Expressing Feelings In Therapy: Rage

[BloomInWinter]

My T. says I'm blocking my emotions. I say...DUH! :>

Truthfully, I feel like facing & letting the rage (and the other difficult emotions) come out is like being told "here, take this bucket, go out to a tidal wave, & bring back some water. You might get a little wet."

A little wet? How about completely soaked? Washed away? DROWNED?!!!!!!!


What do you do with rage? I feel like if I start letting myself feel the rage, I'll pick up the chair and bash the wall with it!

I know I have so much rage over several of my traumas but have NO idea how to 'go there' without becoming the raging monster I know lives inside of me, just waiting for the opportunity to leap at the smallest chance.

*baffled.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Bloom,

I understand exactly what you are saying. I have no idea how to approach it other than to take little pieces of it, work through it, and let it go. Easier said than done, but I can't envision any other way.

Debbie

 

[Elphaba]

Hi BloominWinter - you express it very well. I recognise what you are saying and... well, I wish I had an answer. See, I am like that with most feelings. I haven't even admitted to the T that rage is one of them. How to grab "one piece" of a whole - seems difficult.

Yikes... I wish I had something better to say. But I hear you. I hope there is a way!

 

[just me here]

It's not like we are allowed to experiment with letting out just alittle at a time, is it? Wouldn't it be nice if it was a finite amount of rage and we could find a safe amount to deposit here and there and in our t's office?

It aint that way is it? I personally feel like I have this huge akward load of rage I carry around with me. When I accidentally let some fall, it's not good. If I keep it all balanced and under control, I did good.

My EMDR sessions are bringing back feelings of rage that had lost strength over time but now have their full power restored and I am carrying more than ever before. And like you I am supposed to process it, but I know that I risk all if I let any fall.

You are not alone, and I wish I had something to tell you that would help you get that bucket of rage without coming back soaked, but I haven't figured out how to set down just a little bit of my load without upsetting the balance and dropping it all.

The only hope I have is that it diminishes with time, but I know that it takes longer for PTSD sufferers. That is really the root of the problem isn't it?

 

[anni]

Ha! 20 years later, I know it's there, the anger anyway. Am bad at it. The T tells me there's a ball of rage in there-I feel it sometimes and veer off quickly. I process things well, which is not always a good thing since one is perfectly capable of processing oneself right around important bits of healing. This has been one of them, and has found destruction by way of an eating disorder and some other behaviours probably avoidable had this been addressed. I'm actually working on this now, or trying to, with the T. Hee- all this to say I can perhaps see and feel what might be helpful, and am possibly the poster child for what not to do.

It's terribly conceptual, the 'breaking things down into little pieces' thing. One can only get your head around it if you've kind of been there, I know. Deb stays on top of things, adjusting quickly through chaos- I see what she's saying and wish I'd done that, sincerely. ( sorry for the compliment when perhaps you do not feel this successful, Debbie, but you do do this ). I'm pretty sure had I addressed anger and rage at the outset would not now be stuck in a few obstinate patterns. Her trauma and mine are very similar, she stayed and is staying much more on top of a process while I merely fled the thought for years and years. I'm just inclined to lend an ear to her take on the 'now' with this stuff, that's all. Doing things in pieces, because otherwise there's so MUCH, feels right, to me. The pieces of the rage, personally, would be the personal violations physically, the lies and betrayals, the 10 different places in the court system which fed my daughter and I back to the abuser- much more really. Mine's a ball, she's making hers into peanuts one can chew up more easily. What to do with each bit is beyond me, I can just see where at least there's be something potentially managable, hence healing there, that's all.

 

[intothelight]

Anni, Thank you for the vote of confidence. I don't always see the progress, the PTSD glasses thing :).

One thing I should explain is the type or course of therapy I am undertaking is a bit different, or maybe not so different as others at this point, but I would like to summarize it.

First, because I have C-PTSD my therapist will not do any, or refer me to a trauma therapist, because she feels at this point it is not safe for me to do this. Re-living or forcing the recall of the trauma will just cause a greater amount of brain damage at this point. The main thing is I have blocked memories so thoroughly that I have huge parts of my life where I remember nothing. Because I did this for survival, the theory is they will not come back until I am able to process them. But the emotions and "feelings" are remembered before the actual events they are tied to. It is like being in an emotional time warp.

The goal is to get me stable, functional, retrain the negative thinking patterns, and retrain the negative emotional responses. I am more stable as I have stopped self-harming and am not suicidal. I am sleeping better and the anxiety is not as severe.

The re-training is very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy, but it is focused on the here and now, and how I deal with day-to-day life. No addressing past trauma as of yet. However, if I do tie an emotional response to one of what I call a "trauma fragment" (little pieces of memory that pop up), the same tools are used to process the memory and put it in its place.

The thing is I know I will have years of therapy, because there are 40+ years of abuse to address. It will change as I change and I am sure as I go on, the frequency of sessions will decrease. However, at this point it is developing the tools to live day-by-day, and that is being done in little incremental pieces. Same thing applies to the anger or rage.

Hope this is making a bit of sense.

