Ptsd Rages-

[OKRADLAK]

This may trigger shame----it does in my anyway.

I just wonder if anyone else has the PTSD rages.

I used to have them almost daily- it was AWFUL. If someone would come into the room while I was eating or tense or if they touched me. I have a nephew with ADHD who would "ride me" on purpose. Not because he was evil--- he would get bored and start to nudge me and push me------etc.

On several occasions even with my nephew I went NUTS. I said things that were not coming from me at all. I have turned over tables and smashed glass.

Since I got into treatment, they are less and I try to make them right when they happen.

Here are my questions-

1. Family does not always accept apologies. I can understand. I said things to my nephew that would make them keep him away from me forever which breaks my heart. Because I love him! I am not 100% better......is it best to stop apologizing until you really are better, and just stay away till then?

2. I feel often like a very bad and evil person and sometimes I am told that, too. I was not this way until what happened to me happened. How does anyone else deal with that if you feel that way?

Anyway, they are less, much less, but I hate that they happen at all. It makes me feel out of control, evil, and defeated. If anyone has some insight about their own rages, please post if you feel comfortable...........

Thanks for reading.

 

[Philippa]

I am still getting over getting angry earlier at work at a guy on another forum, but I just HATE it when I clearly write something and then they all don't read what I wrote and start giving me advice about an issue that doesn't exist because they didn't read the friggin' post carefully enough in the first place. I felt frustrated and annoyed and he ended up telling me that I am 'not the easiest person to get along with' and that may be the reason my workmates don't ever ask me about my life (which wasn't even the issue, just the way he read it!)Grrrr...

Anyway, I know how it feels when people don't understand and judge you for getting angry. Rage is a difficult emotion to deal with, for most people. No one likes to be around someone who rages...which makes it even worse for people with ptsd when they are having raging fits. It's the most anti-social emotion there is, but I don't think it makes us evil or bad...just "unpleasant and scary" to interact with, which is the point I guess since we are trying to protect ourselves from perceived threat, by anyone who doesn't understand...and even people who do. It's not something that is easy to control...it's a challenge, and we don't always rise to the challenge.

I don't really have much in the way of insight I don't think, and I haven't really ever broken stuff or turned tables over...though I did try and kick my mother in the stomach once, when I was really not well, and wanted to smash my fathers art work and giant mirror in the living room, but didn't.

I tend to take a plastic batt and take it out on the pillows in my room when I get that mad.

 

[OKRADLAK]

THanks, Philppa for the response! Looks like not many have the rages. Mine are getting better but it is hard.

I am sorry someone made you feel bad. Sometimes people are so rude and even more online. I hope that your friends here can make it right!! There are a lot of very kind people here.

 

[redfox]

I have had anger problems most of my life but I don't know if they are directly related to the PTSD or not. Just wanted to say I understand. I still have trouble controlling it but luckily I have learned to direct it away from others as much as possible so I don't feel that I am at risk to hurt people for the most part, but when I was a kid/teenager I got in lots of fights and was very aggressive. I still break things when I am angry an do stupid things that end up hurting myself like punching walls. I am still new to this idea of PTSD so it's hard to tell what is related to the symptoms and what is just unrelated anger. I am not really sure.

 

[Abrasky]

I've had PTSD rages since 2 years ago, but they are actually from an attack 12 years ago from my step-dad. I got PTSD about 1 year after this attack.

I think my rages are really are a re-enactment almost of how my dad was behaving this day. He was all about psychological destruction this day he was a bit like a volcano. So I turn into a volcano, and I mostly take it out by swearing the F word a lot and saying things about my working or other people not meeting this rage personalities expectations. I try to practicing mindfullness. I try to float above them. This is harder now because my rages are less stronger now due to therapy and I find it harder to identify them starting.

My therapist seems to think I have personalities from the trauma. I've told her that I feel like my personality changes while in these rages.So my rage(not necessarily yours) is a personality, which is a type of dissasociation, probably a bit stronger than any flashback I've had.

I deal with them by trying to go to safe room and punch pillows and throw things against the wall. I am sought of dealing with them in therapy at the moment. I think that my biggest fear is that I will dissappear into one forever. It's pretty horrible, I'd much prefer a flashback any day.

What makes it wierd is my real personality is gentle and has a lot humility. So getting torn from that is very upsetting.

 

[Philippa]

THanks, Philppa for the response! Looks like not many have the rages. Mine are getting better but it is hard.

I am sorry someone made you feel bad. Sometimes people are so rude and even more online. I hope that your friends here can make it right!! There are a lot of very kind people here.

