Does Anyone Have Trouble Finding Their Anger?

[nic]

From what I've read on this forum, it seems like many PTSD sufferers struggle with anger issues--which totally makes sense and fits with the common PTSD symptoms. I, however, seem to have the opposite issue. Whenever I have to fill out one of those PTSD bubble-sheet test-things, one of the only areas where I am a "0" is on anger issues. I just can't seem to "find" my anger. I can get angry when I hear someone wronging someone else, but when it comes to myself and my own trauma, it's like there's nothing there.

I don't think I'm numb or anything, (especially since I tend to go into panic mode at the smallest reminder of my trauma), but I just can't seem to get angry. I have been told by previous therapists that I need to get my anger out, but how do I find it? Does anyone have a similar experience? Is it healthy NOT to be angry?

 

[brokenchild]

I'm not angry over what happened to me. I am pretty numb to most emotions most of the times. I have a lot of thoughts though.

I had a therapist told me that I could tell her that I had the best meal of my life or that my pet died and my face would read the same. I'm working on that though.

I don't think it's "wrong" or "right" to feel or not feel anger.

 

[ga yankee]

I'm the exact same way.....just can't get mad but as soon as I see someone else "wronged", I step in and stick up for them. My t says it's like shaking a bottle of soda: the fizz is in there waiting to bust out and somehow I need to put a release valve in so I don't blow completely. Just let a little out at a time. I know what she means...even right now I'm very upset at my company and my t for what I feel are mistreatment or whatever. But I can't say a word. And that's when my anxiety and nightmares go off the charts. For me there is a direct connection between the anger and feelings I don't show or let myself acknowledge and my symptoms becoming almost unbearable. Man o man it's good to read that I'm not the only one.

 

[kers]

I have a great deal of trouble finding my anger most of the time. Sometimes it gets quite stirred up due to what I am discussing in counseling, and then it leaks out everywhere! I wish it was easier to find it and release it.

 

[nie]

I have trouble allowing myself to feel my anger. I do have anger toward my mother and my attacker. I feel guilty expressing it. I am working on this a lot in therapy right now.

 

[redtriskell]

If you need some anger, you can have some of mine. wry smile. I have the exact opposite problem- I am still (20 years later) so angry that I frequently feel like my chest is going to explode and my burning heart will burst out and set fire to the world. I think a lot of us learn through the traumatic event/s that fear is ok, terror is ok, crying is ok, throwing up is ok; but that expressed anger is dangerous to us in the situation. So later on, it becomes a well learned habit to hide anger because we've been taught that to show it is potentially lethal. OF COURSE it's difficult to overcome that mindset and allow anger its proper expression. And it IS proper to have, feel, and express anger. (constructively and safely, of course) Plus- and I mean no offense to any of the men out there- it's societally "unladylike" to be mad. Sad is definitely alright if you're a girl, but not rage. I need to find my sorrow and it's hard because I get so angry when I go looking for it. Ironic, no? So maybe we can share- I'll give you some anger and you can give me some sorrow. (if only it were that easy, right?) red

 

[dlross]

After many, many years in therapy with no success in coming up with much anger, I think I am finally making some progress. I am working with a new therapist who has been very skillful in steering me back towards it at every opportunity. Just yesterday I came face to face with the fact that I am so angry I have basically been refusing to participate in life for most of my adult life. Sad but true.

I have also found a very good on-line resource for many of the issues I am trying to work through. If you google the word coping this site comes up top of the list. (not wanting to do the wrong thing I will not post the URL here) If you search within the site for anger, you will come upon a lot of helpful pages, one of which concerns overcoming blocks to anger.

I am just at the beginning of working with the tools and suggestions on the many pages I have looked at in this site, but I find them very useful as starting points for self-examination. I am also hopeful that I will be able to really begin to change some things if I actually do the work suggested.

 

[Acer]

I am often called an angry person, but I don't usually understand why. I would guess this is because the anger comes out at inappropriate times, or is seething and I am unaware of it. I am often told I am angry when I don't FEEL angry but the other person perceives me to be. Perhaps I need to find my anger too, as it seems dislocated.

What I am trying to say is that I don't often feel angry, but others still see me that way. When I think of the crap I have been through, I rarely feel angry about it, or much about it. I feel like 'this is what happened to me, these are the facts'. I don't know what that is called, but the anger still comes out somewhere else.

 

[Moonshadow]

Before I was diagnosed with PTSD, I always assumed that all of the bad things that happened to me was, somehow, my fault.

While I was in therapy, and as I worked through my issues, I realized that I was just an innocent child, and it wasn't my fault. That's when my guilt turned to anger.

I prefer the anger to the guilt. With guilt, I hated myself. With anger, I despise the people who wronged me.

There are problems with finding your anger, too. For one thing, if you don't have a constructive way to deal with that anger, it's going to eat at you, from the inside. It will make you physically ill. With little or no warning, Anger will rear it's ugly head, and lash out at those around you. It makes you feel out of control and can put you into a tailspin.

