I know that there is anger suppression and dissociation.
Do you know if there is such a thing as suppressing anger so much that you feel it, but then it goes right away like it never even existed?
Maybe that means that your best efforts at disassociating from it are working.
i just tried thrashing some pillows, as anger was seething under the surface- but i felt numb , not angry.
Its like the anger has just vanished under my skin, like it wasnt even there.
This is frustrating.
I feel that. Sometimes I can feel mad, and it progresses to angry tears...other times it just fades away, like it did not exist.
A couple of times I did get to rage, but I pulled my hulk back, he's ugly! And yep scares me. I was never allowed to express negative feelings, and I maintained clinical detachment from them growing up..only occasionally breaking down when I was alone. Easier to connect anger to my first marriage, I guess being more recent.
Hi EmoVulcan
Thanks for your reply.
Its good to see that someone can relate.
Same here about not being allowed to express negative feelings.
My anger scares me too. I dont think i was feeling the anger fully enough for it to come out, but i think it should of come out.
Maybe in time it will get easier. I have not broke out of dissociation yet though or anything.
Yes, i find anger is easier to connect to events that have just gone- more present events.= and not the past so much.
Lately, I have been trying to be open to the idea I may be resisting feeling/dealing with anger at my abusive father...the problems are many with this, instilled blocks to anger, obedience, and. Even rebellion. But, if I understand nothing else, I recognize my father was also a victim of a cycle of abuse...I think that merits compassion for him, not to excuse, the act was reprehensible, selfish in nature and without regard to consequences..though that has to be torture to know how fragile his safety from them, and I could not avoid them, in fact fear of everything I knew being decimated kept me silent..as it does for many I think.
So, I do not know for sure, but I think I am OK with my childhood, and iii may indeed my marriage I need to deal with now to continue integrating my inner child into a whole self.
I think that is factually where I am, I suppose time will tell.
EmoVulcan
I think i know whats going on with me, might be the same for you too.
I am a disasociator, always have been, the sort of dissociation that happenes in my head with out choice to block things out.
I feel like I am a bottle, with so much energy and anger in there, only when i try to take the lid off (express the anger), nothing comes out- the lid is too tight shut on the bottle.
I know i dont feel feelings like most people. The emotional numbness I'm comming to realise I have, that i never realised before, is scary.
My T wanted me to focus on where i feel things in my body, and I'm realsieing how much energy is in there, even nervous, agitated energy, that comes when i feel nothing at all, when i feel dead inside, and i need to feel something which is why I'm addicted to crisis, apart from the fact that my brain expects unhappiness and crisis because of my previous home life, as well as self sabotage etc.- there are so many layers, no wonder this is hard to unravel.
Im comming to realise too that I'm afraid of being empty, if i have no anger etc. and theturbulant emotions settle down...im scared i will literally be empty.
Apparently this is just a phase in recovery...but to feel nothing?!!
Yes, disasociating for so long, being punished for asserting boundaries, for expressing anger and or other emotions, the brain has learnt not to let go.
Even when i do let go unintentionally when pushed just too far, i disassociate when rage, so i never feel the anger when Its comming out anyway!
Yes, fear , keeping silent is control.
I want through a phase of *forgiving* my mother, only that wasnt real. I blamed myself and thought i was wrong when now i have a T telling me it wasnt me.
Im angry at her, and whilst i feel empathy for her, Im still angry or rather, - getting there.
The anger i had towards her growing up has been long suppressed.
I must of had to suppress it big time living with that much rage- and truth is, i did.
So yes, just wanted to say that maybe you think you are recovered on this bit, but you might not be, however , you also might just be.
Indigo!
I can relate so much to what you are describing!
I can get irritated at times but true anger is always quickly suppressed with a sudden feeling of panic and fear, then I just go numb.
I relate this to abusive parents that became offended whenever I tried to set boundaries between us, and if I got mad they also became mad and violent or threatening.
So it wasn't good for my survival to be mad and stand up for myself, it was better to sneak away from them and try and create some space for myself to exist despite what they said.
This have followed me around, as a sort of rebellious resistance that I will disobey as soon as the authority figures are not looking.
Also the addiction with crisis, usually in love relationships.
I guess that if you live with relationships that are in crisis and long for a better day then that is all you know and will repeat over and over.
Or just not have any relationships at all :/
I only got one tip for you: Don't try and pressure yourself to feel this anger.
