This kind of anger

[Brigid]

I have been slowly reading all the responses on this thread and reminded of the times when my anger and rage were out of control.  In my case, there were just a couple of people who could bring that out in me--my father and my first husband, who was just like my father. 

After I married my second xh and moved away from where my parents lived, we would have to periodically make trips back to visit them.  It would literally take less than 5 minutes of being in his presence for the anger to start to well up.  The interesting part was, that once I was an adult, I no longer was his source of criticism.  It was my mother who he would direct all the nagging and criticism toward, but I would immediately feel the need to defend her the way I wished she would have defended me against him when I was young.  The problem was, that she would still take his side.

We visited there one Thanksgiving, and my father decided that he wanted me to prepare the Thanksgiving dinner rather than my mother, because I was a better cook (true).  I said I would be happy to do that, but only if he agreed to stay out of the kitchen the entire time and not come in to start throwing in his many 2 cents about how things should be done, i.e. cutting up vegetables, washing the turkey, stuffing--whatever--he had an opinion on everything and you better do it his way.  He became furious at my dictating his involvement and I said fine, then I'm not doing it.  The rest of the day got worse and worse and I eventually said that I was done.  I could not be around him anymore.  We left the next day and I never went back and never had another conversation with him.  Two years later he was sick and dying and we went back to support my mother, and returned for the funeral 2 weeks later.

I hated the person I became when in his presence.  But what really made me decide to sever my ties with him was having my children see me become that person.  I was very rarely angry otherwise and certainly didn't rage at anyone.  My children were old enough at the time for me to explain why I had to stop having any involvement with him.  It would take me several days to "come down" after being around him.  What I found helped to settle that rage was to cook.  I would go into the kitchen and prepare a meal that my family loved.  The chopping and sauteing and preparation process with no one else around would bring me peace.  My family gathering for the meal and the four of us having lively conversation and their enjoyment of my effort, would bring me back to a place of calm.

For those of you who are relatively new, the way I got rid of the very significant rage I felt when my second xh walked out very suddenly 3 years ago, is something I still laugh about.  When he moved all his stuff out, he mistakenly left behind his very significant record album collection.  It was January, so I took the albums and put them in the garage.  Any time I felt the need to release some anger, I would go out to the garage and pick out some of the albums which I knew were particularly special to him, and I would smash them to bits.  They smash really well when they're cold like that    I would then calmly return them to their sleeves and put them in a box for him to pick up later.

These days I really don't have anyone around me who makes me angry and that is a wonderful thing.

Brigid

[Hopalong]

Brig,
I murdered a small television once. (Very neatly, after putting it in a plastic bag.)
And once I smacked exH¹ on his leg with a jelly sandal. 

Hops

[moonlight52]

Hey Guys ,

When my oldest d was a teenager she loved to break phones just threw them across the room also she liked to slam doors .

She would be talking to one of her little teenage friends and boom flying phone this happened about 2 or 3 times .It's a family joke now.

I am so glad that only lasted for a year or so once she got a handle on her little hormones she was OK....................................

We have no throwing with small moonlet  but little moonlet did get mad at Mr moon for sneaking in to her Halloween candy......

Moonlet "OK who ate my kit Kat bars huh what makes you think I don't keep inventory of the candy huh!!!!!!!!!!!"

Mr moon  "uh OK SORRY Ummmmmmmmmmmmm you just went to the dentist I was helping you out"

I am glad little one does not seem to have a lot of anger and she sure does express herself.

Me I never broke stuff just repressed anger .

much love,
moon

my oldest d says we should have disciplined her more "you should have grounded me more "and she's right ..........We wouldn't have had to replace so many phones.

[condeezi]

dear penny,  i hear you. i have read some of the posts, do you see how many of us are dealing or have dealt with this? repressed anger makes us sick and depressed. it incapacitates us. it keeps us locked in the same patterns. by not dealing with it we cannot be the people we could and should be. i have always been the good girl, the nice girl who never got mad. i stuffed it down, swallowed it and became sicker and unhappier. examine your anger, find its causes, do what you need to to deal with it constructively. stay strong.

[pennyplant]

This post is about what several people have brought up about patterns, FOO, and what was I really angry at the day I flipped out in fourth grade.

I have to think very hard to make the connections but they are there.  It's just so close that it is hard to see it clearly.  So, I thought today about that time in fourth grade.  I can't think of a specific incident but I have often thought there must have been some kind of stressful build up in me that was set off that day.  I mean, I really scared people that day.  I actually picked up a chair and threw it!  One of those wood and metal little school chairs.  Somebody could have gotten hurt if it had hit anybody.

