Let Go Of Anger? How?

[Bach]

I'm looking for thoughts and experiences regarding anger. 

I carry a great deal of anger in me or with me about all the things that make my present day life difficult and painful that resulted from the abuse and neglect I suffered as a child.  I spent most of my life completely unwilling to acknowledge my anger.  I judged my anger and feared it, and avoided it as much as I possibly could.  I only really started to recognise and work on understanding it a few years ago, and I know that is important, but it has begun to feel like an inescapable quagmire. 

My therapist's default to every negative mood I'm in is to suggest that I'm angry about this element or that of the situation, and most of the time she's not wrong, but I get very annoyed with the subject because these conversations do not lead me to anything actionable.  I denied and repressed my anger for most of my life and obviously that's not healthy, but now what?  I'm told that I need to let myself "be angry", let myself "feel" it.  But I'm also told that I must not "hold on" to anger, that I must "let it go".  I have no bleeping clue how to do any of that. 

I welcome anything anyone has to share about any aspect of this thorny topic.

[Blueberry]

I carry a great deal of anger too and used to feel pretty desperate about how to express it but also transform it, which I think leads to being able to let it go.

Whoever is telling you to 'not hold on to the anger' and/or 'let go of the anger' does not understand cptsd imho. Sounds a bit like 'you must forgive'. That stuff.

My pent-up anger from childhood and later has lessened over the years due to me expressing it while being heard (or seen) and being accepted with my anger. Unfortunately it has - in my case - been a long road, taking years, but the anger has lessened. Up until maybe a year or two ago I was a little frustrated about writing Recovery Letters on here to FOO, to friends who didn't act like it and are no longer friends, probably to LL too and then not feeling as if the anger had lessened. But it has done so with time.

For me it has been important to have witnesses - often in therapeutic settings, but also here on this forum. And it's also been important for me to express and release anger slowly. So maybe I need a few weeks or even months before I tackle a new instance of anger. How much time you or I or anyone needs to re-ground and regenerate is likely to be pretty individual.

I have parts, I can't remember off-hand if you do Bach. I would say looking back that it was and probably still is important for my Adult person to make sure that the anger e.g. of a 16yo doesn't terrify a 7yo and that the 7yo doesn't terrify one of the babies. Or maybe even that the anger of the 16yo doesn't overwhelm the 16yo.

It sounds as if your T doesn't know how to move forwards with your anger. That is a total pain imho because I would be hoping that a good T would help you move forwards, give you guidance, be a witness to your anger, hold a safe space for you to be in during the anger, 'bring you back into the here and now' if you seem to be dissociating or becoming too entangled in the anger and that kind of thing.

All based on my experience. Others on here may have widely different experiences.

[Bach]

Thank you for your thoughtful response, Blueberry.  Your post is very helpful.  It gives me a direction, at least in which to take my thoughts.  I think you're right that my T doesn't know how to help me move forward, but I know that she cares and that she wants to, so perhaps if I talk to her about that we can start getting somewhere with it.

[rainydiary]

I carry anger too and get stuck in expressing it.  Sometimes for me it isn't about letting it go but rather staying with it if I notice.  I'm not sure I've made any headway with it.  Right now when I feel anger I often turn it back on myself and fall into shame.

[Kizzie]

Bach I think it's a healthy response for you to see that your T cares and think about talking with her about how you're feeling about the issue of your anger.  I honestly believe that being human T's don't always know how to help us and that sometimes we need to try and help them to help us.  It doesn't always work if they hold onto their approach tightly, but if they are open and caring and willing to shift a bit, it can help to get what you need. 

I like BB's suggestion that having someone safe bear witness to our anger is therapeutic.  If we can express it safely (i.e., with someone who will not shame us), we can bleed it off/defuel it, and at some point let it go mostly or completely.  I do believe there is a great deal to be angry (and sad) about when we have been abused/neglected, and it deserves/needs to be acknowledged if we want to recover/move on. 

[Blueberry]

It doesn't always work if they hold onto their approach tightly, but if they are open and caring and willing to shift a bit, it can help to get what you need. 

Bach, I certainly think it's a good idea to talk your T about this since you know she cares. In the past I have had Ts who were willing to learn from me so as to be able to understand me and help me better. Then there were unfortunately some Ts who refused to and I didn't continue with them much longer. I really hope for you that your T is open to listening to you so you can both move forwards so to speak. 

