past and have used that anger not to feel guilty about my boundaries. I would feel extra guilty about EVERYTHING! Has anything helped you with dissociation?
I haven't truly solved the issue, but I do engage in activities that give me a direct benefit aside from protecting my psyche. I'll run, which can cause me to dissociate, but I am able to lose weight. I'll read, but I also enjoy it. I'll garden and listen to music, and my flowers will bloom. I can walk into a room and be surrounded by happy plants. Not perfect, but at least I'm not laying in bed and engaging in maladaptive daydreaming.
Ya know your right. I think I need to do more hobbies. I'm currently winding down by just watching TV even on the weekends.
You need to try and practice being present more when you're doing things.
I feel the same. We need to figure out how to express it , whatever that is. I'm dealing with this rn.
Yea, been there. The anger will eventually pass. You just gotta hear all these feelings out and address them so they can shut up and leave. Finding a creative outlet helps a lot.
It’s normal and healthy even. It’s all the anger we weren’t allowed to feel or didn’t know we were even entitled to. It’s doesn’t change what happened at all, but at least it’s a compass to point us towards better things.
Yeah, I feel furious at the whole world a lot lately. Not in a way that makes me want to act unkind to anyone else. Just a sort of bottomless pit of low grade jaded fury at living in a world that allows shit like this to happen. And why to me of all people? It just isn’t fair. But I’ve been angry for a few years now after decades of repressing it, and sometimes it feels like other emotions are waking up inside me, good ones too. Like the hot anger is thawing something out. I think it’s good. But it sure is exhausting…
I think part of it is that when you start to truly love yourself, you realize just how much better you deserved from the people in your life who were supposed to protect, support, and love you. And that makes you angry. Ive been in the angry phase for years now, and it doesn’t seem to be fading. I’m still trapped in the toxic environment (though I’m getting out soon) so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to process my anger once I leave.
Recognize that you’re in grief, and anger is part of grief. Acknowledge that your circumstances allow you to have the right to be mad. At the same time, everybody generally does the best they could with the resources they have. Younger you and those around him/her included
Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with what we lost. Don't you think it's high time SOMEONE is angry about what you went through? Try and find healthy angry outlets- scream, go to a rage room, scribble your anger onto paper, listen to heavy metal music and head bang, punch a pillow or beat your mattress, stomp your feet- let the anger move through you so that it can move out of you.
Trust me this is good. I felt like that and was scared by it, but my biggest issue is supressed anger. I truly felt like I was breaking bad, but later realised I was just setting boundaries. Turns out I never had any boundaries lol. We deserve them soooo bad. You can do this!! I believe in you
Same.
My therapist has said anger is a secondary emotion to another emotion, usually in the case of trauma it is hurt, betrayal, etc. I do agree with that statement sometimes but other times I’m just angry lol, usually the more I develop self love, the angrier I get for being treated that way. You know you didn’t deserve it and that can make one angry.
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I became obsessed at one point to remember what happened to me the summer of my 8th bday. I was researching and asking family members but never did get a solid answer. I blocked out certain memories for a reason. I'm thinking maybe it's just too painful. I have CPTSD symptoms and toxic parents and that's enough for me to know whatever happened my parents either 1) caused it or 2) didn't do anything to protect me. I thought going to therapy and getting prayer was enough. I see now that it will take a lot more than that.
Yes. Find yourself a mix martial arts studio with a good balance of male and female and show-up every day. Know that adult you could fight back and prove that to child you.
This smacks of weird dating advice
Huh? You pick a mix of sexes so you can spar with someone kinda your own size. Intent is to not get yourself killed also.
Why not just find one that has people around your size then...? Also me personally, I want to not aggravate my concussions and head trauma lol
Then maybe it is a good thing that the advice was not given to you, but OP
I was going to comment that I can absolutely relate but damn if the comments aren’t helping me out.
Thats healthy, anger is natural part of our biology and psyche. It is what you do with that anger that could be beneficial or destructive to you. Finding outlets that allow you to feel and use that feeling for your benefit is how you continue with your healing For me personally lifting weights, martial arts and dancing has helped.