I blamed it on my feelings of worry that I would be rejected by the boy I had a crush on.  But I think a better clue is this:  Our class was divided into groups working on projects.  My group finished first (naturally, overachiever that I was all those years).  I didn't have anything to do for awhile.  My friend was in little crush boy's group and she knew of my "dilemma" (why didn't I just coast for the rest of the morning like a normal child would have?!?) and said, I'll ask little crush boy (who was the group leader) if he would let me join with them.  I panicked because I had recently been having overwhelming feelings about being around him, and I begged her not to do that.  She ignored me and said she would just go and ask him, she was sure he would say yes.  I just wanted her to listen to me and do what I said.  But she didn't listen and headed on over to ask him anyway and that is when I flipped.  (Side-note, does anybody think it is just a coincidence that little crush boy's first name was the same as my father's first name?  It's not a common name either.  I just wonder about that sometimes.)

Being ignored and disregarded are huge, huge triggers for me.  I had no power!  I told her what I wanted and it didn't matter!  It was important to me and it didn't matter!

Thinking of this reminded me of an earlier incident that I will never forget.  It must have happened several years before I was in fourth grade because it involved my sister and a rocking horse.  You know the kind that are attached to a frame by four springs, one on each "hoof".  Well, my sister was doing her usual out of control thing on this rocking horse and bouncing as hard as she could.  I remember myself telling her to stop it because she would fall off.  She was laughing and ignoring me as usual and sure enough she fell off and got hurt and started screaming.  My parents came running and asked what happened.  I said she fell and she said I pushed her!  Well, I hadn't pushed her, she did it to herself.  So, I kept frantically trying to get my parents to believe me.  But they didn't.  They believed her.  But I kept going on about it.  So, my father sent me to bed and taped my mouth shut.  I was completely infuriated!  It was so unfair.  It was so incredibly frustrating.  So humiliating.

I was telling the truth.  There were times that I did do mean things to my sister and I remember doing them.  She would cover for me those times.  But that was later on.  This time I had done what I thought was right and got completely punished and humiliated for it.  Completely stifled.

There were other times like that.  My parents only noticed when I did mean things to my sister.  They never seemed to know the times she lied about me, or instigated it, which was often.  She has always known how to push people's buttons.  She drives most people up the wall once they have known her long enough.  She drove my parents up the wall and they couldn't handle it either.  Yet, I was expected to be a saint around her.  When I was only a child.

This kind of thing happened daily in my childhood.  We are only a year apart, and it started early.  So, I didn't really know anything else.  I think it had built up and built up until it came out that day in fourth grade.  But my uncontrolled anger only made my life worse.

Damn, though,  I was just a little kid.  I've heard people say that it is often the "good" one who needs more help than the one who is acting out.  But I didn't get any help at all.  Not anything that I could recognize as help.

Wow, I feel like such a disturbed person.  I know that is warped thinking right now.  But I hate thinking about those times.  I tried to be "good" but I wasn't really.  Then there are the people who knew only the little girl who threw a chair in fourth grade.  And I'm not only her either.  I feel so misunderstood by all the people who should have cared to find out more what was going on with me.

My husband knows all these things about me and he still says, I am the best person he knows.

Thinking about those times brings up so much for me.  I do need to find a way to figure it out or get it out.  Maybe more writing.

I'm glad this is helping others here.  I was afraid I would be alone with this.  I was afraid I would alienate people.

Today was a long day at work and I need to get to bed early.  But I do want to respond to other posts, at the very least in general ways, and hope to post more tomorrow.  Everything everyone has shared is helping a lot  .  I'm so relieved about this.

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

One more quick post.  Somebody asked me about the specific incident that set off my anger this past weekend.  Asked if I was sure it was done purposely to me.

I have to really think about that.  It was quite deliberate, personal, and specific to something I had recently said that I didn't want done.  But..... I think what was really going on was that the other person's need was so great and so multi-layered, that in his mind, his need simply out-weighed what I needed.  I don't think it was something that was done just to get my goat.  It was instead something very complicated below the surface.  It happened in a very personal way.  I now think he just hoped I would let it slide.  He has apologized several times.  But I'm still wary.  And he knows that.  So, there's some work to do.

But I have to admit that the truth is, it was not out and out personal, not done only to hurt me.  It might have been some kind of power play, though.  Somewhere in there.  One incident lasting only a few minutes out of the day, and it opened up so much.

And now I'm really going to get ready for bed.  I'm bone-tired tonight.  Time to hit the hay.

Pennyplant

[Plucky]

Hi PP,
when I was processing the bulk of my anger, I was physically dog tired every day.  Make sure you are sleeping enough, even if it seems more than normal, and eating right.  Holding back that anger is a big job but working through it is even bigger.
happy trails
Plucky

[Portia]

Pennyplant

(Side-note, does anybody think it is just a coincidence that little crush boy's first name was the same as my father's first name?

Yes it’s a coincidence. Just one? Is it possible you were attracted to him because he had the same name as your father?

