I Want My Abuser To Suffer

[Raluf]

I'm angry at my abusers. I want them to hurt and be in pain for the pain they caused me.

I don't have any desire to actually do harm to them. I still want them to suffer. I am trying to change my thoughts and stop this, but nothing is working. I have a therapist, but I am too scared to tell her how I am feeling about this.

Any suggestions?

 

[Aro]

I don't know, I spent years without ever reacting to abuse in any way other than hiding in myself, but recently I broke a guy's nose when he attacked me (self defense, I simply lifted an arm and blocked his face). After and during that I had a spike in pump of adrenaline and a wierd bloodlust, as lots of blood were spilling, I wanted to lick some of the blood and taste it, and was really feeling some beast instincts. You might need a way to valve the anger. But otherwise it's normal to hate someone who did you bad like that, quite a lot of time I wish I punched, kicked and hurt them before.

 

[Zekas]

There are lots of things you can do anonymously. Not illegal things, just things that would annoy the heck out of them for awhile. Come to think of it, maybe I should do that.....

 

[Epo]

I know that feeling very well. I spent years wanting my parents and the rest of them to suffer for the things they did to me and put me through. For a while I even wanted to be the cause of their suffering and I wanted them to know it was me getting back at them. I'd daydream about the looks on their faces even.

At the time the anger felt empowering, like it gave me purpose, but then slowly I realized a couple of things. I realized that I was prolonging my my suffering with the way I was expressing the anger. More importantly I realized that they were already hurting. Their pain was so toxic to them that it spilled out in the form of abuse to those around them.

It's not an excuse and I am still angry but in a less toxic way. I will never learn to love or even like any of them but at least I can see the pattern.

 

[Raluf]

It helps to know I am not alone in this.

I have thought of ways to annoy them. Like signing them up for copious amounts of junk postal mail....

Sigh. You are right that they live in their own pain.

I'm scared to be so angry at them, and tired. For some dumb reason, I called a family member tonight. I wanted to yell at him. I ended the call quickly. My anger really only harms me in the end. It seems like they are so happy, live such good lives - they have much nicer things and more relationships than me. They blame me and scapegoat me and I wish they could feel a little of the humiliation and pain I feel.

 

[Nopa]

Homicidal ideations are just as horrible as suicidal ideations. Both are soul stealing. I've had both.

I told my therapist. She encouraged me to have the appropriate feeling and thoughts toward the abusers, for the homicidal ideations, and for myself, for the suicidal ideations.

 

[Pose]

For years I felt the pain of the abuse turned inside. It never even occurred to me that the things certain people did to me were abusive. I walked around with false ideas of who I was and what the world looked like.
Through a LOT of hard work and working with a therapist that was right for me I eventually realized that what I felt and believed about myself and the world were false and that my parents abused me.
For a while I felt rage towards them ( mostly towards my dad). Eventually I had to ask myself why did he do that? I mean healthy dads don't do mean things to their children. That sentence though gave me the answer "healthy dads don't hurt or do mean things to their children... my dad was not healthy himself. I realized that his being "toxic" was due to the contact he had with his dad. Like any sick person that was passed on to whoever he came into contact with. It did not justify what he did. I have to ask myself though, what kind of pain he must have been in. Eventually ( this will sound odd to many and may not be the answer for you) I began to feel bad for HIM. I could and in many ways have changed and gotten healthier. My dad never will. He's dead. I often wish I had him back. I'm a grown up now. I have power and control. I wish I could take care of him and say dad, I know how much pain you were in. It's okay, you are okay and I've grown. You can't hurt me and I can at least give you some sort of comfort.
I was once a warrior. I was a very good Judo competitor. I was a boxer. I got into many street fights and was a paratrooper in the army who specialized in demolitions. I know how to cause pain. Causing pain though, in the end does only that, it causes pain. Ask any old soldier how he feels about his experiences in combat. Most will say that those experiences caused pain to the enemy and more important caused pain to themselves.
It's normal to want to hurt those who hurt you.Hopefully though, we all get to a point where we realize that hurting another usually wont heal us and that it's only in understanding ourselves that we understand others and when we understand others we can feel compassion for ourselves and others.
I don't know if that will make sense to anyone. I hope so. That has been my experience so far in my life.
I hope you feel better though.

 

[Uzir]

Any suggestions?

Yes: let it run its course instead of trying to make it go away. What you are describing is actually a necessary part of healing. It says that instead of taking on responsibility for what was done to you, you are now realizing that it was wrong and that you are worth get angry about and standing up for. As long as you are not afraid of actually harming anyone, and it sounds like you aren't, what you are going through is actually a good thing and I can't see your therapist having a problem with it. Being a compassionate witness to clients' anger is part of what they are trained to do.

 

[Evata]

As long as you still care what happens to them, you still care about them. They're still renting space in your head, still controlling your emotions, still impacting your life. In extreme cases, your life will shift to always include them in it: comparing your life to theirs, thinking and feeling things for them all the time, always aware of them. What would so and so think, feel, do? What is so and so thinking, feeling, doing?

The opposite of love isn't hate. The opposite of both is indifference.

Can you get there? Yep. Is it easy/hard? All depends. But, yes. You can get there.

 

[Uka]

I never really wanted mine to suffer but for a long time I wanted him to understand how I felt. I wanted him to know what pain I live with everyday because of him. Then eventually I realised that he will never understand. The very fact that he had inflicted those things on me in the first place meant that he didn't have the capacity to understand. Somehow realising this made it easier for me to accept.

 

[Ulos]

I get it. It would only be fair if they had to suffer as much.

And, in the real world, legally we are directed to process and heal, ourselves, without retribution. Totally tough, and the wonderful thing for me was that as I found healing, each step of the way, very naturally, forgivess and a decrease in retributive thoughts occurred, because their abuse no longer held power over me.