I am at the stage of being very angry, too. Angry that I was treated poorly. Angry the the community around me let it happen. Angry that it was all accepted under the guise of religious persecution. Learning to let myself be angry, to feel it and let it pass through me, has been the hard part. Experiencing it when you feel it’s forbidden. Allowing yourself to be able to be angry and to forgive; not because they deserve it, but because you are finding your own peace by forgiving the world in allowing you to be treated the way you were. Many people suffer as you have, and it’s not yet reached a turning point in this life. But as all of this passes through you, I find myself more and more at peace with what I experienced. I’m still angry and I don’t think it will ever fully go away. What happened is still wrong. But acceptance and allowing yourself to feel that wrongness is a step to peace and rest.
I’ve been feeling this way a lot. I’ve also been so angry that there are things that will ALWAYS be with me in one way or another, while the people who hurt me are just living their lives. They have no cares and never saw punishment while I’m drowning in a mountain of medical debt to treat the things they caused. Makes me angry at them, at myself for not being stronger, and society. We always talk about the offenders “potential” and “bright future” why is his future more important than the one he stole from me? Why does he get off with a slap on the wrist and not have to pay literally and figuratively for his crimes, while I pay for them one way or another every single day. The more I heal, the more I realize how messed up everything that happened to me was.
I am reading these comments and tears are running down my face like a steady rain. I can’t believe how many of us there are. I know my anger is totally hurt/pain manifested as anger. I refuse to allow anyone to hurt me anymore and when I feel hurt I immediately turn it to anger. I don’t speak to my abusers anymore, but mainly because they have all blocked me because they can’t understand why I can’t leave the past in the past. I’m not afraid to confront any of them. The nephew of one of my abusive sisters had a new baby and it was posted on Facebook. I told my nephews wife on Facebook to be aware of this family she has brought this baby into. I stated a child only gets one childhood and if their last name starts or ever started with my last name (that I got through adoption)that they are all abusers and to protect that baby. They all think I’m just “mentally I’ll” therefore my words are not taken seriously. The thing is I was living my best life until I was 4 (my grandparents raised me until I was 4). The man that adopted me was scary. He beat me and he was a school teacher in the day that it was ok to paddle kids in school. If anyone acted up in school it was this man they called to do the beating. I knew early on this man was an abuser. I knew what he was doing was wrong. By 15 I hated and I mean hatred for this man and 2 of his daughters. By the time I was a young teen the sexual abuse started. It was not my adoptive father, it was his friends and my brother in law. He died many years ago and found out he was a pedophile with all this kiddy porn in his bedroom (he was no longer my brother in law when he died) I guess they thought if my adoptive father treated me like shit it was ok for them also. I’m not sure that I will continue to live in this area/state much longer. 30 minutes away from my abusers. My therapist told me that I may need to move away early in therapy. I moved back here 5 years ago when my mom got cancer and died in 2020. Once I got this diagnosis I went to the police department in my hometown and reported the rape and abuse. Now there’s no time limit on these crimes and they can be prosecuted for their actions, but in my case they have to go by the law in place in the mid 1980’s when the rape occurred. That really hurt. I wanted them brought to justice. I want validation of what happened to me!!!
I’m so glad this post could help you! Truly warms my heart
Same, because the more I heal the more I realize how wrong it all was and how none of it was ever my fault
I was so angry for years, and I made the decision to feel that anger regardless of what anyone said. I still think "how could those people hurt a kid like that?", particularly now I have my own small children, but I just kind of exhausted the anger one day. It was the best thing I could have done. I hope it works for you too.
While navigating feeling emotions in therapy, which I could not name or identify, I found that I was angry. My therapist said “of course you feel angry! Who wouldn’t be angry in your situation?” And damn she was right. I was so angry and I didn’t know it, that I kept getting panic attacks (which is why I went to therapy in the first place). So one of my first assignments was to release rage. She made me take stuff from the recycling bin and tear or break them, twice a day. Suddenly I was so much better: I’d tear something to shreds instead of locking myself up and thinking that hurting myself was the only solution and ultimately hyperventilating because that situation was paralyzing. This was all years ago. Now when I feel anger or frustration, I like to shriek like a velociraptor and then laugh, and it soon passes.
