• 💖 [Donate To Keep MyPTSD Online] 💖 Every contribution, no matter how small, fuels our mission and helps us continue to provide peer-to-peer services. Your generosity keeps us independent and available freely to the world. MyPTSD closes if we can't reach our annual goal.

Saw a recording of myself which shows the depth of my angry and violent thoughts - how can I manage the monster inside of me?

Status
Not open for further replies.

equinox92101

New Here
I have been humiliated many occasions in my life, and often pre-occupied with fantasies of revenge against the people who hurt or humiliated me - the fantasies usually take the form of verbal and emotional abuse at the person who humiliated me, either taunting them or explicitly hurting them. Sometime it is also physical violence, and I'll start flapping my arms randomly. Pure hyperarousal.

There are a few different persons who are the target of these fantasies, but one girl in particular largely disrespected me one night when we were casually seeing each other - she is a recurring theme. I don't want to go into the details of what happened, but she disrespected me and sort of humiliated me in the process - there are many things which act as a trigger for it and remind me of the event.

Any way, the recording: In my job we have a recording system to monitor our performance during calls. On this particular day, the person who was supposed to join the call with me didn't join, but I didn't realize the recorder was still on. I work from home, and was doing the usual stuff one does when working from home... lounging around, maybe signing to themselves. But in the case of myself, I was also doing a few other things which I realized 1 hour later when I went onto the call review dashboard and realized the call had recorded despite nobody joining.

I was doing a few unusual quirks like anyone who is not in a 100% mental state does - such as talking to myself - but I also went into my violent revenge mode. There I was, in the recording, pretending the girl who hurt me was sitting on the couch in front of me and I was calling her a s**t. This girl was beaten by her dad when she was younger, and one part of the recording showed me looking into the vid cam as if she was there and reminding her of the fact her dad abused her when she was young. I know how terrible it is to minimize physical abuse, particularly from a parent or caregiver - but this girl made me feel helpless and I guess this was my way of finding some power over the situation.

When I saw the recording, I felt like a monster. I asked our admin to delete it giving the reason as because because the person didn't join the call, luckily he deleted it straight away without watching it or questioning it. No doubt I would have lost my job if somebody saw it.

I avoided the real world consequences then, but it drove home to me just how f*cked up my mindset is and how I desperately need to manage these violent thoughts and urges and pre-occupation with revenge.

I know the true root cause of this; the root cause is not what she did that night in particular, but the fact I feel inferior and inadequate. Understanding the root issue is always a good head-start, but I need actionable steps. I meditate daily and practice mindfulness, but I am explicitly seeking advice here from people who also have these extremely anger and violent thoughts. This girl is only one example, there are countless people who have disrespected and humiliated me, so this could very easily become an endless cycle.

Can anyone relate and can anyone help? Thank you.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Are you in therapy?
I have been once before for a reasonable period of time; I also went back last August/September for two sessions but had to stop since I was moving house at the time and starting a new job - I kept on having to reschedule sessions so I quit.

I am hesitant to go to therapy since my core issue is my looks and being humiliated, which I have ample evidence to back-up with. It's very, and I stress very, difficult to listen to a therapist try to change your perspective when you have evidence to back up your perspective.
Body Dysmorphic Disorder is nearly always one of the first port of calls when a client presents themselves with physical appearance issues, I am not listening to a therapist talk to me about BDD when I have evidence to back it up.

Even some assertiveness modules which I am working on right now, as part of their exercises they have questions like ''When you evaluate the situation now, was there evidence''? The direction they are pinning you towards is ''No, there was not evidence, so why am I thinking this way''. When you do have evidence, however, it's proof that your thinking/rationale was right, so why should I be brainwashed into thinking my perspective is delusional or distorted.

Money and time is not an issue for me right now when it comes to therapy; it's more so I can't justify paying money each week to be have my perspective shifted when there is already evidence.

Therefore, as a first base, I am more comfortable applying self-researched methods such as mindfulness, recognising and labelling the emotion behind a thought (as mentioned above, recognising that the core issue behind my hatred and anger of this woman is my own inferiority and inadequacy), and understanding how to control and manage my triggers.
 
I would recommend cognitive-behavioral therapy/anger management therapy. If you have rage,... you will want to get it down to just anger first, "Chunk it down" and a good therapist can help you do that. It is not a quick fix and may not be for everybody, but I have had good experiences with it.

