How is PTSD anger different to normal anger?

[Ecdysis]

I find anger a really difficult topic and I don't think it's "normal" anger... it's PTSD anger.

Personally, I don't have the issue of uncontrollable anger/ rage attacks.

Part of my PTSD/ trauma meant I had to learn to control anger really, really well. So I can, but it basically just sits there like this big bubbling cauldron of anger that's constantly on the boil, in the background.

And it can seep out in sacrasm, snide remarks, judgementalness, impatience, resentment, disengagement and all sorts.

At the beginning of my PTSD journey, anger was a really helpful emotion. It was good to feel angry about the abuse and trauma - it helped me get out of that situation, helped me seek trauma therapy, helped me seek a better life for myself. My anger about the trauma felt validating, gave me a sense of purpose and made me feel strong.

Having anger blood chemistry coursing through your veins feels a lot better and a lot more empowered than having fear/ panic or depression chemistry running you.

But further down along the road of recovery, I can't seem to turn it off anymore. It's always there. Constantly on the boil.

Because I can control it so well, it's never been an issue in therapy. There was always so much other, much more urgent stuff to talk about.

But it's really starting to mess with my life... or it has been for a long time, but I'm now starting to see it for what it is.

I struggle to give up the sense of anger generally - because as I've said it feels strong, where so many other difficult emotions feel vulnerable and upsetting.

I also struggle to give up the anger about the trauma and abuse - it feels like the injustice of that can only appropriately be met with anger and if I let go of it, then what?

I think over the years, it's become a part of my personality.

It's also a trauma repsonse that goes back to as early as I can think... When I remember the earliest abuse I can consciously recall at about age 3 - 4, I also remember being pissed, seethingly angry, resentful about it and biting my tongue about it (not verbalising it, not yelling or having tantrums) but feeling a deep sense of hate and despising the abusers.

Partly, that was a helpful coping mechanism, because it meant I didn't internalise that part of the abuse much. I always knew it was wrong and bad and I hated it and wanted it to stop and did whatever I could to get away from it.

But I guess it became a way of life. In the early trauma recovery years, it a) was a helpful drive to improve my situation, and b) was clouded over by sooooo much other, much more dramatic stuff going on.

But now it kind of runs my life and I get angry about anything and everything. I even wake up angry in the mornings.

And it's such an auto-pilot thing for me, I don't even know how to get rid of it - I don't even know "who I am" without the anger, to be honest.

Oh and to traumabrain, anger = self-protection, which is "obviously" a good thing and why on earth would you want less of that?

 

[arfie]

difficult, indeed. . .

the definition i am currently working is that my ptsd anger lacks a specific, stable target. i random target like a beaten crazy bitch wolf under the influence of ptsd induced anger. it remains a challenge to distinguish a metaphorical mountain lion from a metaphorical cheetah, but? ? ? works in progress. . .

in my strictly personal psychosis, metaphorical cheetahs move their spots far more easily than the literal cheetahs.

 

[Weemie]

During the course of my childhood I was indoctrinated into an armed group. I mention this because the methods that my traffickers used to purposefully destroy my normal social and analytical framework were designed to induce extreme aggression and violence in response to conflict and anger. The result of this is that when I get mad, I become enraged and destructive. I become homicidal, suicidal, with urges to harm everything around me (including myself, objects, people).

I've heard this sometimes referred to as "killing rage" and I think it is similar to that. It's not like a normal anger - at least not that I've witnessed in others. I've been in anger management, behavioral modification and deprogramming treatments since I was 10 years old, and I find myself drawing on those skills nearly every day of my life. I am very isolated as a result. I limit my exposure to stimulus that can result in these responses, and resultingly to other people. I spend a lot of my life in a single room (my own).

As an adult I know that I can use compromise, negotiation and even things like theft or manipulation to get my needs met. I don't need to resort to violence, and I try as far as possible to mitigate this anger (which is more akin to a large dump of adrenaline, cortisol, norepinephrine, etc into my body all at once). I've broken people's bones. Threatened them. Frightened them. Been quite abusive. I don't want to be like this and have remorse for this behavior.

The good news is that it is possible to overcome this, to a degree. I've been in FORNET and through the VA's AIMS programs, DBT and ERP, psilocybin and dextromethorphan therapies. All are exceedingly useful in choosing the path of pacifism, peace and non-aggression. This has allowed me to forgive the people who have wronged me and to in essence "accept it" and "let it go."