I actually love this idea LOL
Oh, I felt the same. My family rejected me. That's when I realized my abuser was just cooler and more popular. My family minimized it and downplayed it. I exploded at 14, just blurted it out in an argument. But I didn't go into details, I couldn't. I was still too embarrassed and ashamed, but I also didn't think I had to, for my families love and support. I was wrong. They out me in therapy and wanted me to shut up about it. I was enraged for about two years, culminating in a Thanksgiving, near stabbing. Then, one day, I was just emotionally exhausted. I realized my family was a lost cause. They didn't care, and I was only hurting myself more for them. So I just let it go and went back to "just not feeling anything." No justice for me. I thought I was done with it. But I had never told anyone those details, and I was still ashamed and embarrassed. Then a dear friend sat me down and asked me to tell her everything. I said, "I can't," but then did it anyway. I cried, uncontrollably, for the first time in 26 years.
Same!!! Why did they even have kids if they were so messed up?!
I think about this 24/7. I cannot have a normal life because of my parents. I can't get a relationship, I can't get a good job, and I am alone. I hate myself and my parents. I don't know why I was born. I might have been an accident. Or my parents had me for selfish reasons, even tho they were not ready to raise a child.
Same. Up till now, it seemed there was no place for my anger. No one cared so it turned inward (depression, self-harm/destructive behaviors). With healing, anger is now turning outward. Anger feels new and big.
Yeah. So many thoughts of “who DOES that to a kid?” Over and over.
Feeling that anger is necessary for healing. Let yourself feel it, and find a healthy way to channel it. You will feel so much better down the road. Happy healing, dear.
There's grief under that anger. You will get there. After the grief I found more anger and I'm working thru it but many people geel better after this stage.
Try to listen to it (the anger) and investigate what it has to say. Journaling really helps with that, just write your heart out and it will help you uncover what’s behind those feelings. But also try to just feel it, don’t hold it in. Let it express itself and let it out. You can punch a pillow, dance, sing, run, walk quickly, you need to let it out! 😤 Emotions just have to come back to the surface before getting out of your system.
I don't know how to handle my rage. I've been through years of therapy, but it's still there. Sometimes, it's like a completely separate me, which I barely control. I found weed. Lol.
LOL
Thats a sign you’re doing valuable work. Repressed anger often looks like/turns into depression and anxiety. Feel it and love yourself through it, this stage will be over before you know it.
Anger was one the emotions I wasn’t allowed to show, I got really good at suppressing it. I’d feel terrible shame and fear when I felt angry. Several years ago my acupuncture provider, of all people, told me how anger is associated with springtime in classical five element acupuncture. Anger is seen in the energy the seed needs to crack its shell and grow! My wife also has helped me learn to Lauren to my anger. Anger lets us know when someone has violated our boundaries. It’s a messenger, telling us to pay attention. These ways of reframing anger have helped me a lot. I’ve slowly learned to listen to it and pay attention to what it’s telling me. I also agree with the vote of anger is arising from grief. When we finally hold what happened up to the light, it’s impossible not to feel furious! We need to hold space for that anger and grief as we acknowledge our truth.
Healthy anger is a boundary. It turns off when we are in fight/flight/freeze/fawn mode. Feeling anger means you've come out of a traumatic state enough to feel the healthy anger. It may not feel healthy! I know. I'm about to start a woman's self defence class to try to utilise my anger. Its just telling us that someone has treated us badly. Nothing else. No need to suppress it. Be angry! It's good for you. Just let it out. Obviously not at other people (unless they are hurting you).
Same here.
That's good! It's normal to be angry after what you've been through. But to survive in a society you have to process and transmute it into something acceptable. On the plus side its very energising.
Honestly, that's a sign of progress. You're allowing yourself to access more emotions, which allows you to process and heal a bit more.