Whatever you decide to do I wish you the best,

Lionheart
 
I have been humiliated many occasions in my life, and often pre-occupied with fantasies of revenge against the people who hurt or humiliated me - the fantasies usually take the form of verbal and emotional abuse at the person who humiliated me, either taunting them or explicitly hurting them. Sometime it is also physical violence, and I'll start flapping my arms randomly. Pure hyperarousal.

There are a few different persons who are the target of these fantasies, but one girl in particular largely disrespected me one night when we were casually seeing each other - she is a recurring theme. I don't want to go into the details of what happened, but she disrespected me and sort of humiliated me in the process - there are many things which act as a trigger for it and remind me of the event.

Any way, the recording: In my job we have a recording system to monitor our performance during calls. On this particular day, the person who was supposed to join the call with me didn't join, but I didn't realize the recorder was still on. I work from home, and was doing the usual stuff one does when working from home... lounging around, maybe signing to themselves. But in the case of myself, I was also doing a few other things which I realized 1 hour later when I went onto the call review dashboard and realized the call had recorded despite nobody joining.

I was doing a few unusual quirks like anyone who is not in a 100% mental state does - such as talking to myself - but I also went into my violent revenge mode. There I was, in the recording, pretending the girl who hurt me was sitting on the couch in front of me and I was calling her a s**t. This girl was beaten by her dad when she was younger, and one part of the recording showed me looking into the vid cam as if she was there and reminding her of the fact her dad abused her when she was young. I know how terrible it is to minimize physical abuse, particularly from a parent or caregiver - but this girl made me feel helpless and I guess this was my way of finding some power over the situation.

When I saw the recording, I felt like a monster. I asked our admin to delete it giving the reason as because because the person didn't join the call, luckily he deleted it straight away without watching it or questioning it. No doubt I would have lost my job if somebody saw it.

I avoided the real world consequences then, but it drove home to me just how f*cked up my mindset is and how I desperately need to manage these violent thoughts and urges and pre-occupation with revenge.

I know the true root cause of this; the root cause is not what she did that night in particular, but the fact I feel inferior and inadequate. Understanding the root issue is always a good head-start, but I need actionable steps. I meditate daily and practice mindfulness, but I am explicitly seeking advice here from people who also have these extremely anger and violent thoughts. This girl is only one example, there are countless people who have disrespected and humiliated me, so this could very easily become an endless cycle.

Can anyone relate and can anyone help? Thank you.
Hi Equinox,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and story.

A good psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist can be your guide through your darkness. There lies great power and confidence in having control over your rage/monster/daimons.

Agression can be very creative if you channel it in things that make you stronger. Please do not use this againts other people except in sparring training surrounded and guided by professionals.

Trauma Therapy/EMDR is a good option for learning how to name and regulate your emotions.

Stabilisation seems key for you at the moment.

Before I started Trauma Therapy I was one fuming ball of rage. I have hurt many people that way either verbally or physically. And ... how shall I put this...

It is ok to have rage as long as it is under your control and you use it in life or death situations to help someone or to defend yourself.

If your rage is consuming you, you're just destroying yourself and you deserve better than that.

Physical exercise, meditation, walks in nature, a dog, anything that can ground you will release some of your rage.

First it seems necessary to ask for help with an experienced Trauma Psychologist who will help you with your rage, maybe grief about the things that were done to you.

Wish you all the best.

Thank you
 
I am sure all of us would be shocked seeing video of ourselves when dysregulated and dissociated. It's something I am working on in therapy but it's like one of the hardest things I have ever done. When you try and consciously change that behaviour it's so hard. That stuff just wants out, badly. We all have a lot of anger from somewhere. I'm not surprised that my behaviour of late likely has to do with finding trauma #2 in November as it was about the same after the first one we were dealing with anger.

The source is the same. Pretty much exactly. It's difficult and in the end it's frustration at living in the middle of the sh*tstorm that is PTSD and having your mental capacity judged when you are probably dealing with stuff in your head that would overwhelm most people. It's a difficult thing.

I know one thing though. Rumination = Hypervigilance. Get that hypervigilence monster back in the box and you will be less prone to unexpected outbursts. If you haven't read the Articles (on the blue bar at the top of the screen) yet start with the Stress Cup. Start getting a hold on that and you can function better. You have more resilience when stressed and you don't get to where that release happens involuntarily. Because I am guessing you were dissociated when this happened.

Almost all of managing PTSD comes down to managing your stress. Stress manifests in a million different ways and if you can't reduce it you hit the top of the SUDS scale where nothing will help. You are on some weird autopilot and not really there.

So working to keep that baseline stress level down gives you room for other stress not to push you to the top of the scale. That means less rumination and you can handle more stress before you get to where you dissociate and bad stuff happens. Get good at stress reduction and grounding and you can tame hypervigilence and your life will be much easier.
 
I'm glad you're so open and honest about the situation


The key is the RIGHT counselor/therapist. And to be honest with them how you are with yourself.

Maybe rephrase it?

Hi I'm interested in therapy but I have certain important reservations I'd like to discuss to help us get the most out of the sessions :

Then bullet the points you mentioned in you're original post

I hope the best for you!
 
I have been humiliated many occasions in my life, and often pre-occupied with fantasies of revenge against the people who hurt or humiliated me - the fantasies usually take the form of verbal and emotional abuse at the person who humiliated me, either taunting them or explicitly hurting them. Sometime it is also physical violence, and I'll start flapping my arms randomly. Pure hyperarousal.

There are a few different persons who are the target of these fantasies, but one girl in particular largely disrespected me one night when we were casually seeing each other - she is a recurring theme. I don't want to go into the details of what happened, but she disrespected me and sort of humiliated me in the process - there are many things which act as a trigger for it and remind me of the event.

Any way, the recording: In my job we have a recording system to monitor our performance during calls. On this particular day, the person who was supposed to join the call with me didn't join, but I didn't realize the recorder was still on. I work from home, and was doing the usual stuff one does when working from home... lounging around, maybe signing to themselves. But in the case of myself, I was also doing a few other things which I realized 1 hour later when I went onto the call review dashboard and realized the call had recorded despite nobody joining.

I was doing a few unusual quirks like anyone who is not in a 100% mental state does - such as talking to myself - but I also went into my violent revenge mode. There I was, in the recording, pretending the girl who hurt me was sitting on the couch in front of me and I was calling her a s**t. This girl was beaten by her dad when she was younger, and one part of the recording showed me looking into the vid cam as if she was there and reminding her of the fact her dad abused her when she was young. I know how terrible it is to minimize physical abuse, particularly from a parent or caregiver - but this girl made me feel helpless and I guess this was my way of finding some power over the situation.

When I saw the recording, I felt like a monster. I asked our admin to delete it giving the reason as because because the person didn't join the call, luckily he deleted it straight away without watching it or questioning it. No doubt I would have lost my job if somebody saw it.

I avoided the real world consequences then, but it drove home to me just how f*cked up my mindset is and how I desperately need to manage these violent thoughts and urges and pre-occupation with revenge.

I know the true root cause of this; the root cause is not what she did that night in particular, but the fact I feel inferior and inadequate. Understanding the root issue is always a good head-start, but I need actionable steps. I meditate daily and practice mindfulness, but I am explicitly seeking advice here from people who also have these extremely anger and violent thoughts. This girl is only one example, there are countless people who have disrespected and humiliated me, so this could very easily become an endless cycle.

Can anyone relate and can anyone help? Thank you.
I want to thank you for your post. I have these rage flares as well. To know that I am not the only one means alot. Thank you for that
 
I am hesitant to go to therapy since my core issue is my looks and being humiliated, which I have ample evidence to back-up with. It's very, and I stress very, difficult to listen to a therapist try to change your perspective when you have evidence to back up your perspective.
You have ample "evidence" to back up a perspective? I wonder if you can talk about this a little more. In my view, *everything* is perspective.

We can change how we see something (or our perception) without changing the facts or evidence. For example, I was badly hurt when I was very little. There is no doubt about that; there are people who were there and know the story, there have been long-lasting repercussions. I have/had very specific perceptions of the behavior and the people involved, and it really messed me up for a long time.

I went to therapy. I learned to see what happened differently. It didn't change that it happened, but it was no longer this horrible thing that made me a bad person.

I think the most important question you have to ask yourself is whether or not your current perception of yourself or the situation is causing you issues.
 
I have been humiliated many occasions in my life, and often pre-occupied with fantasies of revenge against the people who hurt or humiliated me - the fantasies usually take the form of verbal and emotional abuse at the person who humiliated me, either taunting them or explicitly hurting them. Sometime it is also physical violence, and I'll start flapping my arms randomly. Pure hyperarousal.
I have also spent a lot of time, especially through my 20s, ruminating about how to hurt people without it actually happening. It's important not to give in to those kinds of plots, because people who set out for murder always encounter the unexpected, and you have to particularly cold towards people to keep doing it and getting away with it. Clearly, you are not one of those people.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top