I tried this in therapy and it became very traumatic, partly because my T didn't notice that it was too much for me as my facial expression doesn't show what's going on inside.
So she kept pressuring me until it drove me into a blur and I had to stop seeing her.
Thank you so much for posting about this! :hug:
It feels good to finally read about someone that can relate to this complex emotional dilemma.
Hi Bimsy,
Panick and fear - i dont always realise what is going on with me, and in therapy i am currently working on just noticing, so yes, panic and fear over takes and leads me to feeling numb.
Im sorry about your childhood experience when it comes to your parents and anger and boundaries. Its not fair is it and I'm sorry it happened to you and that it is causing you difficulty now.
It was the same for me.
Now if pushed too far and i do rage, i come out of my body whilst its happening, then feel numb when its over.
I wasnt allowed to question anything, wasnt allowed to set healthy boundaries, wasnt allowed to express anger or feelings.
I have that rebellious streak too.
Yes, i agree that we repeat all we know over and over.
Thankyou so much for the tip.
I havent been pressuring myself to feel.
Yesterday anger came, and i was able to express it at my punch bag.
Its pretty overwhelming and scary.
Im beginning to notice all this energy and anger inside me, since I'm getting more n touch with where i feel emotions in my body, and i think yesterday i reached my limit and i did it for my own sanity and my own physical health.
I vomited after and felt really nauseous, not sure if it was a mini panic attack, but i was hyperventilating and felt anxious after releasing rage.
I guess we are wired up to expect punishment and scary things to happen when we express anger.
How crazy that your T didnt notice that you wasnt ready to do the anger thing. Im sorry you had to leave, that sucks. I hope you have or will find a better therapist.
We are taking things really slow, and thats good.
Its also good to have others who can relate. (bitter sweet).
good luck with anger and this journey. Im guessing your new here, so if so, welcome, glad to have you. ;)
Thanks for the welcoming :) everyone is so nice here, it's wonderful to see!
I am sorry to hear that you did also experience these problems with your parents!
In a way I figured it must have been something like the things I went through since we seem to react pretty similar.
I do remember now that I actually can become angry if I am pressured into a corner, from what I've heard I look pretty scary when that happens :P
I don't really know, I just get really mean and defensive until people leave me alone. :pissed:
I'm glad to read that you are working with your anger, in the future I wish to do the same thing.
For me my anger usually feels like a clump in my throat, I've read or heard somewhere that it feels like that when you hold back things that you really need to say.
May I ask where you feel your anger?
It sounds like you are going through some sort of cleansing, both spiritually and maybe physically (with the vomiting), it seems intense!
How did you feel afterwards?
I admire your courage to deal with these feelings, I think I can imagine just how scary it must be. :spooked:
By the way, is your T educated to take care of people with PTSD and CPTSD?
I'm just asking since I am looking around for someone that is.
I hope you don't mind me asking a lot of stuff :P I just want to know everything now that I know about CPTSD!
Hi Bimsy
Aww, no problem..everyone is nice here i agree, including yourself.
And totally fine about the questions- dont mind at all. If you didnt ask, you wouldnt know ad its great that your asking. I have lots of questions and started out with tonnes.
Interesting. I feel anger inside my chet and stomach. Maybe my back stores it too as my back aches a lot.
I like the idea of going through cleansing! How cool is that! I hope so. Maybe a spiritual awakening or something, but i think that happened already.
Afterwards I felt really sad, so cried for a minute, then felt sick and panicky, I was hyperventilating, and I felt anxious that some punishment was going to come, even though i was alone in the house.
Thankyou so much about the courage. It is pretty scary.
T is educated to deal with Cptsd and Ptsd.
I asked her lots of questions that i found fro the internet, to see if she specialised in the aeas i thought she should specalise in.
I hope you find someone. Its a bit trial and error finding the right one sometimes.
Thank you Indigo :)
Trial and error indeed, I've already contacted a place in another city that deals with PTSD so we'll see what they have to offer!
The anger feelings in the chest sounds very emotional, if I try and feel what that would feel like I kinda feel like someone hurt my feelings.
Can't really figure out the pain in the back though but I am curious of what it could mean!
Maybe some sort of physical anger, like wanting to attack someone.. I don't know :) I'm just playing with the thought as I like to imagine how other people feel things.
You said you felt sad after the rage, I think my emotions usually comes in that order too.
