Do I have to be angry?

[PlainJane]

Help me tease this out. I tend to view anger as a negative emotion. I know anger can be a good motivator, but in order for it be positive it has to change into something else to be productive. Otherwise, anger that remains anger is dangerous and it's where mistakes and stupidity happens. That's what I mean by mostly negative. It can be a building block if it it tempered. Duh.

What I am struggling with is how I feel anger, or the lack of. Not that I don't get irritated or whatever, but in terms of trauma work. There has to be anger somewhere right? I can't seem to feel anger for me or at someone else on my behalf. I can feel anger for you, at your abusers and for others in general, but I can't drum up the anger for myself.

Does there have to be anger?

Do you see what I am trying to get at?

ETA: I notice my therapist circling around this like a volture, just waiting for me to crack open. I am just not "getting" it and hoping for extra insight. She is obviously seeing something I am not. Or been around the block enough to know it's there and taking me for the ride.

 

[gorgonzola]

Does there have to be anger?

I remember being loss-of-my-cool angry exactly once in my life, when I was 8 or 9 in a situation in which in hindsight a modest request would have sufficed. Beyond that, I do get annoyed sometimes but I serve my revenge cold whenever I can serve it at all.

Thinking about it, for me it's less that anger can easily be negative in the ways you lay out (though that too), but more that it's one of the more public emotions in that it commands attention to my internal state that I don't want. Much safer to ditch it and avoid inquiries. Why yes, I am beginning to wonder if I was emotionally neglected growing up.

 

[Rose White]

My instinct says that yes you do need to feel anger on your own behalf because otherwise you are treating yourself as less “worthy” of anger than those you can feel it “for”.

circling around this

But I think you can circle around it too. Not have to shoot the arrow straight into it but approach and step back, weave around, touch for a second, etc.

 

[Muttly]

Do you see what I am trying to get at?

Oh yes. I remember the moment when I promised myself I wouldn't get angry. My whole family was yelling at each other. And the thing is, if they'd stopped and listened to each other they would have actually realized they were basically saying the same thing. I was about 8. And yes, I can get angry for other people, just not myself.

I don't know if I have a good answer. My first thought was, "I hope not". I don't really want to get angry. Maybe, for me, part of figuring this out is digging into how anger is expressed. Like, you talked about turning it into something productive. Can anger be felt without leading to something productive or leading to something stupid? I don't know and feel like I'm getting muddled.

 

[PlainJane]

I don't know and feel like I'm getting muddled.

Ha, same!

It's why I need help with it. I am guessing the answer is staring at me in the face waving a giant flag. I can't tell what I need and I am trying not to get caught up with shoulds and whatnot.

My instinct says that yes you do need to feel anger on your own behalf because otherwise you are treating yourself as less “worthy” of anger than those you can feel it “for”

I am getting stuck here. I can see where it would seem like a betrayal to myself for not feeling rage. Like I am some how condoning it. Then on the flip side, I wonder if it's okay that I never feel anger or hate? Will it have a negative affect on "healing" or "moving on?"

I can say I feel hurt about it. I can recognize and make changes about how I interact with people that don't treat me within my set boundaries. Is that enough? I honestly don't know and I talk myself in to circles and come out without any more clarity than before.

I remember being loss-of-my-cool angry exactly once in my life, when I was 8 or 9 in a situation in which in hindsight a modest request would have sufficed.

I get it. It's not quite where I am, though. I don't like angry outburst, for sure. I am scared of my potential when I angry, because I do feel angry and it's correlated with a loss of control. I don't like that. I can't tell if I genuinly am not angry about it or if I am skating over it. When I think about or work on trauma feeling come up, but never anger. I do shut down, and maybe there's something there. If so, how do I work with it to surface it? Or whatever.

 

[Ecdysis]

I know for me, anger has been all kinds of things in recovery:

- a motor for change
- genuine self-protection and self-care
- a thing to get totally stuck in
- at times, a thing I've not been able to access, when I desperately would have needed the (emotional) self-protection

I know from a therapist's POV, it can be really disconcerting when clients can't access their (justified) anger.

And it can be a huge breakthrough in therapy, when they finally do.

 

[Survivor3]

I dont think feeling anger for someone else in sympathy is the same as being angry for your own personal reasons. And I believe anger is an "unskilled emotion". Its passion and energy are the product of a lack of expressed underlying emotions. I think the fact @PlainJane you can't drum up anger for yourself is quite simply skilled emotional intelligence. Because I personally deem it normal and reasonable that any person in their right mind wouldn't choose to be angry because it causes suffering to yourself and others. Why would anyone choose to be in pain unless they were lacking in emotional intelligence and child like.

