How Do I Process Anger If I Can't Remember?

[samson]

Hi everyone. I have been working on sexual assault trauma for nearly 4 years now. Been doing EMDR. I feel like it has been pretty successful, but very hard work. My T says that I'm angry underneath it all. He has said this about me from day one, but we have been unsuccessful at bringing that anger to the surface. So the depression just keeps cycling around. I have been able to express some anger at my mother, but not my father or my attacker.

Does anyone have any advice on how to coax out the anger? When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to be angry. My mother would spank me and put her hand over my mouth so I didn't cry. Anger scares me. I so want to process it and be done. Be healthy and "normal".

Anyone?

 

[Gadgie]

It looks like what your mother did when you were young, has scarred you for life, you will need therapy to drag that out and be able to talk about it, to get rid of the anger that has caused you.

As by putting her hand over your mouth must have been really frightening for you at that age, as it stopped you from breathing, and that has stayed locked up with you all these years.

The reason I know this is because, when I was young my mother forced a fried egg down my throat, and made me swallow it, just because I didn't like eggs, but was curious as to what they tasted like.

I was really young then, and that was the start of her abuse, that went in for another thirteen years!

(Must point out that eggs were in ration at the time)

 

[WillyKat]

Your use of the word "cycling" caught my attention. I think, though have no proof, that anger and depression cycle around each other. The anger comes from a great deal of hurt and the only way to turn it off is to run out of psychic energy. Then you crash into depression.

Maybe my experience with the source of anger may help. For decades, I sort of gave the bystanders a "bye" in that I excused their lack of intervention on my behalf. My mother, father, brothers, my teachers...everyone knew something was wrong, but weren't savvy enough to see that I was in tremendous stress. But it was my adult self that gave them a plausible excuse: it was a rural backwater in the 1960s; they just didn't know better. But, my inner child simply felt the anger and rage that no one came to help when I desperately needed it.

Like I said, it may not apply to you, but maybe your logical mind has excused those you hold accountable but your child's mind, the more primitive mind, hasn't. Or to put it another way, the raw emotions are being held down, held in place by your intellect.

 

[Justmehere]

Do you feel angry about anything going on in your current life? Start there. Learn that there are safe ways to feel and express and work with anger, and if there is anger about the past, and if you feel safe and don't judge having the feeling of anger, it will come when you are ready.

 

[shimmerz]

Start with the body. Imagine reefing your mother's hand off of your mouth. It allows your brain to get to a different outcome from all of those years back. If you can't do it with yourself - try imagining your mother holding the mouth of someone you care about. If not your mother, someone else.....

What do you need to say after you remove her hand? Imagine screaming as loud as you can and someone coming to your rescue. Who would that be? Let the imagination go wild with new possibilities. Just a suggestion.

 

[Friday]

Ever listened to the last 1:10 of Disturbed 'Down with the Sickness' ?

 

[samson]

Your use of the word "cycling" caught my attention. I think, though have no proof, that anger and depre...

This very much applies to me. I don't know how to allow that to come up and out. It seems impossible.