"letting Go Of Anger"

[EloiseLandau]

One woman I know who is in, um, I guess it would be regular therapy (she's trying to become a more organized, more thoughtful and mature person. She has no traumas, having lived a sheltered life for over 40 years) asked me the other day if my T ever talked about techniques on letting go of anger or "getting over those childhood memories."

I honestly found myself insulted. And getting angry.

Apparently, she thinks her therapy is comparable with mine, and since hers is so haaard (she has to remember not to interrupt people), there has to be a way I can do something similar.

And now I'm thinking...is her therapy comparable with mine?

 

[doglover]

How do you know she has no traumas? Just curious...Maybe the sheltering parents did traumatic things to her?

What is it about the question that makes you feel so angry?

 

[EloiseLandau]

It seem to me another version of "why don't you just get over it"? in a trite manner, perhaps. But then maybe learning not to interrupt people is hard for her. As hard as, say, working on the issue on why Mom had to smack me around. I really can't say. And maybe I'm being judgemental about it... but I think it's more she's showing how deeply she misunderstands her reasons and compares them to mine.

Think think think....

 

[EloiseLandau]

Wow even talking about it like this is getting me stirred up, some.

 

[freakofnurture]

I know the anger you feel. It boils up inside of me when my husband's grandma starts to talk about how her childhood 'wasn't perfect either'. The simple fact that a person is comparing suffering is completely... I don't know an accurate word. It's just dumb, lacks respect, lacks empathy, lacks common decency. But it's what people do. The reason might be along those lines:

Everybody suffers on their own personal level, and deep inside, most feel like they have it really bad, even if they deny it to fit in socially or cheer themselves up ("I'm so thankful that I don't have it worse"); it's normal. It's how humans experience life since they're all confined to their own experience and don't have anything else readily available to compare it to. It takes effort, information and imagination to even try get into other people's shoes, and only a minority are even aware of that. Most people are self-centered - especially sheltered people - and simply lack the capactiy to understand how much more awful than theirs life can be. They suffer and - naively - take the reasons for their suffering as the worst possible; thus everybody else's reasons can't be worse, only 'as bad'.

If your acquaintance has a problem even respecting other people's experience enough to let them finish a sentence, I can see how it would be too much to ask of her to take off her shoes and put her own life's struggles into perspective.

If she had your symptoms, if her suffering would be as incapaciating as yours, if her problems would keep her from enjoying her life and participating as much as yours do, then the work she'd have to do to get better (her therapy) would be comparable to yours. Her life isn't as effected, so her therapy isn't comparable to yours.

The methods her therapist uses, though, could also be helpful with PTSD. It's not like we only get chemo and she only gets camomille tea.

For some people with PTSD it's helpful to try and let go of their anger. I, personally, take my anger as my way to stand up for myself. My anger is the part of me that knows that I was treated horribly, that I deserved better, that I deserve to defend myself, seek help, demand respect etc.

I don't know what would work for you. You'll have to try, I guess.

 

[EloiseLandau]

Thank you FreakofNurture. That just about sums it up.

I get a lot of strength from anger, at times, but in this case, it was very much as if someone were saying "here's a band aid, here's your arm, we know it's been ripped off but now you can tape it back on."

 

[Hashi]

I get what you're saying. People in my life know I have depression and anxiety but they don't know my history, and I struggle with long conversations hearing about their problems that seem unimaginably small to me. I kind of see that their feelings are valid, they're struggling with their emotions too, but I can't help feeling bitter because they're trying to find coping and balance the same as me, but my situation is so massively different.

It's really frustrating when people rate their experience alongside mine. One person told me, "I'm going to have counselling, just like you". I sincerely doubted it would be just like me. That would mean she'd be spending her counselling sessions in shame and horror, dissociating and thinking she was about to die. I suspected it was more likely that she'd be stressing about what her husband said to her that morning and dabbing her eye with a tissue to stop her mascara running.

Being given advice is the worst. Apparently, I just need a strategy and a weekend away from it all.

I had to smile when I saw that your acquaintance is having therapy to stop interrupting people. I have a tendency to do that, but it's soooo far down my list of what to deal with in therapy... well, it isn't even there.

I suppose she meant well with what she said, but I would also have felt insulted. I'm not sure how to deal with the anger it would make me feel. I'm being half serious and half joking in asking - would it help to feel sorry for her?

 

[freakofnurture]

I'm being half serious and half joking in asking - would it help to feel sorry for her?

Haha, my husband always tells me to feel compassion (instead of disgust) for the blind creature; maybe I could manage pity, but they're hurting other people a lot more than they do themselves. So rage it is. Rage and disgust.

 

[AngelKeeperJ]

I'm a 'chronic interuppter. My T says it's because when I was little, no one asked, or wanted to know what I was thinking. We grow up trying to 'be heard'. That is destructive to the growth of our psyche.

I only faced and accepted the things that happened in my 'sheltered life' 10 years ago, and I'm 55! Yes, there are some bad things that have happened that could not be expected, and changed the person I became. But, I am who I am because of all that I have survived.

Letting go takes a long time. It's a choice to 'forget' what needed forgiveness.

 

[EloiseLandau]

I'm a 'chronic interuppter. My T says it's because when I was little, no one asked, or wanted to know what I was thinking. We grow up trying to 'be heard'. That is destructive to the growth of our psyche.

Letting go takes a long time. It's a choice to 'forget' what needed forgiveness.

Perhaps I should have said simply she is not post traumatic? The "sheltered" line seems to have caused some resentment, and for that I apologize.

When she speaks, I listened, to the point she kept drowning me out. When I asked her to inquire with her therapist about this, she came back with, "my therapist says I need to be more self aware and pay attention when other people speak." Her husband, who goes to some sessions, verified this.

Letting go isn't something that can simply be done with a wish. Nor is it for anyone else to tell me what I need to work on or how. I have a Pdoc and a T and some really good friends who are helping me make a path; I do think part of my feeling of offense is because she felt qualified in telling me what to do.

I know she is trying to help, this other person, but really, it's not helping.

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

I do think part of my feeling of offense is because she felt qualified in telling me what to do.

I know she is trying to help, this other person, but really, it's not helping.

I think " she felt qualified in telling me what to do." is the key here. When the trauma ( or traumas) ...well, they weren't there were they? When I was being raped, was my mother in the room? Then why does she get a say in how I should feel about or how it effects me NOW?

No, it really does not help. It makes you feel like maybe you just aren't healing fast enough. It makes me feel stupid, like I am a child again and don't know the answers.

 

[Tinyflame]

Dear EL, likely she means well, as opposed to 'telling you off' or avoiding you entirely. Often 'we' (those with ptsd) feel like 'we don't belong', I suspect in terms of 'perspective' that you could always look at it as at least she's pro-therapy. And if she 'got it', that would likely mean she's had a lot of suffering and that I think you probably wouldn't wish for (so to speak).

Perhaps just kindly and directly say, "I believe you are trying to offer me positive advice, and I appreciate it but.. (and it makes me feel..)... ".

But it's ok to be angry, of course, etc, if that is how you feel.

I've heard, "give what you need".