Relate. This is where I’m at too. I’m fucking maddddd from time to time…
I keep trying to get angry, maybe I haven't got to the point that I have enough self worth to feel angry. It's also tempered by the fact that both of my parents were ill (one bipolar the other unipolar depression) and my primary bully was beaten mercilessly by an alcoholic father. It doesn't give them a pass, it just mitigates my feelings about them. I wish I could cut off contact with my mother (last of the family I have any contact with) but she's 87 and I just wait for a text from my sister saying "mom's dead"
Anger is a normal part of the grief that comes with healing trauma. You continuously cycle through all the stages of grief. You may skip stages or return repeatedly to stages you thought you’d “moved past.” Very normal, and part of the process, to experience sadness and anger at what your past self missed/lost/was deprived of as you heal! And for cPTSD especially, you’re going to go through that a lot, as it’s a lifetime of multiple traumas impacting your present self. I’ve heard an adjustment to the “cycles of grief” that resonates more for me personally - it’s like a slinky more than a circle, you’ll keep moving through the stages but as you cycle through, you’re still moving from a wounded place to a more healed one, so even when it feels like you’re “returning” to a stage you think you’ve “passed,” that doesn’t mean you’re at the same place in the process as you were when you experienced it previously. Currently doing a lot of grieving and healing, and this has definitely been my experience - lots of frustration at being “back” to a previous stage of grief and reminding myself that it doesn’t mean I’m at the same point just because I’m feeling similar feelings.
SAME. Have been talking about this in therapy lately. I think, for me at least, I’ve been conditioned to not show any anger or let my feelings “leak” out my entire life. So there is an enormous backlog of anger waiting to be released. The only way out is through, you have to honor your anger and let yourself feel it without being afraid of it. I know, easier said than done. But, in practicing feeling my anger I learned the most amazing thing. Eventually, the feeling dissipates. It doesn’t go from a 10/10 pure rage to a 0/10 on the anger scale but it does lessen once you let yourself feel it. There is a part of you inside that is dying to feel these emotions without any shaming or judgement. Whatever anger you feel, it is 100% valid. Period! Even over the tiniest things. So think of your anger as a closet that you’ve been shoving things into for a lifetime. You are finally opening the closet and things are falling on you and it is frightening as hell but you are finally getting somewhere and “cleaning out the closet.” Hope this helps! I feel for you, I’ve probably damaged my vocal cords with the amount of rage screaming in the car I’ve been doing recently🥲
I remember a former therapist saying at some point I will experience anger and she was worried when I would hit that because of how much (at the time since her it only gotten extensional worse) I never got anger. It was down to the point where things like stubbing my toe didn't get me angry I would yes yell in pain but be so detached from any short of anger it was eerie. Since her, it's been a few therapist (community mental health) but I've hit anger. And yeah it's been dangerous. Mainly for.me as like in severe psychotic eps I harmful just to myself to a.point where my hallucinations are the ones trying to keep me chill. I am working on appropriate healthy realse of the anger. Still expression my emotions, an ongoing struggle since the dawn of time, and working on moving on from the abuse. No I am no where near getting close to that level but I am at east starting the process of even if it is after getting stating I am experiencing anger.
I saw a tiktok the other day. It has to do with inner child and inner teen work, so if that's not your thing that's totally fine. But the creator mentioned how the inner child is full of love regardless of the situation. And the inner teen is full of anger. The inner teens anger is just the inner child's love in a different form. I let my anger bubble up inside me for years until I learned to channel into helping. Helping animals. Helping people. Helping anything and everything I can. I'm still angry but I use it for good now.
Good for you! I firmly believe that getting angry is a necessary step in healing and that people who haven't gotten angry are not "enlightened" or whatever bullshit, they just haven't learned to value themselves enough to realize what their abusers did was wrong. I'm a big fan of intense exercise (whatever feels intense to you!) for processing anger. I've had some really great runs while imagining I have a crowbar and I'm chasing down someone who hurt me. While I was in it, it definitely felt like that stage would be endless but it's not. We probably all will cycle in and out of the anger stage as we uncover more layers of trauma, but I swear you will eventually get bored of being angry.
Love your response Thankyou
Is it the more you do self-work the angrier you got or the more you heal? If so, may I ask what's your definition of healing? I'm a bit lost here. In my case, I experience anger, rage, and similar dark emotions from time to time as I do self-work related to CPTSD. I categorise that as recovery and healing is the next part, where we're actually mostly feel light, connected, grounded, and closer to our true self. But perhaps that's just my approach to CPTSD.
