Maybe there are two anger issues??? Anger from the past.....re stuff they did and stuff that happened and anger generated because of all that. And anger that generates currently because of their present behaviour etc??
you know, i have been trying to explain this above, to almost everyone i know for a very long time....... but you (guys) are the first who has ever heard me........ a lot of people cant understand 'why cant i get over it' and all of that, they think its all feelings from long ago and im just incapable of getting past it in a normal way..
but i have very little trouble with feelings from long ago, i did a lot of hard work to release all that old stuff for many long years....... so it hurts me, to feel 'accused' of being 'unable' to properly release those old feelings, when i worked so hard to do it, but just had the scab most unmercilessly ripped off. the recent wound, has just opened it all up again.
how could it not, really? i mean its a totally natural reaction. but the feelings from then, and the feelings from now, are different issues. most people, =havent= gotten that.
feeling upset at what they are doing currently now, is totally different from inappropriately clinging to old issues. unfortunately becuase they are my abusers, and i have ptsd, it has reactivated a lot of old stuff.
I laughed out loud about the fork thing! That's wicked and too funny! I do think that vision reinforces a negative behaviour on your part though... It's just that you may not have thought of this...so I wanted to just say it.
i have thought of it :} i do it in a 'funny' way that is not reflective of 'reality' though :}. i do need -some- powerfully defensive image though, of some sort, becuase they pain that they cause me is so deep. but im totally grounded in reality about doing stuff like that for real. i can use the wall image, or a wall with spears, or something. i wanted something powerfully defensive. this got me thinking further.
there is a further and deeper brilliance in what you said:
i was thinknig over and over of the idea of deterring the reaction.... how not to go there in the first place.. i was thinking of my life, thinking of everything that 'justifies' how upset ive been.
i was thinking of the whole picture, the little girl, called stupid and useless, defending her self-worth... the teenager, called a slut and a whore, treated like trash. locked up, disowned, abandoned when i was a good girl who deserved better. my father having an affiar, and marrying his mistress - my stepmother!
its
horrible to see your father marry some floozy, -and- devastate your mother =and= demolish her in a horible court battle *and* take custody of you by force, when you are just turning 12. yet they are calling me a whore, and i am only 12. of course it makes you indignant.
yes he took me away from my mother too, when i was 12. he stole so much from me, that cant get replaced. he took my mother from me too.
so becuase of that i had to go live with him and this mistress, who bagged herself a rich doctor and treated me like crap. why would i -ever- like her? how could i -ever- respect someone like that? she destroyed the last shreds of any normal family i could have claimed to have. out of her selfishness. out of wanting my fathers money. i have never known her, when she wasnt destroying something i cared about. and now she takes -my- daughter from me, calls -me- a bad mother? and demands that i 'respect' her? and gets between me and my child?
how
dare they? at least i have some shreds of affection for my father -somewhere-. but this stepmother..... she is deluded to imagine i would care if she lives or dies.
i thought about the little girl i was..... why do i get upset and feel angry at all of this??? why why why. of course those things make me feel upset.... but why....
you made me think GFN, becuase it HURTS.
i had no way to process that pain back then. who would. i fought, to keep myself together, to keep my self respect. to show vulnerability was very dangerous and the last thing you wanted to do in my family. to fight was to have self-respect.
i fought to protect myself, beucase i didnt have any other way to deal with the pain. it occurred to me -
that anger is a
secondary emotion, and that when i feel that flash of anger which i so often do, that really, i am HURTING.
i think, it is a pathway out. to train myself, that when i feel that flash of indignance, i must train myself, to know that i am hurting. this may seem really obvious but, you are helping me pick this apart. i cannot be vulnerable in front of my family. but its something i can train myself to do in my own healthy life.
i have been working on it, and have been able to do it, the last few days. and i want you to know, that what you said really helped me.
i feel a lot for what stormchild said becuase i think we have similar issues. you cannot show vulnerability, you get used to fighting. later on it doesnt serve you as well.
jsut wanted to let that out and be thankful.
d's mom