Being ignored and disregarded are huge, huge triggers for me.  I had no power!  I told her what I wanted and it didn't matter!  It was important to me and it didn't matter!

Being ignored and having your wishes disregarded are healthy triggers! Nobody with self-respect enjoys being treated like that. I don’t like being ignored or disregarded. I guess nowadays I try and see it as an action that the other person is taking and how I react is up to me. I might decide to try and assert my wishes, I might decide to ask why they’re disregarding my wishes, it depends on the situation. I might walk away! So many choices .

So, I kept frantically trying to get my parents to believe me.  But they didn't.  They believed her.  But I kept going on about it.  So, my father sent me to bed and taped my mouth shut.  I was completely infuriated!  It was so unfair.  It was so incredibly frustrating.  So humiliating.

This sounds like a traumatic experience PP. I believe you. Making you voiceless in that way was abusive. Do you feel very angry thinking about it now? Can you imagine going in to that scene now, as an adult, removing the tape from the little girl’s mouth and telling the father just how abusive he was being? What would you say to him, and to her? You can say it here if you wish.

Wow, I feel like such a disturbed person.  I know that is warped thinking right now.  But I hate thinking about those times.  I tried to be "good" but I wasn't really.

Keeping up a facade of compliance and wanting to rebel? You don’t sound disturbed PP! Truly, you sound to me as though you’re thinking things through deeply and coming to understand them. In thinking about how your childhood affected you, those things that cause you to feel anger now will lose their power. If you hate thinking about those things, that’s exactly the reason for looking at them now – to remove their influence and power today. You’re doing great - and important work too.

But I have to admit that the truth is, it was not out and out personal, not done only to hurt me.  It might have been some kind of power play, though.  Somewhere in there.  One incident lasting only a few minutes out of the day, and it opened up so much.

Small things can bring up so much. They’re worth thinking about. Glad you’re aware of what happened, or what might have been happening there. It will help for the next time, if there is one?

Take care.

[pennyplant]

When we are taught - as I was taught - to fear any strong emotions, it is (so I have read, anyway) because the people around us did not separate anger from violence.  If anger is bottled up long enough, then sometimes when it does explode, it does so with an attack.  In my childhood, such attacks were from my Nmum and aimed at my ob.  Or from my dad and aimed at anyone in his path; really explosive.  My ob has inherited both tendencies with his kids.   

So, anger equals violence, and pain.

Then you get happiness, and if you have had anything like mine, this goes the same way.  My mum used to say if you laugh too much you will end up crying.  Then she made it come true.  She would watch me and ob laughing, and play fighting, and find something she didn't like, or just reach the end of her rag, and explode, and start to hit him. 

So, happiness equals violence, and pain.

In the end there is nowhere to go but to stifle emotional expression, and if possible also stifle emotional experience, so that you do not know what you are missing.  Stay in the grey world of never feeling angry and never feeling real, complete joy.

Really, in my house, no emotions worked very well.  I became very used to not bothering to even feel really happy or carefree.  Because it would just get "ruined" anyway.  Anything could come along and completely "ruin" a perfectly okay day.  "Oh, great, now the whole day is ruined!"  If it couldn't be perfect then it was all bad.  Expectations weren't very realistic in my house.  Never any way to be consoled.  Never any way to salvadge the day.

We weren't allowed to cry either.  Of course, I did sometimes.  But the idea was to stop crying.  Or not start to begin with.

We weren't supposed to be too loud either.  Especially in a store or at someone's house or at the dinner table.  No exuberance allowed.

This is why sometimes I think it was "a gift within the problem" that I was ignored so much.  I didn't have to scrutinized and corrected so much.

I tried very hard not to repeat these mistakes with my kids.  I hope that they did not feel too stifled growing up.  On some level I knew it was important to let them express themselves.  Not so sure I equated that with feeling all emotions.  But I hadn't learned yet about emotions.  Allowing expressiveness was a start at least.

October, I get a kick out of you and your daughter composing letters about Ndad--I love the humor about a somewhat serious subject.  B-A-S-T-A-R-D!  And now we have the 2006 Champion of the International "N" Spelling Bee!  Yay!

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

...the notion, too, that fairness = treating everyone exactly the same no matter how badly they behave? PP, that's not fairness. That's a con job fed to you by a BS artist. Real fairness pays attention to how people behave, and responds appropriately to each person. It doesn't reward slackers or pets at the expense of people who work their hearts out.

..............

Anger is a signal, it is a message, it is the exact same thing as the pain response but in your feelings instead of your nerves. Anger means that something is wrong, a boundary is crossed. And the problem is that just like pain, if it doesn't get taken care of it accumulates - if you keep standing on a broken leg it doesn't heal, same with anger, if it doesn't get a chance to heal it just gets worse.