The alternative is to spend my life in bitter, seething resentment and frankly? My abusers do not care about me. They do not care about my rage. They would likely laugh at it and view it as pathetic. Why should they dictate my life now, and how I see myself? Why should they continue to have control over me, even in their absence? They did not have the right then, and I can choose to deny them that right now.

Forgiving them does not mean that I condone what they did to me. It does not mean accepting that their behavior was moral or decent. It means that I understand they are a product of their physiological composition and their environment, and that they behaved this way because they lacked the utility to want to do otherwise. They are a destructive force, with impulses no different to a virus or bacteria. The universe is full of destructive forces and on the cosmic level it really doesn't mean anything.

Which means that I don't need to take responsibility for it, nor take it into myself.

 

[Freddyt]

Normal anger - gets resolved and cools off. It's like your plug in kettle - it comes to a boil and then shuts off.

PTSD anger is like PTSD and does not resolve itself without intervention/ help/therapy.

 

[Sideways]

For me? It’s not different.

My emotions are all the same emotions as other people experience. The difference is my ability to regulate them, rather than any inherent difference in the emotion themselves.

 

[Movingforward10]

if I let go of it, then what?

Peace.

i think this links in with your acceptance thread.

you have every reason to be angry at the injustice done to you. But, carrying anger is causing you to stay stuck. Letting the anger go, accepting you experienced injustice and that it has shaped who you are, and making peace with it, is really healing.

letting go of anger doesn’t mean you collude with the abuse. Or you’re silent about it. Or that it becomes just. It just means you’ve processed.

 

[Friday]

Normal anger has a reason.

PTSD anger doesn’t.

 

[Ecdysis]

I realised something important about this today...

With C-PTSD, I get emotional flashbacks, so what will happen is: in the present day, some relatively minor thing will make me (normal, healthy) angry, but that will trigger a C-PTSD flashback centred on the feeling of anger - and this will be intense and enduring - and both the intensity and the long duration will be totally un-proportional to the present-day issue that set of the anger thing in the first place.

So.... what I need to do is realise that I've slipped into an anger flashback, need to apply the usual tools for dealing with a flashback, separate the flashback from the present day stuff... and uh, calm down...

Easier said than done, but at least it's a specific plan, so I figure I can practise this and get better at it over time.

I think this exact same pattern happens with other feelings like overwhelm, helplessness, fear, jealousy, etc. (So apply the same procedure for those flashbacks too...)

 

[Friday]

Commensurate to the Provocation… is my defining line.

 

[DogTired]

I find anger a really difficult topic and I don't think it's "normal" anger... it's PTSD anger.

Personally, I don't have the issue of uncontrollable anger/ rage attacks.

Part of my PTSD/ trauma meant I had to learn to control anger really, really well. So I can, but it basically just sits there like this big bubbling cauldron of anger that's constantly on the boil, in the background.

And it can seep out in sacrasm, snide remarks, judgementalness, impatience, resentment, disengagement and all sorts.

At the beginning of my PTSD journey, anger was a really helpful emotion. It was good to feel angry about the abuse and trauma - it helped me get out of that situation, helped me seek trauma therapy, helped me seek a better life for myself. My anger about the trauma felt validating, gave me a sense of purpose and made me feel strong.

Having anger blood chemistry coursing through your veins feels a lot better and a lot more empowered than having fear/ panic or depression chemistry running you.

But further down along the road of recovery, I can't seem to turn it off anymore. It's always there. Constantly on the boil.

Because I can control it so well, it's never been an issue in therapy. There was always so much other, much more urgent stuff to talk about.

But it's really starting to mess with my life... or it has been for a long time, but I'm now starting to see it for what it is.

I struggle to give up the sense of anger generally - because as I've said it feels strong, where so many other difficult emotions feel vulnerable and upsetting.

I also struggle to give up the anger about the trauma and abuse - it feels like the injustice of that can only appropriately be met with anger and if I let go of it, then what?

I think over the years, it's become a part of my personality.

It's also a trauma repsonse that goes back to as early as I can think... When I remember the earliest abuse I can consciously recall at about age 3 - 4, I also remember being pissed, seethingly angry, resentful about it and biting my tongue about it (not verbalising it, not yelling or having tantrums) but feeling a deep sense of hate and despising the abusers.

Partly, that was a helpful coping mechanism, because it meant I didn't internalise that part of the abuse much. I always knew it was wrong and bad and I hated it and wanted it to stop and did whatever I could to get away from it.

