Thank you guys. I am still processing this and realizing something else.
I feel that I have a lot of unprocessed childhood rage - you know there is no way I was not mad and angry to be violated as a child for so long, but this is the pickle. I am not in any shape of form in negative environment today. I also work with vulnerable clients and I truly hear and contain their pain with basic things in life.
In therapy though, I feel, no matter what, my rage still rages underground. I am not acting on it but I am definitely a bit in the "fighting fog"...you know that feeling of when someone is a bit of high strung. I am literally dissecting my soul here.
Like I am very comfortable saying no to the therapist or that thank you for saying that but that is not what I feel. This is what I feel or I may say, maybe you are right but I do not feel that exactly now. I will let you know if I do though and usually do if they were right if not, well I do not bring it up. I move on. In short, I am quite good about my boundaries and conscious about being influenced. There can be some blind-spot but so far I may say no if not feeling something or yes if right on.
So now, the rage undercurrent, I can only see it as a retrospect not exactly when I am in it. I feel (please feel free to chime in) that my rage can be projected sometimes and I find the therapist (this is my 3rd one) never really come out during this projection and say something about it. For example, I deal with very vulnerable clients who are often angry not projecting, really angry because they think whatever is wrong I or the org I present did. the anger is palpable and I acknowledge it is not my anger so I am very good at staying grounded and assisting them. This is not easy for most of my co-workers who consider these type of clients as hostile. I truly feel they have the right to be angry and for sure not at me cause I did not make the policy. So I find myself at peace holding them and helping them in the way I can. There are occasions where I get those that are polite but still angry and I completely relate to them and assist them still the same. So my rage is not, in other words, spillage to my life in general.
In therapy, I find the therapist must be able to detect when I am projecting rage (that is probably unbearable for me)...what I do not like is this - no therapist ever asked me anything about anger or rage or even how did I deal with that when I was a child? which I know now can be extremely truly helpful. I find they feel my anger,rage, terror but for some reason (and maybe rightfully) feel scared or something and do not say anything and by the time I figure it out, it is so long after that the experience has its own life.... of like well, I hate they must have detected this and did not say anything...now this is a new anger and maybe some shame as ooh gosh I was raging all these times and the therapists were just humoring me or what...it is almost like they created a little fake reality for me to drown - lots of issues here...not that much different than my past.
I am quite an informed consumer about therapy or I think I am, I would hate to be un-informed consumer in therapy...i would be gone madder than when I walked in or would not figure this shit out like 16 yrs down the road and 20 therapists.
Now today, I am feeling, I was probably projecting the feeling I had when I was assaulted as a child as I told the story. The problem was she asked me questions about did therapy ever help? why cannt I not get over this? or how could she guide me? To me, these types of questions sounded like she felt she was helpless to help me....as I swam in my own memory of being assaulted and projecting my anger from then to her now subconsciously. She felt like I was not help-able.
Would not it be more beneficial for me if she would have acknowledge my rage and said something like - I can imagine when that happened to you as a child, you would be enraged or scared or wanted to protect yourself? something along those lines that could start to empower me.
Writing this down is making me feel quite calm as if I am providing that missing link to myself...and actually providing that empowerment to myself as a child! I am feeling quite grateful actually I am writing and experiencing at the same time.
I just feel the parallel universe where I may not have the capacity to process and go around and around for many years, raging in therapy and wondering why the therapists are defending or protecting themselves from me or worse not even registering that and just going around forever projecting my primal emotions and most therapists do not want to frame their counter-transference appropriately to help me or anyone else like me.
I am just realizing this and it makes me sad. It is almost like therapists prefer I project the rage and will not do anything until I go mad and start to act on it....and then of course, the alliance is in jeopardy because I am crazy or borderline (their favourte nick name for anyone that challenges the status quo). I am not anywhere near in acting out on my rage because I am semi-conscious about it but obviously not fully in depth as I am still realizing after the facts that ooh yeah, I was projecting rage then but always after the sessions.
And whenever I reach this deep and try to share, then I am doing the interpretation and making the therapist obsolete. Where in fact in my little mind, I can only do this interpretation BECAUSE I am in therapy not lack of therapy. I did get the noise of that is not how therapy is done and that I should have "we" came up with the interpretation or focus on the feeling which is precisely what I do except that feeling comes when I am not in therapy and can grief and then share it in therapy. But therapists prefer the processing takes place infront of them and how is that possible? I only see therapist twice a month. I have all the other times to process and write and grief.
But the conundrum is unless a therapist uses her/his counter-transference appropriate, I write each session and will get to the source much faster since I have more access to me.
This could be all my own blind-spot of thinking, vapid and/or un-verifiable issues but I do feel so far I have not ever been asked about rage in therapy. I have been asked about abandonment and other usual garden variety and what I called soft ball issues (for me...I understand these can be deadly for others). But rage, I am finding is still un-frontier areas in trauma unless you are in jail, or aggressive in intimate relationships or with others. But unprocessed and internalized rage (from childhood) is so lagging in therapy that I am finding maybe I should become therapist myself and have a clinic that just deals with anger, rage, aggression internally managed or externally acted out.
I feel abandonment is real for a lot of people (it is not one of my deepest core issues personally) but I also believe anyone who ever has been violated especially as a child will have rage - it is the natural reaction of trauma and yet, most underrated and hated emotion in therapy. It is just sad all over. I am differing anger and rage even though I am able to regulate both, I feel I am spending extra amount of energy to regulate rage. Anger I am OK with it and actually even sublimate it with being active in some positive circles in motivating people.
Anyhow, thank you for reading this long conscious streaming and hope it is easy to understand.
Thank you for your thoughts. Each post gave me another angle to look at myself and my situation. Even this much focus on this process is split rage on my part so thank you for your support and helping see things differently.
