I Want To Get Angry! How? Ideas?

[WonderingWhy]

I have seen what a motivation anger can be for many here. It seems to be a positive force in helping many to have strength to fight through fear.

I have touched upon before that I don't feel that I have really felt any real anger. Maybe at times I do get angry or frustrated with myself. I feel like a failure. I know you guys are supportive, but that is how I feel.

Well this might sound lame, but I tried to stir up anger in myself, but outwards not anger at myself. I only managed to cause more fear. I was trying to think about it and all.
I then decided to see if watching a show about abuse would do something. Wrong again.

I chose to watch a show online through my netflix account. It was Law & Order SVU, which stands for "special victims unit". Well all I ended up doing was making myself more upset. I'm not certain how far I got into it, but I was crying like a baby and could barely move to turn off that show. Even when I try to do something positive I mess up. I got angry alright! At MYSELF!

What else besides anger has helped someone get the strength or courage to move forward through such fear? I will take any ideas. I don't even mind criticism if it also comes with suggestions. Thanks for listening.

 

[Shelley]

WW,

It's interesting that you say you don't feel you've felt any real anger. I've never been able to drum up any anger towards my "attacker". I don't usually even feel angry at myself. I cut myself off from any proper feelings about my experience almost from the moment it started happening and I haven't been able to really feel much to do with it ever since. The feelings bleed out in other ways instead.

I've done the same thing you tried- watching a show about abuse. I watched one called "Mysterious Skin". It focuses on the abuse of two boys, so I thought it might be easier to watch, you know, more distanced for me. Then one scene came along towards the end and shocked me so badly I couldn't move for the horror of it. I don't like crying, as I always feel the need to swallow my feelings, not let them out. And crying gives me migraines.

I couldn't tell you how to move forward through your fear. I've always just given it a wide berth and pretended that it wasn't there. Not very helpful. Just don't push yourself too far in trying to overcome things by exposing yourself to anything too soon or too deeply. Baby steps.

Two things that have helped me:

1. My gorgeous little black cat, Bernie. My sister found him as a kitten- he'd been trapped in a sack and dumped in a bin at the cafe she worked in. He is now my baby, and the one constant positive force in my life. Whenever I think it's all too much and life isn't worth bothering with, I think of him. I couldn't possibly abandon him, and worrying about him takes the focus off myself. Plus, he gives me unconditional love in return, and lots of cuddles.:hug:

2. The series "Dexter". Strangely he is probably the fictional character I most relate to, particularly in the early seasons. I love knowing there's someone else out there that doesn't really feel like a proper human being and has to fake it. His state of internal emptiness and lack of real connection with others is exactly like me. And while he indulges a rather nasty dark side on a semi-regular basis, I have the feeling I'd feel alot safer and more comfortable around him than most "normal" men. Plus, a part of me (my own dark side) rather likes temporarily indulging in the fantasy of causing great pain to those who truly deserve it. :mad:

 

[Nyx]

I didn't vote because both answers are right for me, depending on the day or even time of day.

Being angry with yourself usually comes from low self esteem - self blame for what happened, feeling like a failure, not trusting your guts. You need to raise your self esteem a bit before you can direct that anger towards the right person. And this is actually the vicious part of the circle, because you need to act in a way that raises your self esteem and at the same time you need self esteem to act in a way. It's a tough one, I know. I've been there. I still don't trust myself with many things, but there's one thing that I have managed to understand: I can stand up for myself - at least verbally. This gave me the boost I needed. Then came anger at myself for not standing up for myself back then. Then came anger at him because he was a sick pervert bastard who in stead of loving and caring for me chose to rape me. Bingo! Still, I have to warn you. A week after this outburst of anger I was useless. I couldn't do anything.

You have to ask yourself if anger is really your motivator. For example, anger is not a motivator for me, people are. My boyfriend deserves to have a normal relationship and a normal person beside him, and I need to get better for that to happen. My mom deserves to have a healthy and open relationship with her daughter, and I need to get better for that to happen. And so on, I think you get the idea.

Just because something works for others, doesn't necessarily mean it will work for you. Still, if you feel anger towards yourself, I do agree you need to direct it at the right person. How? Tear the feelings apart, one by one. Understand what composes your anger and fight each of them off. You won't believe how it has helped me working on my feelings. I have only lost my temper three times in one or two weeks - I don't know how long it's been since that thread. But this is amazing for me! Before that I spent two weeks being angry all the time. All day long. Even in my sleep - I had such violent dreams those nights...

Anger is not a feeling in itself. Anger is a result of feelings we are keeping bottled up inside and refusing to understand them. Once you have processed your real feelings, anger will go away, or at least become manageable. I know you are in a bad place right now, but I think you main motivator should be the will to solve things and the will to prove to yourself that you are not a failure, not anger. Anger consumes you bit by bit and you don't need that right now. It's just my humble opinion. You know best in the end and I would really like you to understand I'm not forcing anything on you, I'm just expressing an opinion based on my experience.

Stay strong and let us know how it's going with things. Wishing you well :hug:

 

[cherryblossom]

I'm not convinced that it's anger you need, although in my experience it might help a little bit. My motivation for getting through anything is people.

Anger is an emotional response, which manifests itself due to another emotion. The emotion that shows as anger could be fear, frustration, cruelty, shame, shock, pain, etc etc. The list is endless. Anger is actually an out of control response to the feelings, which causes you to shout, scream, punch, kick etc. Following the 'angry outburst' you would likely feel shame, and guilt, depression - so the uncontrolled angry out burst leaves you feeling worse than you did to begin with. Because now you still have the initial feeling that led to the anger, plus the new feelings that the outburst provoked. ie - frustation plus guilt.

It is much better to control our anger and recognise it, before we show it. You can give a controlled response to the emotion by leaving the situation and evaluating your emotions. This means you are in control of the situation and only have to then deal with the one emotion. (for example frustration)

For example a family member says "your useless", this may cause shock, frustation and sadness. Our uncontrolled response would be anger, shouting "I'm not useless, do you have any idea how much I've tried x,y,z. You're even more uselss than me. Look at you blah, blah blah" You might even end up throwing something, hitting someone, or slamming the door on the way out. Later you feel guitly for your outburst, so now you have even more things to worry about. The fact your family member thinks your useless, which makes you sad and frustrated, and the guilt for how you reacted, and the fact you broke their door because you slammed it so hard.

A better approach would be to recognise the emotions from the start, and take a controlled response. In this case you leave the situation, or at least give yourself some thinking time. Take time to evaluate how you feel, and then talk about how you feel. "I don't understand why you think I'm useless, in fact I'm shocked. Do you remember when I did x,y,z. It actually hurts me that you think I'm uselss. I sometimes feel that way myself. Do you think you could help me to do A,B,C?" Not only does this approach help with the initial emotions, it doesn't leave bitterness or feelings of guilt etc. It leaves you with power and control over the situation.

Ok, the above example may be a little 'cheesy', but I hope you understand what I mean.

The third way to deal with it, is My way!! ;) This relates back to my first phrase, where a little bit of anger can help. Firstly control the anger emotions, so that you don't shout and scream, and kick and punch. Take time out - walk away from the discussion, or situation. Do something physical while you think about your emotions (run, walk, punch pillows etc), that helps with the physical changes our body takes on when we feel angry (raise in pulse, PB, and hormones.) Work out exactly what you feel, and why. Keep a little bit of that anger to one side, to prove that person wrong.... "You know what, I'm not useless.... I'll prove it"

Here endeth the lesson for today :lol: