Communicating & Redirecting Anger - Emotional Writer's Block

[Naoru]

This is my first thread so I hope I've posted this is the correct forum and I hope I'm not repeating. :unsure: If there's another thread, please share. :)

My t has decided to really push me these last 2 weeks by really confronting my avoidance and reminding me of a few of my goals. Lately, we've worked on facing emotions - anger, in particular, and how it has affected me in the past and how it manifests itself in me now.

I should mention I'm "no good with emotions" in general. My friends call me a robot and say I have a heart of ice. When I was younger, I didn't feel or express any emotions and was completely detached from my body and the world, so I have made significant progress. I do experience internal emotions to some degree now (although I'm not convinced I'm to a healthy level yet), I just don't show anything other than anger. I am generally capable of communicating a wide array of feelings, just not by outwardly showing them... For a simple example, I have to say I'm sad, but I do not have tears. But anger is my strong suit, so to speak, in communicating and outwardly expressing.

The main thing she's challenging me with this week is redirecting anger from myself to my abusers. We've come up with ways to handle the anger (through exercise, sports, productive destruction - like breaking glass then reconstructing it into something, etc.), but to help actually process the anger, she wants me to write in my journal and also write letters to my abusers. Some I'm able to do without a problem, but the main ones, I simply cannot get done. It seems like it's those who I'm still connected to I'm having the hardest time facing. These are the ones she wants to focus on. Rude. Lol

Anyway, I've felt the anger, but the moment I try to actually write something down or communicate it (even in session), my mind goes completely blank. I feel nothing and I remember nothing. I end up walking away.

I want to do what I need to do, so my questions are:

What can I do to help access the anger and memories to communicate it (and I'm sure the other array of emotions)?
What can I do to help channel this anger to where it belongs?
Do you all have any insight as to what could be blocking me?
Or maybe I'm just not ready?

I'm not sure these are even the right questions, but I figure it's a good place to get started. If more information is needed, I'll provide. I really should start that diary. Lol I hate asking, but please help :notworthy:

 

[sedna]

This is my first thread so I hope I've posted this is the correct forum and I hope I'm not repeating. :un...

Yes, I totally understand that and struggle with it also. To avoid emotional overwhelm, it helps to isolate specific incidents or even just personality traits of who and what you are angry with.

Dont think of the entire person, incident or impact it had on you. Compartmentalize it, break it down into bite size pieces in the moment you want to deal with the emotion of anger, pick just one. Then write it, work out or smash glass.

The feeling of being totally swallowed up in emotion comes from knowing there is no way to humanly express it. You can express it if you break it down.

Its not possible to pour a bowl of peas down a straw, but you can get the whole bowl of peas down a straw one at a time. If you're committed to it, you can do it really fast.

Hope that helps Naoru, I relate to the anger frustration.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I fully understand that struggle! It was only last Jan when I was still justifying it all (and Im back doing that again) and it was very VERY hard for me to shift the blame of my past onto my abusers but it was critical for anything to change.

That was done by stating a phrase to myself over and over, specifically "my mom & step dad are f*cked up pedophiles" which was something I couldnt seem to believe. It was orginally typed by me but i couldnt believe it so i faught myself, and that was a hard fight that I will NEVER forget but nonetheless, blame shifted.

Since ive written a few letters and they are very helpful. One was directly to try to shift rage onto my mom. Im struggling with that now as she recently passed but it was very helpful to write the orginal one. I put out so much rage writing it that i was soaked in sweat, literally, after i wrote it.

It seems ive found a new passions for writing.

They arent letters ever sent to them, though my therapist said i should do that due to her deny and family buying into it, but posted on here.

I still have a flat affect when speaking about my past, i still feel nothing when talking about it though a ton of shame is there as i dont look at my therapist.

Anger is my 'go to' emotion too and i struggle to get past it as it seems anger and rage coats everything, to feel any other emotion.

So i "get it" totally! :hug:

 

[Sideways]

This area is a work in progress for me. Top of the class at self-directed anger. But angry at my abuser? I'm just not. So when I do the "write an angry letter to your abuser" exercise, nothing comes out. The anger just isn't there.

What I have managed to do in the past is a bit like what @coco9 suggested above, which is adding a bit of structure to the exercise. Eventually, I'd like to be able to free-write an angry letter to him. But since I can't do that yet, I wrote a letter to him listing "Your abuse cost me...". I was able to get quite a long way with that approach.