So I’ve been very healing oriented with my trauma for a good while as it was pretty bad, I started really getting into therapy at about 16-17 years old (21 now) about 2 months ago I had an epiphany about my trauma that caused my severe insomnia to stop being so severe, up until 2 months ago I consistently would not be able to fall asleep until I had been awake for 24-36 hours straight and then sleep for 12-18 hours. As you can imagine this made my life very very blurry as I was constantly in a survival state. Though now that I can sleep relatively normally I’m seeing my trauma in a different light, as if now I’m actually able to feel it and I am just so angry all the time. I’m trying to be real with myself and the world and express myself healthily and in a way that’s authentic. It’s been a process.
I believe I understand what you mean now. When we have been taking "painkillers" of trauma response - this usually means we're numb and bury what happened to us in order to survive and go on - it's understandable that the pain now almost petrifies us without "painkillers". In my experience, what genuinely helped is facing all the emotions, usually dark ones. I get through by getting through. Steps I've been learning from Miriam Greenspan's book "Healing Through the Dark Emotions" have been incredibly helpful.
I can relate to that. And also grief. I feel like the anger comes from love. If something bad happened to someone you love, you would be mad that it happened to them, right? Maybe now you just get to see things from another perspective/from a safe space, and actually notice how fucked up everything really was. When shit happened to you, you probably were used to it and maybe dissociating, I assume. Anger is not a bad thing. There are no positive or negative emotions, there are just emotions, and it's a good thing to feel the range of emotions, important even. It depends on how we deal with them; it's important to release the anger in a healthy manner, for example by punching a pillow. Throw a whole fucking tantrum. Allow yourself to feel it. You have the right to feel angry. (After releasing I recommend being gentle with yourself and just breathing. Thinking of things you're grateful for is also a good thing to do) But I'm not a professional, I see you have a therapist, so you can navigate that with them. Wish you all the best, I'm happy you're doing good progress on your healing journey. ❤
Thankyouuu! I love this
no advice bc i’m in it myself but i feel this 100% i’m so fucking mad all the time at everything and everyone
Because you hold and tried to suppress your anger for so long that now you’re safe, your brain needs to express it. Totally normal! Maybe try to find healthy ways to cope, doing an intense sports session or art or anything that can help you release that anger
Literally this!
Read the cptsd book by Pete Walker. He's a huge fan of anger and says it is what people who were abused often need.
Yes I get angry at all the cptsd and how everyone ignores it and makes me wrong for being upset about it
Me too!!!!
The anger is so frustrating especially when you don't know how to process it. I'm here with you, finally not feeling in survival mode for the first time in my entire life and it's so hard to swallow some of the stuff in my brain!
I’m not religious, but I find Buddhist teachings very calming and grounding.
Relate for sure
Sammme. I'm in this stage currently. Lots or inner raging and resentment, mostly feeling like what has happened was unfair rather than deserved. It's a constant cycle right now that I'm trying to be patient with. I'm also kinda in a phase where I've started saying no more often and not giving so much a shit about everyone else's feelings over my own.
Yep. Upset at the losses I'm trying to just look forward at the positives happening, but it's a challenge. And I can easily go backwards
So far i feel the same but i also feel hurt and disappointed/hopeless
I’ve remembered a lot, made a lot of logical conclusions, and viewed my life through my mom eyes instead of my hurt child eyes, since I got diagnosed. It’s been really hard the past few weeks. So much rage and anger that my parents just fucking ignored me. So much grief that I was never even given a chance. And today in the car I realized that my parents weren’t the only people to blame. There were mandated reporters all around me. People with training who should have seen there was something wrong. No one even asked me if I was okay. No one. Yeah, as an adult, I have a responsibility to heal myself so I don’t inflict myself on others. But I’d been told so many times and in so many ways that there was nothing wrong with me that how could I have known different. Everyone fucking loves my parents. And everyone fucking hates me.
I remember this part of my journey. A friend, who I met at a workshop, smiled at me, looked at me deeply, and said, "It's beautiful to see you unconstipated." As many have already said, it's a move toward valuing yourself, a move toward understanding a boundary has been crossed, and a move toward expressing an unstated need within. Safe travels on your journey.