First we get attacked and feel angry and defensive and then the hurt emotions, sadness of being hurt by someone we trusted.
That is how I think of it anyway :)
It sounds like you're doing the right thing anyway, a good cry is always very cleansing I think!
Sometimes it's hard to know if it's a rewarding kind of pain that leads to healing eventually or if it's a kind of pain that just adds to the burden.
Like when you are in therapy and think that it's supposed to hurt before it feels better, there is a difference between healing hurt and just being hurt again though.
So I always look for that good kind of hurt, it's not easy but essential I think!
And you seem to have the good kind of hurt from what I can tell :) what a great thing!
Spartanlifecoach just talked about throat constriction as a symptom of highly demanding parents, it also makes sense!
I have the same thing happen so I don't really try. Maybe it would help to focus more on accepting anger as a reality. My problem is trying to deny it exists so trying to express it in order to get rid of it doesn't work. I'm thinking an indirect approach would be better-just say I accept that I'm angry and then it will naturally come out somehow.
Hi Bimsy
Good luck with the PTSD place.
Maybe someone did hurt your feelings. I have it when others are disrespectful or impolite, but really under there is sadness that they are being this way.
Yes me too about the pain in the back. Do you have this too?
The anger for me anyway is very physical and verbal.
Yes, that order of emotions - anger then sadness makes sense. Anger is usually the pushier emotion that wants to come first. It is a protective defence, against others, but also for us, to stop us feeling the sadness underneath.
T said to me that my anger has been so long suppressed that other feelings are starting to leak out beneath the lid that is anger.
That is how I think of it anyway :)
I know. I think that all pain is healing, you might find you have new pain that adds to the burden, but it may come from a similar place, and I guess that burden can be a big one, but one day it will be expressed and things will shift.
Yes sure, if you are hurt again, that is an opportunity to learn, however it sucks i know.
And that- being hurt again that you may experience now from other people in your life, it could be a pattern that we are sub consciously repeating. I know not everyone likes to hear that. Its not our fault. We attract similar situations and people into our lives to the origional abusers we had.
I think that any kind of hurt we experience, weather present, or a reminder of the past, is al because of old hurts as in my life anyway, the real hurts i have experienced mirror the origional hurts in my childhood.
Hope this makes sense.
Hi tired,
Im not sure if i have accepted anger as a reality.
Expressing anger started after T said to me to notice where I feel things in my body- anger etc.
I realised that my body is knackered, its in pain, and i have so much tension, anger and anxiety swirling around inside there all the time.
This week was very flashbacky, in an angry way, and i realised that i was too restless to come home and not do anything about it.
I didnt want to stuff it, as, with therapists validation, i felt that it was ok to be angry- as i am being treated unfairly in my life now by certain others, and i was by my parents.
I felt i had no choice but to explode with rage, so i did.
I have been looking at boundaries too and I'm angry because it seems that my bounties are not respected- in fact, i know they are not.
I watched a youtube video on boundaries and i felt angry and think I'm starting to believed that what my parents did to me was not my fault, as in, i didnt do anything what so ever to deserve them treading on my boundreis and treating me as badly as they did.
T said to me too to say to myself- I'm angry, when I'm angry. I dont do this all the time, nut it may help you. I think it will come when ever it comes.
Maybe realising what happened to you, what *really* happened to you and maybe how its manifesting in your life now may help?
What my parents did was wrong making me suppress everything i felt under the sun, punishing me for any tiny expression of anger i made, and like a tiger locked in a cage, these feelings rattle around inside of you, and i went mad, developed ocd and anxiety...if i care so much for those animals, and that is like what happened to me, then that is awful and i dont deserve that. Im now carrying on suppressing stuff like my parents wanted me to, being a good little girl but now i dont give a ****.
I hope this helps you somewhat. It will come. I honestly think seeing a T has helped me wit this - I'm not done, but she has set it rolling.
Being angry basically means losing my parents forever. Because it means yes they failed, it's true that they failed, and I can never talk to them again. It means that there is no way I can become a child and have parents. My lifelong ambition, to have parents, will never happen.
Blocking all contact with them was the first step for me and after 2 years of going back and forth, I've been feeling less guilty and at the same time more angry. I feel like I'm hurting them this way but I can't do anything about it. I can't make them into better people.
