I understand a lot of your confusion.
On care: The people around you as a child DID have a responsibility to care. Anyone who doesn't care about a child being hurt is not much of a person in my opinion.
As adults do we have a duty to care about what happens to others? No I don't think a duty but I personally do care about others and anyone who does not have this capacity is not going to be let into my life. Or is only going to be let in superficially. I care if I see a soldier has been killed somewhere or if my neighbour looses her cat. You get to choose what is important to you and what type of people you want around you.
Be careful not to generalise things said to supporters here as peoples situations are often totally different to yours. I know its hard and I find it difficult too.
On anger:
If I am understanding correctly you never felt anger very much and/or never expressed it and rather froze or dissociated when in flight and fight. You are looking at what is being said to people who are dealing with someone who always goes into fight and taking it as if it is relevant to you when it sounds like it is not.
I truly think the Four F's Article by Pete Walker describes this the best. Some of us where in situations where fighting would have backfired and so we developed a tendency to freeze instead. Later that can backfire as when we should be going into fight we dont and still freeze and that stops us from protecting ourselves.
Recovery is all about training ourselves into reacting by using the APPROPRIATE fight and flight reaction and expressing it in a healthy way. For those with an anger default that will be to stop going into anger for inappropriate reasons and for others of us it will be about not going into freeze for inappropriate reasons.
Appropriate anger should be about us acknowledging it and then acting assertively to to protect our boundaries. Aggression is only appropriate when we are being physically attacked. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/complex-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-cptsd.13764/
I have changed the way I deal with anger. I always froze and did not have access to my anger at all and that stopped me being able to protect myself. I had a lot of therapy for this and am now pretty balanced. I have good boundaries, can be assertive and even angry and I express my anger appropriately. I had to have a lot of encouragement from my t to learn to feel anger and it took a long time and changed my life.
We absolutely do need to let that anger and those feelings out and I don't believe we can heal without doing so. We let them out by talking about it to our t, by discussing things on here and by writing and doing other things to process it. Maybe by telling the people close to us enough for them to understand what is happening with us or by expressing our sadness or pain. Opinions on how much to tell those we trust seems to vary enormously and it is something you need to decide for yourself.
I don't believe I have heard anyone describing telling others what happened as abusive and I don't believe anyone (reasonable) would consider it wrong to tell those close to us the bare bones of what happened. Some including me believe it is unfair to discuss detail. That is my choice and opinion. My therapist is trained on how to hear it without being traumatised herself and I would rather to stick to that. Telling those who are in relationships with you that you are struggling or how you feel is a different matter entirely.
Respectful isolating is NOT abusive. People can say what they want. There are million different ways that someone can isolate. I do think isolation almost always causes some affect on people we have relationships. Some of them will be abusive and some not. You have to try to find compassion for yourself and move past that aspect of it and rather look at how you can make things better. Very hard I know. I struggle terribly with feeling guilty and self hating for this.
As I said I have had a lot of therapy around being able to have safe relationships and manage these things and I think have similar ish tendencies so if you want to ask anything then do.
On care: The people around you as a child DID have a responsibility to care. Anyone who doesn't care about a child being hurt is not much of a person in my opinion.
As adults do we have a duty to care about what happens to others? No I don't think a duty but I personally do care about others and anyone who does not have this capacity is not going to be let into my life. Or is only going to be let in superficially. I care if I see a soldier has been killed somewhere or if my neighbour looses her cat. You get to choose what is important to you and what type of people you want around you.
Be careful not to generalise things said to supporters here as peoples situations are often totally different to yours. I know its hard and I find it difficult too.
On anger:
If I am understanding correctly you never felt anger very much and/or never expressed it and rather froze or dissociated when in flight and fight. You are looking at what is being said to people who are dealing with someone who always goes into fight and taking it as if it is relevant to you when it sounds like it is not.
I truly think the Four F's Article by Pete Walker describes this the best. Some of us where in situations where fighting would have backfired and so we developed a tendency to freeze instead. Later that can backfire as when we should be going into fight we dont and still freeze and that stops us from protecting ourselves.
Recovery is all about training ourselves into reacting by using the APPROPRIATE fight and flight reaction and expressing it in a healthy way. For those with an anger default that will be to stop going into anger for inappropriate reasons and for others of us it will be about not going into freeze for inappropriate reasons.
Appropriate anger should be about us acknowledging it and then acting assertively to to protect our boundaries. Aggression is only appropriate when we are being physically attacked. https://www.myptsd.com/threads/complex-post-traumatic-stress-disorder-cptsd.13764/
I have changed the way I deal with anger. I always froze and did not have access to my anger at all and that stopped me being able to protect myself. I had a lot of therapy for this and am now pretty balanced. I have good boundaries, can be assertive and even angry and I express my anger appropriately. I had to have a lot of encouragement from my t to learn to feel anger and it took a long time and changed my life.
The problem often arises when the emotions of the past are expressed inappropriately at unrelated people in the present. Like acting out in anger. That is what we don't want. It damages relationships, leaves us feeling ashamed of ourselves and is unfair on others.
We absolutely do need to let that anger and those feelings out and I don't believe we can heal without doing so. We let them out by talking about it to our t, by discussing things on here and by writing and doing other things to process it. Maybe by telling the people close to us enough for them to understand what is happening with us or by expressing our sadness or pain. Opinions on how much to tell those we trust seems to vary enormously and it is something you need to decide for yourself.
I don't believe I have heard anyone describing telling others what happened as abusive and I don't believe anyone (reasonable) would consider it wrong to tell those close to us the bare bones of what happened. Some including me believe it is unfair to discuss detail. That is my choice and opinion. My therapist is trained on how to hear it without being traumatised herself and I would rather to stick to that. Telling those who are in relationships with you that you are struggling or how you feel is a different matter entirely.
Respectful isolating is NOT abusive. People can say what they want. There are million different ways that someone can isolate. I do think isolation almost always causes some affect on people we have relationships. Some of them will be abusive and some not. You have to try to find compassion for yourself and move past that aspect of it and rather look at how you can make things better. Very hard I know. I struggle terribly with feeling guilty and self hating for this.
I think thats perfectly reasonable if that is the way that you work. The important part is to consider who you trust in this way and when. Drews analogy is relevant here. And if they are open to hearing it is part of that too.
As I said I have had a lot of therapy around being able to have safe relationships and manage these things and I think have similar ish tendencies so if you want to ask anything then do.