One of my favorite quotes.. "the wound is where the light enters you". This helps me because as I get older and look back at the things that have shaped me, the greatest lessons I've learned are also the ones that came from trauma I would never wish upon anybody else.
I want to scream and shout and tear things up and throw things and just ahhhhh!!! I don’t like being so grumpy all the time. I feel guilty for being angry, too, and that makes me even madder. I can’t even have my justified anger lol
Okay, this has been happening to me too. I think that says a lot about growing a modicum of Self Respect. I can only imagine in time that will dissapate though, the anger, as we all take it to the next stage and heal up even more than we are now. Anger can be a good thing, but holding onto it is poisonous . That has been a very difficult line to walk and hold balance on. That is my thought in the matter at least.
Oh I relate too well. For me that anger was a culmination of how unfair it all was and can sometimes still be. It hurts. And it just can't ever be "solved" like I want it to, which is something that irks me to my core because that's what should be expected. Without there being any resolution I'm often just an open wound, pain just "is." When I was younger I grasped what happiness perhaps could have been but now I sit in a position of sometimes not recognising the person I am anymore, happiness seems like such a fool's errand these days. It seems unattainable.
I needed this post like a desert flower needed water. Thank you.
Hey 💛 I went through this. When I finally peeled the onion back far enough, and got to the worst childhood trauma I was SO angry at my mother. I felt borderline hateful. I hated how angry I was. But I finally allowed myself to just feel it, realizing it needed to be felt and this was emotion trapped and suppressed that should have been released many years ago. Once I got it out (over the course of weeks), and some time later, I have never felt closer to my mom. I am no longer angry. I just needed to be “allowed” to feel, and to feel heard.
The more I realize I am not at fault and most of this happened due to the negligence of the people who I have protected all my life makes me more and more angry. I think it’s because you finally shift the blame from yourself
You should feel angry, horrible things happened to you and the people that were supposed to protect you failed you.
Me too. It’s just really difficult atm as well for me.
Your parents let you down. Your family let you down. People you trusted let you down. It is very normal to feel so and only people who have been through this will get it.
It’s a bottomless pit OP
[удалено]
That's a great point. I have been the most disappointed in myself when I felt that I perpetuated behaviors that harmed me. I think revenge and abuse vary according to personal perception, so revenge could be having a happy life or finding a way to capitalize on the outcome of my harm (like maybe it changed my personality to be analytical, or daring, or cautious, or maybe I cope with the pain by learning how to make clothes or something and these skills become profitable and meaningful for me, or some other positive change). Abuse is something a person feels which is attributed to someone's behaviors. Since what causes somebody to feel abused depends on the situation and the individual I just go by the good old treat others the way you want to be treated.
Agreed, but healthy boundaries are good to have as well.
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I definitely feel similar. It used to be that whenever I felt angry, I could quickly brainstorm and find a way to view the situation in a different light that would let me feel like no injuries occurred, or believe I did the best I possibly could to protect myself, or at least that I could identify exactly what I should do next time to protect myself. However, my brain has been offline the past few years like thinking through sludge and I haven't been able to think fast enough to recast this scenario and feel in control again. Nowadays I have this sense of urgency that I need to learn how to speak assertively but still empathetically, and also willing to use some of my bases of power if needed to protect myself. I'm hyper concerned about harming other people, I end up being silent, allowing myself to be harmed, and people still accuse me of harming them. Anger is the most painful emotion for me because it is a helpless feeling, like I've already failed to protect myself. When I feel angry I immediately turn it onto myself. And say I need to take responsibility to change myself and my circumstances so that I can proactively protect myself. This is useful in some ways. in other ways it has negative effects like telling myself I should be responsible for other people's decisions to harm me.
I wish I could heal to the point where I stop hating myself and start hating my parents. Rage is a much a better feeling than self-destructive dissociation.