The weird thing is that when I feel angry I immediately stop feeling it. It disappears when I feel it. But it's like I have so much of it and I can't take a lot at once. I imagine I will die if I do. Maybe it's true that too much stress from feeling anger can raise your stress hormones and kill you. I worry about that.
Hi tired,
I hope i didnt offend you or anything. I was just trying to explain how I was finally able to let some of that anger out.
I know about the parental loss. Its really hard.
I think its best if you do what is best for you.
You are right, you can not make a person change if they dont want to.
You have to do what is right for you, and if they have hurt you, its kind of like, what do they expect. Maybe they just dont understand it. They do not see.
Yes, i stop feeling it too. It was T saying to me that i am being treated badly that made me unable to not pay attention to this anger.
When the facts present themselves, i can not ignore it. Sure, the anger goes away as i disassociate, but i am trying to express it when i can.
I wouldnt be surprised if there was just so much anger in there. Its overwhelming. Little at a time. Maybe it wont all come out in one go. that would be the anger stage over quickly wouldnt it haha.
I know its scary. Its very scary.
The first time i let anger out i disassociated. I cried after then disassociated. It was intense. And the second time i was filled with anxiety after and was physically sick. So its ok if that happens. Little steps at a time.
Having a T on my side helps tremendously. I feel i have someone and i dont feel as afraid. I have things to help me get through if it gets too much.
Now I'm not as afraid. We will see what is to come with the anger. i hope this happens some day for you too.
I have a punch bag and put on some music and scream and pound it.
It does feel out of control but when its done its done.
Yes, stress apparently can make you ill, and I'm feeling the effects of it on my body, and holding in anger is expressing itself in bodily pain.
I hope this helps, and I'm sorry you have lost your parents. For me, i saw the cracks and it was extremely painful, now i feel i have no choice as ive already seen the cracks, so the anger naturally has come. T helps too to see what was wrong and is wrong with them.
Ok I'm done talking now...sorry it was long.
No not offended at all. It helps to have the back and forth conversation that for me is sort of a problem-solving thing. When I was growing up I was ignored and treated like I was retarded and not able to do anything so nothing was expected of me. That's why now I like being challenged. I see it as a vote of confidence, as in "I am sure that with a little bit of input you can be much better than you are. "
Anger is so hard for me to understand. Thich Nhat Hahn wrote about it and says to treat anger like a little baby, and have compassion for it. I've also heard a metaphor that if you hold on to it it burns you. You have to let it go. These seem contradictory.
When I did some reading about child development I ready about shame and rage, which makes me thing that childhood rage is something very different from adult type anger. But I don't know.
Thank you Indigo :)
I just read what I wrote and wanted to be clarify that I don't want to try and tell you what your emotions are :) I'm just imagining how it would feel for me if I had that sensation in my body.
Just to be clear! :)
About the pain in the back, I don't really experience that because my psychosomatic pain usually tightens my shoulders and neck, like when we cower because someone is about to hurt us.
The neck and shoulders are vulnerable places and if someone bigger than us were to shake or attack us from above I think that our instinct would make us cringe down and raise our shoulders to protect the neck.
But if I imagine pain in the back I feel like this is an energy that is driving me forward, like a predatory sensation of wanting to rush forward and lash out, almost like a rugby player!
If you imagine that you are about to do this, do you feel that sensation in your back?
I think that this is a pretty interesting way to try and back trace why we have these kind of tensions!
My pain comes from when I was really small, there were no use in trying to attack my mum and stepfather since I were only 5yo and not that big compared to them.
But if I were to guess your age when your emotions got stuck I imagine that you were big enough to fight back physically, or maybe at least you felt the urge to fight someone as an equal.
Is this correct?
I don't really agree that All pain is healing though, for me I see a big difference in digging up old emotions so that there can be room for healing and just repeating the same old bad stuff over and over without really getting anywhere.
There is usually some sense of relief when there's healing involved, like a sensation of something new and light :)
I think I was about to write something more but I lost the thought :P I'll get back to you if I remember!
Hi tired,
Im so glad.
I am so sorry you were treated that way. :'(
Yes, i see why you would think that to be contradictory.
I think that by treating anger as a baby, you let it go- in time. Not at first, but in time.
And anger is a part of life. Its ok to feel it, but if you hold it in, or hold onto it for too long, it burns you.
I think thats what it means.
Im not sure if childhood rage is different from adult anger. Maybe.