Reading it back to myself was supposed to elicit some anger. It didn't. But like I said, it's a work in progress. Not being angry at him is how I survived, so it's okay if it takes a bit of to turn that survival instinct off.

 

[pamcoco]

I sympathize completely.

I like to think that all emotions make sense. Mental illness makes sense. The things that I feel, don’t feel and disassociate from, I do for very good reasons.

If I view my mental and emotional states as rational, perhaps reacting to irrational events, then I trust myself and can follow my internal logic, knowing it will not lead me to deeper depths of despair.

I guess what I mean is that all my feeling are perfect for my current situation.

So I would assume your lack of accessing anger remains the best choice. Instead of asking about your anger I would ask why not experiencing it remains the best choice. Maybe to maintain relationships that seem essential, maybe feeling anger leads to physical harm, maybe it seems endless and impossible to overcome….. etc.

You are a trustworthy person that is doing everything possible to take care of yourself based on your current beliefs, situation and experiences. Anger doesn’t fit well. So work on the beliefs, provide yourself with the nurturing situation you need and seek to establish new experiences before trying to force yourself into anything….

 

[Abstract]

I'm assuming your ability to access and express anger is aimed at yourself and others but excluding your abusers. Is that correct? And I hear you that you have little access to the other emotions. You can think of them cognitively but you can't feel them or express them emotionally? You just express the concept through words. Correct?

It helped me a lot to think of different emotions tasks and what they felt like in my body. It was very hard for me to do that. I had a different issue in that anger was the one thing I couldn't identify. Afterwards I realised I had felt it but I couldn't see it or allow myself to feel it. Maybe you are doing that with sadness, fear etc.

Anger is a self protective boundary emotion. If you are displacing the anger you feel at your abusers onto yourself and others around you then you likely don't feel safe feeling anger at them. That can be because you fear some sort of harm if you do (these things are self preservatory) or because you have hidden messages of indoctrination etc. It would then make sense that the abusers you still have contact with are the letters you are having the most difficulty with. Sometimes we fear what else we will need to change and see if we start to acknowledge the truth.

That forgetting what you are doing and feeling and having to leave is something I do a lot of when I am overwhelmed and I now know it is dissociative. I blank completely mind and emotion to the point that I don't know what is going on. Happens to me when I try to get a therapist.

Maybe you could speak to the young you and reassure them that you are safe to do this. Don't worry about feeling the emotion at first. Just get something down. A paragraph even. Maybe do lots of grounding all the time. I find once I have a way in then I can build on that.

Both DBT and Pete Walker have some helpful and interesting stuff on emotions.

 

[sun seeker]

Do you all have any insight as to what could be blocking me?

Yes, because as you said, you are still connected to them, so anger feels threatening (might disrupt what stability there is, even if it's not much). I'm not sure this exercise is the right way around. Wouldn't it be better to work on breaking unhealthy connections and THEN express the anger? I don't know, but I'd ask your therapist about this.

 

[sun seeker]

But since I can't do that yet, I wrote a letter to him listing "Your Abuse cost me...". I was able to get quite a long way with that approach.

Ooh, I started doing something like that once. I didn't make an inventory for all the abuse, but I fantasized for a while about how rich I would be if I got paid a certain amount for every night of insomnia I've spent as a result of the abuse. I'd be a rich woman. :-)

 

[Naoru]

Dont think of the entire person, incident or impact it had on you. Compartmentalize it, break it down into bite size pieces in the moment you want to deal with the emotion of anger, pick just one.

Thank you so much @coco9! I hadn't even thought of this approach of breaking it down into smaller pieces...and your peas in a straw analogy was quite brilliant. When I view each person or each incident, it quickly gets overwhelming. There are so many incidents and people as well, so it's difficult to get started. I almost feel paralyzed... with fear or guilt or perfectionism of wanting to do it "right," I don't know. T wanted me to start with one of the most difficult and I think your method of breaking him down into little pieces will work best to get started with this dreaded process. I don't want to deal with the emotion at all! ;)

Anger is my 'go to' emotion too and i struggle to get past it as it seems anger and rage coats everything, to feel any other emotion.

This. This is exactly how I am as well. Every emotion seems to manifest itself as anger... or nothing at all. I only know something else must be going on with me if I begin acting angrily over everything.