Yes, there are. I always feel so much better when I come here, and can vent away the badness. Thanks.

 

[Philippa]

What makes it wierd is my real personality is gentle and has a lot humility. So getting torn from that is very upsetting.

Yeah, I'm the same as this. I actually think that many gentle people can be prone to rages...as they are usually the ones that get stepped on in life, and have the most trouble standing up to meaner people, and are therefore more likely to be attacked and then take on the violence of the person who attacked them.

Frustration builds up over so many years of being treated poorly, that it HAS to come out at some time. I think if you were to interview all the people who have gone on shooting rampages, you'd be surprised to find that they are mostly gently people at heart.

I don't think gentle people belong in this world...or maybe it's more like we are the ones who do belong here, but the world has been infected with assholes everywhere, and they are the majority, so it's actually a natural effect of being here, that we get raging...how else could we be here and not?

 

[Abrasky]

I don't think gentle people belong in this world...

that's lovely!

I've heard about that a lot of people are involved in shootings were previously known as gentle individuals who didn't fight back. That is a very interesting phenomenon.

I suspect I was forced to be gentle from a young age as I was given unhealthy roles from my mother and copped it from my dad if I ever spoke back. I think that gentle and humble was the pigeon hole I was forced into. My mother's roles of making me a sacrifice (someone in the family has to be hated and isolated and treated with anger so the family has someone to blame) and human shield (let the violent male happen to yell at that child she doesn't belong here anyway as she is not a blood relative of all other children's father and the leading person in the household and if I do anything that violent male will just yell at me)just make me feel ill. It's not possible to live in a family with a pettifile and a domsetic violence victim, a domestic violent person and a emotionally abusive (though mostly not conscious of it) mother and think that everything is not ok. I think I had to think everything was ok in order to survive their.

My brother is also gentle and has a lot of humility. But I've seen the anger that lurks below the surface when I was 18 the gentle nature went away and he started beating me up and this anger like my dad started coming out. He has hidden it ever since, but you know something that is suppressed like that is a bit of a timebomb, hopefully no event will trigger it for him. I kicked him in the B###lls and this dragon of rage has been hidden ever since. I did it and am not proud of it. I see he isn't at all like my dad because I reined him in, Tough love but I wouldn't do it again maybe. I would watch him slide into domestic violence like his dad. No too hard to watch.I'd rather feel guilty of one epsiode of violence I think than see that happen to him. He is nothing like his dad, and is gentle and has a lot of humility again, he's in a healthy relationship, he's successful at his job.

Gentle and humility are strengths but they come at a price when I supress all the grief pain, and anger from the abuse and it builds up under the surface. PTSd isn't just the event that is traumatic, to me it includes all the emotional pain I suppressed in 18 years of being raised in a family with unhealthy roles and domestic violence. All the pain become's the kerosene to the flame lighted by my traumatic event causing a fire of PTSD.

 

[jeeps for now]

I am sorry that you experienced the things that kindled your anger fits and PTSD. I have bit my tongue many times over the years, yet some anger has inevitably leaked/burst out. I think that most people can and do forgive some anger in others, but it's the unpredictable episodes that hurt everyone involved.
I would always apologize for an outburst afterwards. Wish I could say more.

 

[Ted Moen]

We all have stuffed some very intense feelings which will explode in our current situations in rage/anger driven behavior. Others know little or nothing about our stuffed feelings. They judge us based on how we behave in our current situation. If we have behaved badly around them in the past and they are still in our current situation, they will revise their judgement based on our current behavior. Apoligies aren't likely to mean much unless we learn to manage our behavior in the current situations we share with them.

The guilt and shame following such and event is just as intense as the passing old feelings. One time I was forcing myself to remain in the room at a family thing when old stuff was passing and I really wanted to be alone and a grandson went screaming and running through the room so I shifted just a little so he would trip over my foot. He did, and hurt himself (not serious), and I felt so bad that I would do that because I'm not like that. The guilt and shame was intense and had to be stuffed so it added to the intense feelings I had already stuffed. I don't remember, but knowing myself I can pretty well guess I went to work that week looking for a deserving target to unload all kinds of stuff on. Such was life in those days.

PTSD developes when more or less normal (good) people are involved in abnormal (bad) situations and have to do things in conflict with their normal (good) value system just to survive. Understanding that you have PTSD in part because you are a more or less normal (good) person with a normal (good) value structure who has had to behave badly in some way just to survive and stuff all your normal feelings while surviving is important. You are not bad or evil, but you have probably had behave in bad or evil ways first in surviving the hostile situation, then in acting out your PTSD symptoms before learning to sort out old stuff and learning to manage your behavior in your current situation.

So we learn to forgive ourselves for slips in our current behavior and get back to learning to live better with our symptoms and triggers in terms of our current behavior in our current situation. Don't dwell on the old stuff, focus on appropriate behavior in your current situation.

Ted

 

[Philippa]

that's lovely!

I've heard about that a lot of people are involved in shootings were previously known as gentle individuals who didn't fight back. That is a very interesting phenomenon.

We all have violence in us. As humans violence is part of our make-up...and when a gentle person is pushed to the brink and stepped on enough by assholes and thoughtless people who just do so much damage and don't even know they are doing it...it builds up, until the person explodes. A person can only take so much and everyone has their limits before they fight back.

I suspect I was forced to be gentle from a young age as I was given unhealthy roles from my mother and copped it from my dad if I ever spoke back. I think that gentle and humble was the pigeon hole I was forced into. My mother's roles of making me a sacrifice (someone in the family has to be hated and isolated and treated with anger so the family has someone to blame) and human shield (let the violent male happen to yell at that child she doesn't belong here anyway as she is not a blood relative of all other children's father and the leading person in the household and if I do anything that violent male will just yell at me)just make me feel ill.

This is very insightful of you Maze. I have also been cast the role of scapegoat and I recently said to my brother that I refuse to be the scapegoat any more after he attacked me. Once you know what role you have been given you can start to work from there to detach from identifying with all the labels placed on you.

It's not possible to live in a family with a pettifile and a domsetic violence victim, a domestic violent person and a emotionally abusive (though mostly not conscious of it) mother and think that everything is not ok. I think I had to think everything was ok in order to survive their.

No, that's not a sane way to live and no one should be forced to endure it...but they do. Imagine what it's like in China where the whole extended family live together in a shoebox...talk about mental health issues.

Gentle and humility are strengths but they come at a price when I supress all the grief pain, and anger from the abuse and it builds up under the surface. PTSd isn't just the event that is traumatic, to me it includes all the emotional pain I suppressed in 18 years of being raised in a family with unhealthy roles and domestic violence. All the pain become's the kerosene to the flame lighted by my traumatic event causing a fire of PTSD.

This is why it's important to get it out, with batting pillows and screaming etc. Do whatever you have to do that doesn't hurt anyone to get it out. EFT helps with releasing these emotions, and I've recently been working on embracing my angry inner child and making a place for her and learning to accept her. If I don't no one else will, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna ruin my life even more because society says it's 'bad' to be angry. It's not...it's a totally natural emotion to have, ESPECIALLY when a person has been mistreated to the degree that many here have been.

If I can become master of my anger, then I can save my life, and possibly others from it coming out in a harmful way. It's a choice though.

 

[freakofnurture]

I just wonder if anyone else has the PTSD rages.

Here. Me. Scared my husband several times already, hit walls and apparently managed to be deemed 'dangerous' while in in-patient treatment earlier this year. To be fair, I really wanted to kill someone (anyone) and I had already hit two people's heads together without even a hint of remorse.
I identified two types of rages in me:
One I call 'the justified'. It comes up in reaction to an actual insult. It's a mix of good and helpful feelings overreacting because they're still sore from being stepped on for 99% of my lifetime. It makes me feel alive and like I have rights and deserve to be treated well.
The other one is 'the victimiser'. It comes up because I am triggered, and not because someone actually did something wrong. I know that, but I still can't stop this rage or the sadness, fear etc. that accompany it. I can't stop screaming and accusing and feeling mistreated. It makes me feel like shit, it's exhausting and painful. It makes me want to be physically violent. I'm still not good enough at realising that a trigger is happening before it's too late.
My husband doesn't completely understand the victimiser rage, I think. I try to explain the various triggers, and while in a fit I am still able to tell him what he'd have to say to calm me. Sadly he refuses to say it every single time because he doesn't want to bow to my unjustified anger. He doesn't understand that I know this rage is unjustified but still cannot stop it. He wants to be therapeutical. "You have to learn to calm yourself." He doesn't accept that there are things that I simply can not do. Doesn't make things easier for me, really.

is it best to stop apologizing until you really are better, and just stay away till then?

Learn to monitor your mood and to identify the warning signs of a rage building up. Leave as soon as you realise that you're no longer safe to be around. It's your responsibility, especially when there's children involved, to take care that you don't abuse other people with your symptoms.