As a child doesnt understand like an adult does when abuse etc is happening. The rage a child takes upon itself instead of blaming the parents might be different from a healthy adult who feels rage at the people who hurt them.
Childhood rage is often suppressed, so it is so huge.
Maybe an adult who repressed years worth of rage would be as angry as we are...I dont know.
But the betrayal that the parents caused us, is rage worthy. So the rage would be very intense i think.
Maybe with adult type anger, adults can (hopefully) anger and let it go.
We have a harder time with this because we feel so much of it, and for years we have had to suppress it for a multitude of reasons.
Hey Bimsy,
No worries- and I didnt feel that you were telling me what my feelings were at all.
Thanks anyway for saying that. ;)
I underrstand, neck and shoulder pain are common. Sometimes i have that too. Mostly shoulder pain.
I think that anger is stored in the stomach, chest and tops of the arms. There are diagrams i found on google images that stated this.
Um makes sense about wanting to rush forward. I had imaginings for hurting the people who hurt me for most of my life. It was the only way i could be angry in my own head, and i supressed it. Then one of them went into hospital and i felt so guity- they had an operation nothing to do with me- as i didnt hurt them, but i thought god or some force was punishing me for imagining such things happening to this person, so i stopped thinking things like that about them.
Now i dont feel guilty for thinking the things i thought as i realise now that it is a normal reaction to abuse.
I think i feel that sensation in my back when i image doing this.
Thanks for that.
I think pain is caused by not being able to do anything yes, and by suppressing emotions.
I dont remember much of childhood, so i dont remember when this rage started inside of me.
I think the trauma began in very early childhood, i dont meme er feeling angry when i think of one situation ie. doing a puzzle and trying to read a book and my mum getting really angry with me because i struggled and she was quite emotionally abusive about it. That was before i started school. I dont think i was angry at her, just felt shameful of myself, but maybe i suppressed any anger i felt.
yes sure. I believe the mistakes we make ie. could be attracting similar people to our abusers into our lives...are to learn from. If we keep doing it over and over even if we are conscious of this, and we constantly relive old pain, then there is no healing.
I guess getting emotions out of you feel good, but making yourself hurt every day is probably not healing.
Have you remembered what you wanted to say? ;D
Ok, good ^^
I am curious about the diagrams you found, are they about psychosomatic pain?
These things interest me a lot these days since I feel that it could be part of solving a lot of the emotional stuff if we could find the right way to get it out of our bodies as well!
Recently I became aware of that my diaphragm is very fixed (because of stress, I suppose) and if I try and massage it a lot of EF's come over me and it's super hard to deal with so it goes back to feeling tense once more.
But if we would have to try and produce EF's for therapeutic reasons I think that simply massaging the stiff diaphragm or shoulders could be a good start.
When I tried this yesterday I felt a sort of pain in my arms, probably because my stepfather used to grab my upper arms a lot when he was about to hit me.
Here is a simple video on how to self release the diaphragm (watch out for really loud noises in the beginning of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSGSmCMcZQQ
I can totally relate to your guilt about your anger, it is typical for abusers to guilt induce someone when they stand up for themselves so that we are taught never to set boundaries against them in the future.
For me I used to imagine them being pierced by swords and knives for some reason, I often drew pictures of how they died a really horrible death's :P
It felt better afterwards as it was some sort of revenge I guess!
I too have blurry memories at times but I think it might be possible to back trace memories with the sensations in the body and emotions that is stuck.
So sorry to hear that your mother was abusive when you were about to learn to read!
My mother was also abusive during my learning process.
I don't have many memories to confirm this except for a few where she would stress me when I was struggling, just like your mother did, or tease me for not knowing some things already.
She never really said it outright but her tone of voice let me know that she thought less of me because I didn't learn fast enough and started to struggle more and more in school.
In some ways I actually suspect that she was sabotaging me since her behaviour discouraged me from trying to learn things and take my time.
Like some sort of "reversed psychology" game.
You wrote that you only felt shame at first, I think it was like that for me too when I was really young.
I suppose it could have something to do with how emotionally dependent we are at such young ages, I remember being really touchy about letting my mother down.
Anger probably comes with independence, when you start to realise that other parents don't act that way and that their behaviour is unfair.
And no I never caught that thought that escaped me :P my thoughts are like nervous birds that fly away as soon as I try to catch them! lol! :stars: