Childhood Turning Anger Inward

[Brenton]

Hi all
I've read a lot of people express their anger and I applaud them. I'm not there yet. I still can't completely put the blame where it belongs, and still turn it inward, including the blame.
Its easier for me to see myself as a bad child than to accept that I had bad parents. I can say they f*cked up, and abandoned me, but I can't fully separate myself from it, as if there was anything a five year old could do to make his dad abandon him, and leave him unprotected to become other people's victim.
I self-harm when I feel the trauma or have memories, rather than put the anger where it should go. I'm working on it, and have made progress, but I'm not there yet.
I have expressed a lot of it in my books, which neither parent has ever read. Being able to express the pain really helps.
Thanks
Brenton

 

[Sideways]

@Brenton - I'm sorry you went through that as a child, and I completely relate to your struggle with shifting blame and anger. I've been trying to let myself get angry at my abuser for years and I'm still stuck believing it was all my fault.

If it helps at all, there are physiological reasons, brain development issues that we can physically measure, that actually cause children to direct blame and anger at themself for their abuse, rather than at the abuser. The short version is that children (literally) don't have the developed ability to feel anger towards a parent or primary caregiver.

But there's also a widely supported theory which you've pretty much nailed in your post - when you were 5, it wasn't safe to be angry at your dad, and the idea that dad might do bad things is too complicated for a 5 year old brain. Dad is supposed to be the good guy, the one who takes care of me, loves me and keeps me alive. In that position, it was a helluva lot safer to just be angry at yourself instead. Internalising your anger was a survival strategy that your brain used to keep you alive.

The trick (apparently-cause I'm still working on it myself), is to give your brain credit for finding a way to help you survive, but also say "Thanks brain, you did a good job, but it's safe for me to confront the truth now".

The truth is you were an innocent child who needed to be taken care of. Your brain did a great job, but it's time to adopt a better coping strategy now, which is the truth about your dad.

 

[Brenton]

@Brenton - I'm sorry you went through that as a child, and I completely relate...

Thank you, that's very insightful and good to know someone understands. You're right, kids cant accept that mom and dad arent perfect. If mom and dad are wrong, the world doesnt make sense.

 

[Sideways]

Doesn't make sense & isn't safe. But you & the world have changed, and it's safe for you to get angry at him now:)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@Brenton obviously I can relate, I carried blame up until mid Jan this year, including the entire 7 yrs of therapy. My blame shift happened right here: https://www.myptsd.com/threads/good-sites-to-unbrainwash-or-deprogram-one-self.58893/page-3

Anthony asked me the question (from my quote) that had to be answered with a yes without any buts, without anything but a stright yes. I struggled, struggled, got frustrated at myself (it all played out on the thread including the pain as it shifted) and i kept repeating it in my head "my mom & step dad are f*cked in the head pediphiles"...over and over and over and over and over...and as soon as i said yes and had no buts with it, it shifted on its own. And that was THE HIGHEST concentration of pain i have ever felt emotionally in my life, i think i felt the weight of my entire past as it shifted over. I was curled in the fetal postioning, i bit a whole in a pillow, and throwing up in a garbage can, but it shifted on its own.

You have to say it over and over and over and keep saying it until you have enough frustration to push yourself and it will shift.

Now im left with raw intentse rage that im trying to move over and off myself and very intense emotions that are hard to handle but the blame is something i can say moved

 

[Chava]

Welcome @Brenton . Self-harming, for me at least, became a pretty obvious "fight" response turned against myself. I believed I was the bad one too. But also, it's not like I could actually fight back...would have gotten it worse. So the instinct to fight was actually thwarted for my own good, but the impulse was still there. And it got turned towards me anytime similar feelings were triggered. I read somewhere on here about it making sense because in the present there is nobody to direct it at...it's just us, on our own in our house or whatever, having this horrid feeling. So it really feels like we are the source of the bad feeling. But we aren't. We've been triggered and we have a fight response system that was wired against us.

I've resolved the self harming through understanding this. For a while I just sat in the corner with a knife, realizing I didn't actually want to cut myself...yet there was nobody there to protect myself from...but it was important I could feel that as a self-protective response (my self harm and self protective responses got glued together, if that makes any sense). I also just squeeze or tape up my arms when I feel like cutting or burning. Contains the energy and makes me feel safe. Or sometimes I need to push against something or wreck something. But it's all simmering down.

You're right the world would not make sense to a child if their parents were bad. To survive we internalize the warped needs of sick parents. But also, in not fighting back we previously kept ourselves safe...and yet are stuck with this fight and rage that has nowhere clear to go anymore. But we can get creative with that. I work mostly on a body level with my trauma stuff. Physically protecting myself helps me sort out those feelings.

 

[Sideways]

Hate to be the sad sack, but I'd throw in a word of caution here.

For a lot of us, shifting blame involves challenging (& beginning to redefine) our self-concept and negative self-schemas that can underlie a whole host of our established thinking patters. I think this process is definitely best worked through with the assistance of our T, because destabilising those things without all the right supports in place can cause a real nightmare.

Go for it, just make sure you do it safely:)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@Ragdoll Circus i didnt mean to imply to do that here, thats just how it happened for me. There was no way that I could have done that in therapy. For me anyway, in therapy I still go in auto numb mode and though that is starting to change (at the time of the blame shift, it wasnt) and i have no control over it and i also auto attempt to dissociate and have 10 million guards up.

To shift the blame, my walls had to be down, I was suicidial at the time thus vulernable enough to allow it to happen.

Again, I am absolutly not stating to try that here instead of therapy and that night it also wasnt my plan, thats just how that happened for me.

My point was I had to answer the one question that had to be answered with a yes without any buts and I had to say it over and over a million times in my head to push myself. I would have had to many walls up, too numb, and not in the spot to allow that.to occur in therapy.

I agree one must be safe and thats why i typed that out here, so i would be. A few were here with me and this is the one thing that i cant be more appreciative of!

 

[Sideways]

@lostforgottensoul - sorry, didn't mean to sound like I was having a go at you. You've got great supports, a crazy good T, & I think shat you've achieved on the blame & anger fronts make you an absolute champion:)

 

[lostforgottensoul]

@Ragdoll Circus an absolute champion? No way! Just trying to get through the quick sand of shit!

You didnt sound like you were having a go at me, was just trying to clarify is all. ;)

:hug:

 

[joeylittle]

I've read a lot of people express their anger and I applaud them. I'm not there yet. I still can't completely put the blame where it belongs, and still turn it inward, including the blame.
Its easier for me to see myself as a bad child than to accept that I had bad parents.

Me too. I'm not sure I actually know much about what anger is. I can think of one time in my life where I felt what might have been legitimate anger.

Otherwise, this is what happens: I will be in a situation where anger would be justified; I think I start to feel angry (?), and then it turns into this weird mix of helpless and hopeless and trapped. My automatic thought is usually, 'I failed'. It gets to despair pretty fast.

It's true of current-life situations, and of when I look back. I know intellectually what my parents did was wrong. If it was someone else's story, I'd say it was wrong, and I'd find it sad.

I think the problem is, if that is the way you grow up you have absolutely no context for anything else at all. Certainly, as I was the first child and an only child for 5 years, there were no other children on either side of the family, and I had no format that one could call 'social'. My only experience was my parents. I think that has something to do with how, even now, I can't actually conceive of a different version of my childhood.

I guess, @Brenton - what I'm trying to say is I'm not sure it's that it's easier to see oneself as a bad child; sometimes, I think it's a little like being color-blind. When people say 'red', what it looks like is just not what the majority sees; but you can't imagine red if you literally have never seen it. Your red is just different.

It's so hard.

 

[Brenton]

Welcome @Brenton . Self-harming, for me at least, became a pretty obvious "fight" respo...

I can relate, truly. Not being protected is a big void in one's development