That said, anger is an energy and can save lives in certain circumstances. When I have been angry before and potentially suicidal, I have picked up the phone and screamed at certain people, was I proud of that...no did it divert my energy from causing myself physical harm...yes.

Unresolved anger can cause us mental and physical harm but I don't believe there has to be anger in trauma work. How can someone look at you and say.."your lying to me! I know deep down your really angry". If it's not there, it's just not there!

 

[Friday]

Does there have to be anger?

I think anyone who says there “has to” be one specific feeling? Any specific feeling? Is missing out on the crazy wide amazing breadth & depth of human experience.

That’s one reason why “fear” was removed from the DSM PTSD diagnosis (back in the IV? Or maybe for 5. I’d have to look it up & not gonna right now. Regardless? It was universally agreed upon that an even narrow range of emotions, much less a singular emotion, was both fictitious & artificially limiting). As not everyone FELT fear during their trauma, nor is afraid afterward. Sometimes it was anger, instead of fear. Sometimes it was no feeling at all. Sometimes it was crushing acceptance of believing it was what they deserved. Sometimes it could be excitement. Sometimes it was muted. Sometimes pride. Sometimes stubbornness. Sometimes a kaleidoscope of feelings people didn’t have the vocabulary to name. Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. People FEEL differently, both during the same experience, and afterward.

So does “someone” have to feel anger? No.
Do YOU? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

 

[gorgonzola]

That’s one reason why “fear” was removed from the DSM PTSD diagnosis (back in the IV? Or maybe for 5 [...]).

Looks like in the DSM-IV (1994) it included the criterion A2 requirement of "the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror" (and was listed under Anxiety Disorders) before the DSM-5 (2013) removed the A2 specific emotional response and shifted PTSD to Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.

In the DSM-III (1980) - which introduced PTSD as a diagnosis - it required the "Existence of a recognizable stressor that would evoke significant symptoms of distress in almost everyone".

The DSM-II (1968) had "transient situational disturbances" as the notion most evocative of PTSD, which required "overwhelming environmental stress".

 

[PlainJane]

I know for me, anger has been all kinds of things in recovery:

- a motor for change
- genuine self-protection and self-care
- a thing to get totally stuck in
- at times, a thing I've not been able to access, when I desperately would have needed the (emotional) self-protection

I know from a therapist's POV, it can be really disconcerting when clients can't access their (justified) anger.

And it can be a huge breakthrough in therapy, when they finally do.

Yep, this is where I think she is at and wants for me (I say want loosely, because only if that's what I need). I can see the value in it, but I think it also falls into anger being turned into something productive. The anger was the catalyst.

I want to feel like I don't have to be angry, because I think I can use other emotions as a catalyst for change. I also don't feel like I am repressing it. I get angry in everyday life and I don't think I engage with in an unhealthy manner. Not that I haven't ever, but I think I have gotten better with it.

Unresolved anger can cause us mental and physical harm but I don't believe there has to be anger in trauma work. How can someone look at you and say.."your lying to me! I know deep down your really angry". If it's not there, it's just not there!

So does “someone” have to feel anger? No.
Do YOU? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.

I think I am second guessing myself, or wanting to be sure I am keeping an open mind to the process. These thoughts are helpful, or at least supportive of my natural inclination. I don't think my therapist is digging hard, I think it's just due diligence and I am noticing it.

 

[arfie]

personally, i would rather try to enforce NASA regulations on bumblebees than to insist on consistent emotions in human beings, especially the humans suffering PTSD. the heart goes where it goes, jane. i deal with what it sends, when it sends it.

 

[Movingforward10]

I don't know if you have to feel angry but I wonder if this....

because I do feel angry and it's correlated with a loss of control

Is something to work through? The thought that anger = loss of control.
Why that feeling has loss of control and not other feelings?
When you feel angry for someone else, do you loose control or is it a feeling like any other?

I think a lot of us equate feeling angry with a loss of control. Maybe for similar or different reasons. Maybe because it's an emotion that has been so repressed and stuffed down that to let it out feels like it will erupt? Or we have seen other people's anger mean they have lost control.

I also think differentiating between a feeling and a behaviour might help?


I struggled with the anger too. But then I felt rage. It didn't do anything other than release it. Acknowledge it, feel it, understand it, and move on from it.