But I guess it became a way of life. In the early trauma recovery years, it a) was a helpful drive to improve my situation, and b) was clouded over by sooooo much other, much more dramatic stuff going on.

But now it kind of runs my life and I get angry about anything and everything. I even wake up angry in the mornings.

And it's such an auto-pilot thing for me, I don't even know how to get rid of it - I don't even know "who I am" without the anger, to be honest.

Oh and to traumabrain, anger = self-protection, which is "obviously" a good thing and why on earth would you want less of that?

Interesting post but harmful is uncontrolled anger.
That sort of anger affects the very senses that aid survival aka self protection.

The adrenaline dump dulls the major senses of sight, smell, hearing, and touch as in picking up on temperature and air movements.
It forces you into the basic flight or fight mode. That's a feral reaction which
clouds your reasoning skills and dulls the ability to pick up on nuances of others behaviour and actions.

Flight without thinking can also put you into locations you haven't fully planned for, where dangers and hazards may exist.

Tunnel vision? An adrenaline dump decreases your peripheral vision.
A lot of action can occur in your peripheral vision that you are not consciously scanning. If you are not in fight or flight mode, a cool head may detect threats by their presence or by their movements. While the 'feral thinking' of fight or flight clouds your judgement.

As for that fight? Adrenaline clouds tactical thinking.
How dangerous is the threat. If I have no choice, how am I going to engage and with what 'aid' . Or what plan will you use to increase your survival chances.
Or is it more sensible to avoid this combat.

Anger is a useful tool but it needs to be controlled. Ask anyone who is involved with combat sports and the sensible will tell you that a hot head on an adrenaline high loses more times than they win.

You ask how to control anger?
We went to self defence classes. Not because we wanted to learn how to 'put down' a threat, but to learn how to THINK a confrontation through without triggering the adrenaline dump, or panic that can come from an unprovoked attack (be that verbal or physical). That and build an automatic, practised physical response to a given scenario.

Does all this work in real life? I've been mugged four times.
The first two I got hurt. We both decided to learn how to "defend" ourselves but the extra advantage was the adjustment to our minds. The 3rd and 4th mugging attempts ended up with VERY unhappy teenagers crying for their mummy.
Our ages? 70+, I have CPTSD and both of us are disabled.

 

[Freddyt]

Anger is a useful tool but it needs to be controlled. Ask anyone who is involved with combat sports and the sensible will tell you that a hot head on an adrenaline high loses more times than they win.

% You can be a victim of your own making. Learning how to create space to think rather than react - especially in anger - stops that full on FFF reaction....

 

[Juliathemechanic]

I find anger a really difficult topic and I don't think it's "normal" anger... it's PTSD anger.

Personally, I don't have the issue of uncontrollable anger/ rage attacks.

Part of my PTSD/ trauma meant I had to learn to control anger really, really well. So I can, but it basically just sits there like this big bubbling cauldron of anger that's constantly on the boil, in the background.

And it can seep out in sacrasm, snide remarks, judgementalness, impatience, resentment, disengagement and all sorts.

At the beginning of my PTSD journey, anger was a really helpful emotion. It was good to feel angry about the abuse and trauma - it helped me get out of that situation, helped me seek trauma therapy, helped me seek a better life for myself. My anger about the trauma felt validating, gave me a sense of purpose and made me feel strong.

Having anger blood chemistry coursing through your veins feels a lot better and a lot more empowered than having fear/ panic or depression chemistry running you.

But further down along the road of recovery, I can't seem to turn it off anymore. It's always there. Constantly on the boil.

Because I can control it so well, it's never been an issue in therapy. There was always so much other, much more urgent stuff to talk about.

But it's really starting to mess with my life... or it has been for a long time, but I'm now starting to see it for what it is.

I struggle to give up the sense of anger generally - because as I've said it feels strong, where so many other difficult emotions feel vulnerable and upsetting.

I also struggle to give up the anger about the trauma and abuse - it feels like the injustice of that can only appropriately be met with anger and if I let go of it, then what?

I think over the years, it's become a part of my personality.

It's also a trauma repsonse that goes back to as early as I can think... When I remember the earliest abuse I can consciously recall at about age 3 - 4, I also remember being pissed, seethingly angry, resentful about it and biting my tongue about it (not verbalising it, not yelling or having tantrums) but feeling a deep sense of hate and despising the abusers.