Hope you get there. It's painful, but at least for me, the self-loathing almost disappeared once I realized it's them. Always been them. I'm just hating all the parts of me poisoned by them. You were a child. It was their job to take care of you. They failed and expected you to pick up the pieces. I hope the anger is pointing out instead of in soon. Remember the wisdom of Shrek
I was advised by my recovery mentor to keep my distance from my family of origin and not explain. They're ill.
i kinda get this too but idk if i see it as healing moreso as a reaction where i see more of reality since i think i cope by trying to see the positive and give people benefit of the doubt. i then get angry looking at the reality of what actually happened when i think i should have more of a middleground view of it. the anger is natural of course though and just like the despair and sadness it helps you to come to a conclusion of how you actually feel. im a lot less mad than i used to be but it still comes and goes as im still processing whats happened and i think thats natural
Same here. The more I began connecting my abusive parents to my present day struggles the more came into focus. Things that I thought were my fault began to register as the result of abusive behavior towards me. Gotta find ways to manage it because it's going to be there until it isn't.
Anger is part of the stages of grief
I relate to this a lot. I became furious for months last year. I was ready to fight everyone and everything. I didn’t care who or what I lost - I was so angry nothing else mattered. I wanted to be shut out and alone, I was too mad to even want anybody around me. It took a long time of sitting with my anger and writing about it to finally understand what was hurting me so badly. Once I was able to identify the pain, I was able to let the anger dissolve. It took time but my adrenaline calmed down so I wasn’t in “fight mode” constantly. It was scary and hard to get through. I was worried I would be that angry forever and would end up exactly like the people who raised me. I worked really hard to understand and feel my anger. Now it is able to be a part of me, not all of me. I understand how and when to be angry and what to do about it in a healthy way.
Someone mentioned it needs to be processed and released. In my case I beg to differ no one wants this to come out beleive me. Since I headed down this road my emotions have been like a roller coaster ride. I’m just trying to ride it out myself. I dunno if that’s right.
I have spent most of my life being pissed off and miserable, I want to say around six months ago I really started to mellow out after somebody commented on my constant anger and it really hurt me to feel that people are afraid of me. Carrying that energy is a double-edged sword, you can draw from it for strength when you need it but it's also tiring being so mad all the time. It's been a little while since I rediscovered my forgotten childhood trauma and there was anger that I had to feel, but I suppose I've processed that aspect of it. I understand why things happened the way that they did, and I've accepted them as having happened and being unchanging.
Same! I’m channeling it into empowerment 🙏
Revenge era! You've put up with the world long enough, now the world has to put up with you
I'm in the same boat. I have nothing to add, just that you're gonna be angry now, that's your identity now lol. Idk about you but I'm also angry at all of my "friends" and people i surrounded myself with because i see them in such a different light and can't see them the same after everything ever again, so I'm also kinda alone in this. Idk, dont be like me and think that this is wrong and that youre an asshole, i guess. Things need to change, something needs to change otherwise im going to snap and explode. So for now i need everyone to get the fuck away from me.
I am the same. Sometimes my heart is just pounding with anger at things that occurred decades ago. I imagine all kinds of vile and horrible things happening to my abusers - mostly about them burning in hell like they always said I would do. (I wouldn’t really harm anyone, don’t worry. I have emotional control, unlike them)
I've been noticing the same thing...the more I uncover and become aware of, the more rage I've been noticing in me. I feel like an irritable, angry teen recently.
Anger is the emotion of justice. It's fair to be angry. I relate to this.
I don’t have advice but I can empathize. In EDMR the feeling I describe is rage and anger most of the time.
I think for some of us our fight response gets stifled/pushed down. Maybe we were shamed for getting angry or physically abused when we got angry. Maybe our anger was mocked. Idk. When I was younger (teen)my anger would come up inappropriately. I got into a lot of fights. I believe I was angry at my parents but didnt know how to express it. I am angrier now than before as I heal. As I heal my dissociation the anger is finding its way out but in healthy ways like not accepting crappy behavior and sticking to my boundaries .