[dollyvee]

Hey Bach,

I have some experiences with anger for sure. I think there's a couple different kinds for me. I was very angry with my m for a long time, that why couldn't she be there for me, how could she not understand? Like why couldn't she just get it and how hurtful it was to me? I pushed it down after realizing that it wasn't getting anywhere expressing it, and as I began to process the narcissism I had to begin letting go that she was never going to be the mother (or gm/family) that I needed, the one who saw and validated me for who I actually am.

I still carry anger but I think it's a different kind, one that comes from the narcissism in my family where I wasn't allowed to have any boundaries, feelings, etc. So, I suppress everything - all the little boundary violations that I feel like I can't say no to, where I think it's too much - until it comes out. This is usually getting angry while driving, but I'm noticing now that I maybe get really angry when driving when there is something else (a previous boundary violation) that's happened earlier. I watched the video on Fearful Avoidants and anger by Heidi Priebe and it was really helpful in identifying that for me. The John Bradshaw's book on toxic shame also does a good job of going into anger as a self-protection and motivating force when something has occured that we are threatened by. In my understanding there is usually there is some sense of boundary violation or threat that comes with it. Although, unpacking the needs and feelings related to what caused it is not easy! It's really hard to come back to that place of authentic self from a place of enmeshment I'm finding.

"For example, if you were never allowed to express anger in your family, your anger becomes an alienated part of yourself. You experience toxic shame when you feel angry. This part of you must be disowned or severed. There is no way to get rid of your emotional power of anger. Anger is the self preserving and self-protecting energy. Without this energy you become a doormat and a people-pleaser. As your feelings, needs and drives are bound by toxic shame, more and more of you is alienated.

To be severed and alienated within oneself also creates a sense of unreality. One may have an all-pervasive sense of never quite belonging, of being on the outside looking in."

I guess there's no easy answer, but maybe naming the anger as it comes up and working to identify what caused it might track a pattern leading to some sort of violation in some way?

Sending you support,
dolly

[Bach]

Thank you for your responses, friends.  All of you mentioned shame, which is interesting to me because during my therapy session last week, I said something about feeling like I wanted to throw a proper tantrum with kicking and screaming and crying like I guess I used to do when I was a small child and was distressed by what I now assume must have been either gaslighting, or having my needs spurned/mocked or otherwise not met.  My therapist validated me in some way I can't quite remember, told me I had good reason to feel that way or something like that, and I immediately went from feeling like kicking and screaming and crying to feeling a horrifying wave of guilt and shame.  I know that's significant in a way that with require dealing with.  I'm kind of annoyed because I usually have therapy on Monday and Thursday, but my therapist took today off.  So I have to sit with it for now.

[Cascade]

Anger has been a huge issue for me, existing as rage for the last few years since I recalled the sexual abuse I endured as a child.  I am still in a 5-week EF, and lately wake up every day just mad.  I don't know what to do with it, either.

This morning I sat with it and journaled, which wasn't too productive.  Looking through some of the OOTS threads, I'm hearing that our anger needs to be heard by others because no one listened to us as children.  I also recall that while feeling the feelings, Pete Walker recommends returning to the first time we had anger, expressed it, and weren't heard.

For me, that could be wailing away as an infant while my mother was suffering from postpartum depression.  Like most others here, I could list many other instances throughout childhood.  I guess to summarize where I'm at now, I'm so glad to have this safe space to express all the things I'm angry about and then to have them heard.

• I'm mad that my mother got me addicted to nicotine in utero.
• I'm mad that my mother was unable to care for me.
• I'm mad that my father sexually abused me.
• I'm mad that no one could help when I drew a huge sad face on my childhood bedroom wall.  It's all I could think to do because if I told my mom what happened, my dad would kill her (or so he said).
• I'm mad that the cops couldn't see what was going on when they brought me back home after I ran away in kindergarten.
• I'm mad that I have to live life this way now, messed up all the time.
• I'm mad for being born.
• I'm mad for waking up everyday and having to go through the same thing all over again.
• I'm mad for going to sleep every night, knowing nothing will be better when I wake.

Thanks for hearing me,
   -Cascade

[Gromit]

A

Thanks for hearing me,
   -Cascade

I hear you.

I am angry too, yes, angry for being born to someone who was told not to have any more children. Why did she do that? And now she is trying to buy my children with gifts.
And every little thing is getting to me.

G

[Cascade]

Gromit, your reply of those first three words is comforting, thank you.  I did feel a little relief first after posting my list of angers, then especially when they were heard.
   -Cascade

P.S.  I'll go back to your anger thread about your situation to reply more appropriately there.
How do you cope with anger?