Partly, that was a helpful coping mechanism, because it meant I didn't internalise that part of the abuse much. I always knew it was wrong and bad and I hated it and wanted it to stop and did whatever I could to get away from it.

But I guess it became a way of life. In the early trauma recovery years, it a) was a helpful drive to improve my situation, and b) was clouded over by sooooo much other, much more dramatic stuff going on.

But now it kind of runs my life and I get angry about anything and everything. I even wake up angry in the mornings.

And it's such an auto-pilot thing for me, I don't even know how to get rid of it - I don't even know "who I am" without the anger, to be honest.

Oh and to traumabrain, anger = self-protection, which is "obviously" a good thing and why on earth would you want less of that?

Boy, can I relate to anger. When I was 13 I was drugged with angel dust and raped by my brother’s middle aged dealer. In my out-of-mind state, I managed to crash through the sliding glass door of someone I knew in an attempt to get help. This resulted in bloody gashes all over. His parents called the police and I ran, spending the night in a nearby forest, hiding in sticker bushes and hallucinating horrific things. I hid out until the drug wore off, hours and hours, then dragged myself home, snuck into my house and ollapsed in bed like a dead person for 12 hours. I woke up to my parents and my brother slapping my face and screaming at me. I was a bloody mess and had sticks, grass and shards of glass still stuck in my skin. My brother spread it all around town that I was a slut in an attempt to shut my mouth and discredit any accusation I might make against his dealer. When I went back to school no one would talk to me. Seems the dealer had a little brother who was in my grade. He made sure to spread the word. I was excluded from everything, including classroom level work groups. For the first time, I went from a straight A student to an F student.I got pregnant and my parents, supposedly religious Catholics, forced me to have an abortion. They were absolutely disgusted with me and said so openly.

It doesn’t end there. After the abortion, my parents couldn't bear to look at me anymore, ashamed of going against their Catholic faith, so they declared me a person in need of supervision and sent me to an institution for juvenile delinquents, For many, many years, I was shame personified. I didn’t feel like I deserved to live. My former friends wanted nothing to do with me, and wouldn’t believe that I had been drugged and attacked, They had little knowledge of any drug beyond pot, so couldn’t see how I was unable to say no. My parents wanted nothing to do with me and for several years were very low contact. They told their friends that I was a promiscuous trouble maker who had destroyed the family name. Even years afterward, when I went to visit my parents - I had become an emancipated minor at 17 and was trying to reestablish a relationship with them - I had people yelling things at me out of cars as I walked down the street, even had a glass beer bottle launched at me while I was walking with my mother. Turns out my brother had passed around the rumor that I blamed one of the most popular (and nice) kids in the high school of raping me. I had done no such thing. I had named no one. In turn, my parents refused to talk to me for 5 years.

Something interesting started to happen. Whenever I got into an elevator going down I began to have severe panic attacks and claustrophobia. I didn’t know why, but I have since linked it to the feeling of my legs numbing out and being uncontrollable, unable to run, as the effects of angel dust just before the rape. This loss of control made me extremely angry. I began to experience extreme emotional dysregulation, though I didn’t know what it was or even that it had a name. In my view, this thing had happened to me which was beyond my control but which everyone blamed me for. Later, even when I applied for jobs I had to list my school, which was a well-known reform school. I either didn’t get the job, or if I did and if something went missing or something got vandalized, I was the first blamed and fired. I got even angrier. I was caught in both a poverty and a rage loop. I had screaming rages over relatively minor things which terrified me and others around me. I finally realized I had to do something about it several years later when I found myself screaming at a man who hadn’t been paying attention driving and almost hit me. I hurled every insult in the book at him until he was slumped over his steering wheel crying and saying “”I’m sorry, I’m sorry..”

I realized that this had to stop. The past was never going to go away. I couldn’t control the actions of other people, but I could control me. I started acting out the rage with kickboxing. Whenever I wanted to yell I would go for a walk, or better, a run. I listened to a lot of Nine Inch Nails. I stayed away from people, not trusting myself. I also did a lot of self-work through readings about anger, my parents covert narcissism and neglect, and being the scapegoat child. I started painting and drawing again. It helped a lot. Anger will stay with you because it’s a substitute for powerlessness. The antidote is to increase your power over your life. Work it out physically, create, distance yourself when you feel overwhelmed and reason with yourself. Work diligently toward the goals that you want to accomplish. Become financially secure. Anger is just another emotion, signaling to you that something is wrong that you need to put right. I could never fix what happened to me, and sometimes it still makes me angry, but I can deal.