I

 

[anni]

This is not intended to be some swarmy over-compliment, Deb and I apologize for including it on Bloom's thread. It's relevant, at any rate since it's pretty much about doing this healing through the process correctly when one just flatly 'should' not be able to pull it together at all well. You do it beautifully, and yes, there are others here who manage it similarly. You've got the ability to reach in there, contain the bejeesis out of something and come up with THAT, what you wrote, there. I'm not even well enough at the moment to read it with clarity.

What you wrote above- that's what I meant, but did not have the knowledge of it's process, or depth, or dynamics of course. I do not have CPTSD - it's been explained to me I have a core to return to. I believe that is basically correct. My T had retired when I first joined here but there had been talk of 'C' given something about duration, etc. I think ? it was Anthony who explained that, since it came up in posting when I first joined and I've been lucky, that's all. A lovely childhood. . Back to the point, which is really an appreciation of how important understanding dynamics is, that's all. I don't have C, but have never been able to approach the rage with cognisance even in the T's office. Finally can admit it's there, somewhere. That's besides the point, though. Yes, you made sense.

 

[BloomInWinter]

I'm actually connecting with some rage right now! My dear 3rd grade daughter has a life-threatening peanut allergy. Her teacher brought in PEANUT Butter Blossoms as her own personal choice of 'holiday family tradition sharing' yesterday!

WTF is WRONG with people?! I don't dare complain lest my daught be further singled out...been fighting just to get the school to AT LEAST not have kids sit right next to her when EATING IT!

I *hate* some 'teachers'...

 

[Deleted member 5760]

BloomInWinter -yeah I've heard about this - It's the same reason you'll see on some totally un-peanut-related products 'may contain traces of nuts' (just in case). Because it's such a life threatening allergy. You would think teachers would be very aware when it comes to peanut related products. It's the whole iceberg of emotions I think. Your rage is coming from your 'protective mother' instinct. I'm sure if you went below the surface it's actually somehow ironically motivated by other emotions - one of which is probably love in your circumstance. Just IMHO. That's PTSD for ya. And hard to understand for someone who doesn't have it.

 

[Jade-]

The rage I feel scares me. I'm afraid to completely express it. I'm sure people on here sense it, and even read it in alot my posts. But that's just a minuscule amount compared to how much I really feel.

I remember feeling so much rage when I was young. I went through a phase where I broke things. I put my fists through windows and broke toys and other people's things. I especially liked breaking glass. I also threatened other kids and beat them up just because it made me feel better. I was very tiny, like the smallest girl at school, but when I was rageful, somehow I could beat them up. I got beat by my mom for the things I did, which in turn caused more rage and I broke even more things after she would do that.

That rage still lives in me. I don't know how to express it in a way that can be controlled. So I try to suppress it instead, which doesn't always work.

I feel like if I start letting myself feel the rage, I'll pick up the chair and bash the wall with it!

That's how I feel too. I worry what this rage is capable of doing. I worry that if I let myself feel it completely I will be engulfed in it and never pull out of it.

 

[just me here]

I had some more thoughts about rage today- sitting in traffic watching roadragers battle for a merge. It was like watching a demo derby at 2 mph. No one hurt, no damage, just alot of shouting and rudeness, all for a car length in traffic.

I have to stay back when the other boys play rough, cause I get my feelings hurt and after that I don't play well with others.

I bet alot of us know exactly what that feels like. I can't remember the first time I knew it was true. It was probably the egg before the chicken that turned into my PTSD diagnosis.

Fight or flight is no choice. Fight is bad, we learned that in kindergarten. But flight sucks too cause most of the time it isn't really possible and just turns into "fight turned inward".

 

[BloomInWinter]

Re-living or forcing the recall of the trauma will just cause a greater amount of brain damage at this point. The main thing is I have blocked memories so thoroughly that I have huge parts of my life where I remember nothing. Because I did this for survival, the theory is they will not come back until I am able to process them. But the emotions and "feelings" are remembered before the actual events they are tied to. It is like being in an emotional time warp.

YES YES YES! My poor T. did this with me this summer, and it seemed to really make all the symptoms worse. Of course, I'm really a master bulls71tter, and had told him NOTHING of my past so no surprise there that he started going through the history not knowing there were literally timebombs there.

Only one person in his office had trauma training when I started, and she is booked up for weeks. I went into crisis and fired him then he talked to me on the phone and I came back out of it and we now are working hard at not going into the trauma, not triggering the dissociation...I learned a lot from that and he certainly helped me trust him by showing me he is learning what he needs to so I can be helped.

We're in the beginning of the age of enlightenment for trauma therapy, I think. Several counselors around here are taking more training on trauma and although I'm not thrilled about the whole trial-and-error thing, It does give me comfort to know that whatever I bring to my therapy, my T. is working hard to meet my needs where I'm at. He's a CBT therapist but there's only two people with formal trauma training within a 1.5 hour drive which I can't afford.

By sticking with my treatment and being honest and direct about my needs, I'm hoping others behind me will find help sooner. A small silver lining, anyway. But I now just say 'I can't go there and he redirects me away quickly. Whew.

Maybe I shouldn't be worried about the rage and instead focus on staying grounded as we progress. That's what seems to be the challenge right now.