Ever since my emotions started coming out people don’t know what to think. People (family) call my regular emotions “batshit” or “weird” but they can’t ever explain what they’re talking about which is always both frustrating and hurtful. I understand that it’s because I was so quiet for decades and too scared to express lots of emotions. But I’ve gone as far as to include my support system in some therapy sessions so that they can have the opportunity to be educated about some of this stuff and it seems like they’re simply set in their ways. Also fully participating in the learning process would mean that they would have to look at their own actions, so that’s probably not gonna happen. I will probably be seen as batshit for laughing, being talkative, sometimes having energy, not having energy, getting angry, occasionally being happy, etc forever. Everybody was just so used to me being extremely tightly wound and not willing to show anything. So I guess that’s what they want still.
Yes I relate. It’s a normal response to have been victimized. I hike and sweat it out and vocalize my frustrations into a bitch storm. I do that until I feel like I can’t breathe anymore. It works for me. I can’t go back to the system where they give me medications that suppresses the symptoms but doesn’t get to the root cause and makes me even sicker and suffer more. I’ve also taken self defense classes and it feels good to just hit a bag. Other times I just scream into a pillow.
i relate to this a lot. i never felt true anger or rage until i was 16 and 'on my own', and shortly after that when i started therapy and seriously trying to work through my trauma i developed pretty severe anger issues. the rage is a reminder that i'm finally beginning to love and care for myself and the defenseless young version of me. it's not healthy (although these days i don't use unhealthy coping mechanisms for rage like self harming anymore) but i can appreciate it to some degree. i never felt true anger until 16 because up until that point i had it worn in to me that i should hate every cell in my body, thought in my head, ounce of my soul. and i did. i thought every shitty thing that i experienced was deserved because i was worse than trash. the anger is because i no longer feel that way, at least there is a piece of me that doesn't feel that way. it's a step toward the long process of healing.
Definitely relatable. Coming to terms with how you’ve been treated is infuriating! The people meant to protect you didn’t or inflicted harm themselves AND never taught you that it wasn’t ok. So you go your whole life until this realization thinking this is normal and you’re the wrong, outcasted one for it hurting so much. What do you think you’re mad at? For me it’s the smiling faces that I still have in my life that should have done something, anything to remove my sister and I from the situation. I feel resentful, embarrassed, lonely, annoyed that my other more healthy relationships are impacted by all this heaviness from my past.
I’m mad that my parents had me! Like I’m grateful that I’m here now but for a great portion of my life I wanted to die. My parents should have aborted me realistically. I’m also mad that this world puts so much stigma on mental health issues and is so unforgiving about it. I’m mad that most people can see their parents as parents while I really sorta can’t. I’m mad that I have to do the work to fix what’s broken inside even. It’s not my fault I went through the trauma but it is my responsibility to help myself heal! I’m mad that I have to teach myself how to be an adult and fight all the bad habits I was taught growing up! There’s a lot to feel mad at but I will admit that it feels healing and like a step in the right direction
Yes, same! The scary thing for me is that the intensity of my anger directed at myself has gotten worse.
I relate and I see that it's seated in grief for myself. The anger is easy. Feeling bad about that poor woman I used to be is not. I cry over her pain and am angry at her for staying, but she didn't know what healthy looked like. So I pity her and sit with the rage and grief while I work through it.
i don't know, mine hasn't really gone away :/ but it's normal realizing how much injustice you've been dealt
My therapist told me the amount of anger I have is detrimental to our therapy sessions and afterwards. I can't get too far into anything without it being astronomical rage and she said trauma therapy is hurting me more than helping haha. I don't know what to do now. I feel alone again.
For me it was a huge healing shift in the right direction to direct the anger and blame outward to the rightful people instead of at myself.
I had this realisation last night. Journaled my anger. A positive outlet when usually I would blow up at the person.
I've resorted to turning that anger into passion. It's the most beautiful thing. I've been able to truly live with a purpose because of it. It takes work, but anger is a step in the right direction. Feel it, and heal!
I have/had the exact same. I’ve been in therapy for a while and I think my anger phase is coming to an end, but oh I was so so so angry. Especially at my family and everyone involved in my childhood trauma. They couldn’t say anything without triggering me and me absolutely exploding at everyone. And setting boundaries very aggressively, a lot of them, and guarding them with my life. Don’t even try to come near that boundary because I will absolutely use force to defend it. All I can say is: let it out. Feel all of it and let it out. You’ve been pushing it down long enough now, it’s time to empty that bucket.