Some days I waver back and forth between justifying or minimizing everything that has happened to me and shifting that blame from them back to myself. How you said the phrase to yourself over and over again? I think I will try that, especially as I approach these letters, like a mantra to keep myself on track and the blame where it belongs. With one of my rapes in particular, my t has had me repeat the simple phrase, "It wasn't my fault," over and over again. Fake it 'til you make it kind of thing, and it has worked. This childhood stuff is proving more difficult to face.

Do you plan on sending your letters in the future? I would like to with several, but that leads to what @Abstract said: "Sometimes we fear what else we will need to change and see if we start to acknowledge the truth." I'm not sure I'm ready for that change yet.

But since I can't do that yet, I wrote a letter to him listing "Your Abuse cost me...". I was able to get quite a long way with that approach.

You guys are brilliant! I think your approach goes right along with what @coco9 suggested with breaking it down into little pieces. Maybe if I start with the impact his abuse had on me, it can elicit more anger in the right direction and allow me to break down the things he did and how I feel. Then again, it may not. Just thinking about it now, I feel nothing and as you said, feeling nothing was survival... and on some level, still is. I'm not sure if I'm justifying or shifting blame back to myself here, but could not feeling anger also be because I understand more about him and what happened as well?

I would ask why not experiencing it remains the best choice. Maybe to maintain relationships that seem essential,

I get what you're saying here, @pamcoco and I appreciate your support. Not being angry and not facing many of my abusers helps keep relationships in tact and conflict free... but at my expense. I think it's time I do face any anger I may have. I'm also at a safe distance (physically and otherwise) from them at this time to safely approach everything (at least from them, but maybe not from myself), possibly without them ever even knowing; however, I'm a person of action and I think if I go down this road, at some point, I will have the intention of sharing these letters with my abusers I'm still connected to.

I'm assuming your ability to access and express anger is aimed at yourself and others but excluding your abusers. Is that correct? And I hear you that you have little access to the other emotions. You can think of them cognitively but you can't feel them or express them emotionally? You just express the concept through words. Correct?

Yes, yes, and yes! I'm a great verbal communicator because I often have to express emotional concepts through words around friends, if for nothing else than to appear socially acceptable. I understand when specific scenarios should elicit various emotions so I attempt to communicate them when necessary so my friends don't think I'm completely deficient. Anger is my access to anything else, if there even is anything else, if that makes sense. I am angry with myself and maintain a level of self-hatred despite knowing my logic is flawed, and I am quick to become angry with others except my abusers - when they do anything, I still shut down and check out. I have become able to stand up for myself in other aspects of my life, but with them? Forget about it!

T has reminded me again and again to identify emotions in my body, but this has only made me feel like there's even more wrong with me. It seems impossible! Anger? I feel it everywhere... Everything else is shut off. There is no sadness. In fact, I've come close to making a post about depression and suicidal ideation without this sadness and deep despair everyone keeps referencing.

I think you are on to something with the fear of harm or retribution if I express this anger or direct it at these abusers... and I think this fear is legitimate. However, since I'm here and they're there, they wouldn't even know. I severely limit my contact at this point. How can I overcome this fear when I'm currently safe and unable to be harmed?

It did occur to me that perhaps I am dissociating as I approach these letters. Something similar happened in the beginning when first telling T of my long list of trauma. I had to leave and come back to it over many weeks to write it all down as I couldn't remember it all at once and each time I would, I would subsequently blank out and know nothing... and then find myself eating tons of snacks? Lol

Wouldn't it be better to work on breaking unhealthy connections and THEN express the anger?

You are right, and I have already worked on this with my therapist. While I have not broken these connections completely, I have set boundaries and have severely limited contact with them. However, I DO still have contact with them and when that happens, I have a difficult time sticking to my boundaries and not shutting down. Maybe if I address this anger and direct it where it needs to go, it can empower me to stand up for myself and realize I am not to blame anymore?

----

Okay, this has gotten long. Thank you all so much for your insights; you've given me so many things to think about.

Basically, I need to: break it down into reasonable pieces, start small and see what happens, if I get angry, be prepared to cope in positive ways, use grounding techniques if needed, have self-compassion for doing what I needed to do in order to survive in the past (not feeling anger toward my abusers in order to stay safe), develop a mantra of sorts to remind myself of reality and that I am safe, and get to work. I can do it! .... maybe ... Lol