Apparantly I Should Be Angry

[maryel42]

I told him before last session that I was scared he would poke through a weak spot in my defenses and it would get messy. The week before that I got set off and dissociated into a really bad state of despair. For me, very bad. He said at the end of last week to start thinking about anger and maybe we'd start chipping away at the wall a little bit until it was safe. Maybe it would become less messy.

I know I'm overthinking this. But then my head drew a line and I realized that I've been selecting therapists with strong child/adolescent skills for years, and then I realized that the reason why was tied into what I may really be afraid of coming out of the box.

It's a good thing I trust him by now or I wouldn't ever go back. That's how high my anxiety is running.

 

[maryel42]

My therapist tells me the same thing. I need to find my anger. I have none because for me, anger is to be feared. Anger terrifies me. Anger is dangerous.
My father was similar and as a result I have overwhelming fear of him and most of the other people who hurt me but anger just isn't there.

Apparently I accept too much. I have no sense of what is appropriate or what is safe so everything and everyone falls into the same category so therefore no one deserves anger. This is just regarding actions towards myself. I hear other's stories and feel anger and outrage towards other people's abusers. I am only just beginning to see that certain actions against my daughter are ones I should feel anger towards. I can see how my own mindset is dangerous. I feel guilt in bucket loads. I feel shut down and mute I'm told this is when I should find my anger and stand up. This is going to require inordinate amounts of strength. And that's just for anger in the now. Anger for my abusers is something we haven't even touched on other than to say it should be there. I feel none.

My therapist tells me it will come. Sorry I'm not of much help other than to say you are not alone.

Being not alone is a hugely enormous help all by itself. I often feel very alone. I don't have a lot of friends and I can't talk to most of them about this. I also have trouble leaving the house a lot of the time.

 

[maryel42]

you want to know one of the truly crazy-making thoughts that has been chasing in my head the past year? My mother... she insists that she only ever did anything because she loved me. She respects boundaries, she respected my marriage, has never sought to undermine my role as mother to my children.

While she rearranged my house within a day of arriving. She continually did whatever she wanted with my kids, never asked before taking them anywhere, just went ahead and did. She insisted on being involved and consulted on every decision, down to how much my husband made and how I spent money. She insisted on martyring herself.

And yet none of that happened, according to her. She respected me. And I should know this because she told me so.

The same woman who once told me that I shouldn't listen to those therapists trying to tell me to have boundaries, because they just didn't understand that she and I could never have any. The same woman who went out of her mind hysterical when I didn't move back home after college. The same woman who decided that when my husband got out of the military (and we were originally planning on moving back to her side of the country) we would move into her house. Her tiny, two bedroom house, the same one I grew up in, the same one I was abused in. With my two children crammed into my old bedroom, with my husband and I sleeping in the same bed that had been my parents, with my mother prepared to sleep in the unfinished attic.

I finally started to see that she wasn't the person I thought she was my whole life. That hurt. A lot. I think I've been grieving that for a while now, as all this other stuff is coming around. And now that my kids are sound asleep in bed I find that I'm blanking out. My body is drained. I can't find the energy to care, except that my throat wants to close up and I wish I had the strength to cry.

All a sudden I'm feeling so hopeless. Somewhere I know it'll pass, but in the moment I don't believe that it ever will. Under the face I wear to the world, I'm this way all the time. I'll never feel better, this is as good as I'll ever function. And I'm so tired. I just want to start crying WHY, and I don't even know why anymore.

My therapist would say that I need to get some rest. I would love to get some rest. Unfortunately my body won't shut off and let me get any, and even if I could sleep at night it wouldn't really help me feel more rested. My body is broken and my head is broken and it's wrong of me but sometimes I wish that I'd never wake up again.

 

[maryel42]

Yes. I'm totally wiped out right now. Should be nesting, getting ready for bed, trying to close my eyes and sleep. Not getting weepy and zombified on internet. Tomorrow is another day.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a magic reset button on insomnia and not-sleeping issues? I bet they would make a fortune on that.

 

[shell]

I struggle to find the anger I feel too, I am terrified of showing any form of anger, but especially rage. To me anger was a dangerous emotion, something that could make me a monster exactly like my mother, or would trigger another beating if I was to show any emotion on my face . Over time I came to see I do have anger, I am just too afraid to direct it at my parents, so I would attack myself, and blame myself for the abuse and tell myself I deserved to die etc.

I haven't really got to the point where I can direct it totally at them, but am now finding ways to stop attacking myself and to stop projecting the anger I feel at my parents for the abuse, at my husband when he dares to criticize my son and I.

I would feel outraged when he tells my son off for being dishonest, or untidy but when it comes to my parents beating and locking me in my room without food and water for the weekend I would feel nothing. I know have come to see that the anger I felt towards my husband was not in proportion to the act, I was projecting my anger I felt but was unsafe to demonstrate in the past at my husband when his criticizm triggered me.

I have now come to see anger is just emotion, one that helps us to see when someone is crossing our boundaries, and to ask them to stop, so I am learning to not fear it so much.

 

[fly away home]

I have now come to see anger is just emotion, one that helps us to see when someone is crossing our boundaries, and to ask them to stop, so I am learning to not fear it so much.

Thanks @shell I needed to read that. I'm often wondering if my fear is out of proportion to the act. These are all things I'm working on. Wise mind assessment of situations, boundary setting and becoming strong enough to say no.

 

[maryel42]

What if, the little kid who suffered through that original big trauma thing, she's still in there? What if she just sorta stayed there. And everything every therapist and group encounter ever said after... after she was grown... it just didn't kick in at all because she couldn't grasp what they were saying?

What if it's almost as simple as that? she just doesn't understand? I feel so stupid right now. Do I go into session tomorrow and ask him to hold my emotional hand as I pull that fractured part up to the surface of my conscious brain, and to explain to her that it wasn't her fault in words she can understand?

To therapize (hey, new word!) on that kind of level just to make me feel better? H,ow stupid is that?

 

[fly away home]

Not stupid at all @maryel42 that sounds like a pretty good way to feel better. And we all want to feel better. There is nothing wrong with that.