An angry woman....

[DharmaGirl]

Violence was common for me growing up. Lot's of it. I was shot, and stabbed all before the age of 12. By a family member. I can't stand violence. I am not a violent person, and won't stand for it in my house. Trauma affects us all differently.

When I'm out and about I'm so aware of who's in front of me, behind me, can't do crowds...

That sounds more like fear to me. Being afraid of what might happen.

 

[Abstract]

From what I have read and witnessed (and experienced) the relationship with anger has a lot to do with the persons perception of anger. Example in point: My sister came out of our home environment with arguably less trauma than I did with an anger expressing default. I came out of the same environment with a non anger expressing default. I read that anger expressing people will often see the anger as defending and empowering, perceiving the abuser as powerful, not the cost of that negatively expressed anger. Whilst anger denying people will often reject all anger because of seeing unhealthy expressions of anger. They want to distance themselves from it in every way. They don't perceive anger as empowering. It can also be a survival instinct. Seeing the anger can mean that they are are put in further harms way as they will take up against the abuser or "caretaker" when they may be dependant on them for survival. Sister and I both unhealthy in different ways. Her aggressive but with therapy has moderated this. Me with denial of anger and I have had therapy and moderated this. We spoke about how we perceived the family situation in relation to anger before either of us managed to get to this point. She admitted that my father was central to everything in her mind and she perceived him as powerful. She was addicted to her anger and ashamed after. I know for me one of the most dominant and overseeing thoughts in the back of my mind was to always be as different from my father as was humanely possible. I would not harm people. There were other effects of that.

There are of course families which don't express emotions or anger and the children then learn the same behaviour but I almost think thats a seperate issue. Know there was a lot more I read about anger that I found relevant and interesting during my obsessive journey discovering it, making sense of my behaviour and life in context of it, and others.

But totally agree that aggression does not mean someone will be aggressive.

 

[EveHarrington]

I disagree.. Totally.. Sometimes I think you enjoy putting me down. Past commitments and why eve. What's your problem

You have done this before. I don't understand your supportive role?!?

I wasn’t putting you down.

My intention was to get you to look at your relationship with the word “victim” and make you question why you are internalizing the definition of “victim” that society impresses upon everyone

ie

“Don’t act like a victim”

“Don’t BE a victim”

“Victims are weak, survivors are strong”

The truth is that we are all victims in that we were victimized by someone else AND we are all survivors because we are not dead.

I think you don’t like me because I don’t support your views blindly. Support doesn’t work that way. Sometimes the best support is something that bends our mind view into something totally different. I’m not saying I have done that here, or even on the forum (although I know I have done this in real life as my friends thank me for my points of view that really make them think....before they then decide to change).

But this is neither here nor there. Good luck to you.

 

[Deleted member 44579]

When we are kids, forming our concept of what the world is, how it works, what OUR world is, how it works...it's not surprising that we absorb what we are living with. We mirror what we know.

So, yeah, in a house like this:


It sounds like a really hard, erratic, violent place. It makes sense that anger and outburst were languages you learned early on. It's not like I believe we are doomed to become our parents. Just that it's a fact, whatever dynamic we're in, when we are learning how to relate to others - it's going to create an imprint.

I grew up in a quiet, 'don't rock the boat' kind of environment. I learned how to stay distant and quiet. Anger was something I was barely exposed to, and it almost never came at me directly, I'd just observe it in others. Small wonder, I still don't really understand how to get angry in front of other people.

It's interesting - that's a common experience, being threatened into silence or scared into silence, or feeling shame and silencing oneself. It never seemed like an option to me, to talk. And actually, I don't think I had any way to really grasp that I was wronged. On some level I think I got it - but my awareness had much, much more to do with taking responsibility for what had been done to me. I think I couldn't handle how it was wrong. It was easier to follow the patterns I understood, and take responsibility for taking care of myself, by myself. Just, dealing with the aftermath, and not looking backwards at how I had come to be in the state I was in.
And that's why, for me - just talking about me, here - I'm the opposite. I understand that I survived. What I don't grasp is that I was a victim. And I was, very much so.

I need to claim myself as victim, much more than myself as survivor. To be honest - the way I dealt with what happened to me, I'm not entirely sure I survived. I lived - I can say that. But I'm trying now, to deal with really surviving. Because when it happened, I did not deal with it, at all.

Just thinking out loud. Interesting stuff.

I think you're honesty and wisdom shows in your words. I believe that we all get there in the end but it takes work like everything. I hope you realise that... Part of you is already there surviving....