One of the best ways I found to deal with my anger, was a self-defense class. It helped me realize how powerful I can be. To graduate from the class, we had to fight our way past an "attacker". When it was my turn, I called up all of my anger. Within 28 seconds, I had bitten a chunk out of the guy's foam boxing mask, and broken his nose (through a hockey mask). It felt really good to fully unleash my anger. It also felt really scary, like a powerful force that's difficult to control.

My point is, Anger is a slippery bugger. It's powerful and hard to control and discriminates against no one. Once you've found your anger, it's difficult to release it, especially in a constructive way.

Anger, I think, is necessary in our healing process. The challenge, once you've found that anger, is to get past it. That's the part I'm stuck on.

 

[FightingLily]

Very well explained everyone!
I can totally relate to what Red said, though. When angry, I feel that pounding in my chest. When raging, only when reacting to physical pain, I have apelike strength so I know the potential lethal aspect especially when I can't contain it. It's like my brain shuts down and I just react without thinking... eliminate the threat mode.

But it wasn't always that way for me. After my 3 months of agoraphobia, and after many panic attacks, I became an animal. I put up a lot of borders and when I felt like someone violated those borders, it was exile or war, I would either completely write them off, or protect my space. Having gone through what I went through, I decided no one could inflict an ass whoopin that was worse than what I had already received. Besides, he was the only person I feared. I would rage when I saw wrong doing, especially when the victim was a senior, woman, child, animal... nothing infuriated me more than someone victimizing the helpless.

I am so diligent at protecting my space, that people say I seem unapproachable. One time, while at a grocery store parking lot, a male "crackhead" approached me for change while my child was with me, I tried to turn him down politely, but he insisted on begging and getting too close for comfort. So, I shoved him, I told him in the loudest voice possible, "hey, I said no, wtf are you doing approaching a woman with a child? Get the F*** away or I'm f***in you up." I meant it, and it just came out. I was totally ready to gouge his eyes out with my keys for violating my space with my boy present. Yes, I've found my anger and it can be scary at times....

 

[map9]

When I was in my second round of 12 step abuse counseling my T said I had no anger and where was it? I'm still, to this day grappling with that. I also have a huge LAG TIME in acting against abuse of any kind against me. It's like a shock to my system. That moment of incredulous awareness that "OH my GOD this is happening AGAIN!" There is a rapid intake of breath, then hyperventilating. Running or going into some protective stance. I have no idea as to why I suppress my anger so deeply other than it was to survive my childhood abusers as well as those into my adulthood. But it's not a good thing to bury it as we all need to find proper ways to protect ourselves in the daily course of of living. Where I live there is a very high crime rate. Lots of people who are on illegal drugs as well as alcoholism in conjunction with it. So, when out shopping or taking care of my business I have to be keenly aware of that. I don't want to stir up their anger, so I suppress my own. It's a double edge sword because I'm really angry that they have so much power and control, to me it's like another form of being bullied. The gangs have the run of the town. My anger is so hidden from others that I appear to others as meek and mild but inside I'm all torn up, very conflicted now that I have been told that I need to address my anger. I have had outbursts on occasions, they are few and far between. I can remember one from 43 years ago, after a particularly brutal rape, I entered my bedroom and swept the entire contents off the top of my bureau, glass and all shattering on the wall and floor. I'm sure it was my anger boiling over but my mother came in and fussed at me. She asked me "What in the world did you think you're doing?" It was confusing, frustrating and extremely difficult as I didn't have the words to say to expalin, to verbalise the abuse as I felt like it was my fault. They had done such a superior job of brain washing me early on claiming that I was the problem.

 

[catjudo]

I can totally relate to what so many of you have written. I have no problem getting angry but it's never about the right things. That is to say I can be fine one minute and then completely rage the next but it's typically about something small and insignificant, the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back; or sometimes it may just be that I'm really more afraid than angry and just don't know how to handle my emotions. When it comes to the big things that I should get angry about, I don't. In the past year I have finally recognized that I think I'm afraid of expressing my anger because I don't know how to handle it in a way that feels safe or constructive and I'm afraid that I won't be able to turn it back off. Then when I do find myself raging over something small and insignificant and I'm completely over-reacting, feeling overwhelmed and out of control I think it adds credibility to my fear that it isn't safe to be angry. If I get that out of control over something small then, by my logic, what on earth would I be like if I showed anger over some bigger issue.

I can remember when I attempted suicide in my early-20's and my psychiatrist came to see me at the hospital the next day he kept telling me I needed to express my anger. He literally wouldn't sign for my discharge until I could "growl like a junkyard dog". It took me days and days before I could muster even the smallest, meekest little grrr. Now I look back on that and think what a disservice that I learned to growl but not in a constructive way or about the things that really matter.