Let me share something with you - it probably won't 'help' right now but hold on to it, it does make sense later on. Anger is one of the best servants you can possibly have. Anger is like radar, it's like second sight, if you learn how to use it and work with it it will alert you to abusers before they have a chance to abuse you, it will alert you to Ns and to situations that are traps.

................

Accept your anger. Call it a friend. Ask it to tell you where the problems are... Do what you are doing... you will find that it diminishes when it knows that it is being heard and that the best thing you can do for it is to tell it that you believe it... you may be surprised, telling it you hear it and believe it may make you cry with relief.

Stormy, your post contained so much in it that is new to me.  Things I never would have come up with on my own.  The fairness/equality con-job, anger as my friend, anger as radar, alerting me to traps.

I feel like I have been trapped my entire life.  Tied down, no options, no where to turn, weighted down all the time.  So often, I never even saw it coming, whatever it was.  Bad job situations, mean people, anything that made me feel like a victim.  To think that I can take my anger seriously.  I can believe in it.  Just stay out of the traps to begin with.  And so much of my anger has resulted from getting trapped and all the frustrations that accompany a continuously poor living situation.  I know I can't make my life "sanitary" or all good and easy.  But to not have to waste so much energy getting into the traps--all I have to do is listen to my feelings and take them seriously.

I actually felt a sense of relief as I read through these ideas.  Ahhhhhhh!

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

But what I really want to tell you - so much more than that I can truly identify with you is what you can do about it.  You are experiencing a repeat of your family pattern.  Your anger has to be there.  But now you have a chance to break this pattern.  You are in a crucial time and place to experience very significant healing.  You have seen the pattern for what it is.  But now you must change the way you responded to this pattern in your FOO.  Now you have a very, very important opportunity to respond in a healthy, healing manner and this is where remarkable healing can take place.

I think I will not be able to keep avoiding for much longer the work I have to do with my memories of my FOO.  I know I'm going to have to sit down and write it out and really remember and then this time feel the feelings.  I am avoiding it for sure.  But it must be true, that those patterns are behind everything.  I'm just steeped in it.  When I read the questions here and the suggestions about what am I really angry about and I remember the little girl on the bed with her mouth taped shut and all the rage that had no where to go that day, it wells up pretty quickly.  What would I say to the sadly mistaken father?  What would I do for the girl?  What should I do? is maybe the better question.

I have been in situations where I should have done something but could not.  Reacted instead the way I had learned as a child.  Felt that I had no power to influence a positive outcome, etc.  And then more shame, of course.

When I think about the question of what would I say to the little girl on the bed, to the father enforcing such a stupid punishment, well, that is actually not such an easy question for me.  Those limitations I learned all my growing up years still seem to dominate.  I am going to have to put much thought and practice into my answers.  Teach the answers to my self since no adult ever taught me when I was growing up.

It is actually embarrassing to me that I might know intellectually what is wrong with the taping of the mouth incident but emotionally I'm at a loss.  At a loss for words too.  Where is my sense of right and wrong?  How can I be 45 years old and not know how to just rush in there, peel off the tape and throw it at the father?  How is it that I can just stand there in the doorway, mesmerized, and be at a loss for how to pick her up and take her out of there?  Well, it is getting past the time to break the spell.

GS, do you know what it was that allowed the anger to leave you 8 or 9 months ago?  Just being nosy here, of course.  It seems like it might be a story that goes with this thread.

Pennyplant

[pennyplant]

....there was nothing that I could do to change their attitude. In fact, the only thing that I was able to do was to work on myself. It;s the most we can do. If a past sibbling or parent or co-worker is selfish and unkind, that is really not your problem. You didn't cause them to be that way. In fact their behaviour indicates that they have work to do on themselves.

Don't take responsibilty for foolishness that does not belong to you. it is other's people resonsibility to fix themselves. It's not your responsibility to fix them, or to make them see what they did to you, or to make them want to change or any thing along those lines. Just do what you can for yourself and learn to respond in ways that are benficial to you. You'll be a much happier person without the burden of other poeple's emotional baggage on your shoulder.

Liberty,

This is another biggie for me.  I have always taken on the responsibility of fixing other people, being alert for how they might feel, what they might do, and how I could keep anything from going wrong.  Always jumping in where I was not needed or wanted.  I thought I had to do this.  At home I had to.  It was how we made my sister's moods liveable.  Trying always to do the thing that would not set her off.  It was a survival mechanism.  But I have often wondered how life might have been better if we had not lived that way.  If my sister just had to learn instead to live with the results of her reactions.  She was catered to all the time at home.  No wonder she expected to be catered to at school and in the neighborhood.

Well, I digress.  I'm sick of worrying about my sister.  I'm sick of worrying about, being responsible for, all other people.  I am so ready to just be responsible for my own life, my own actions, my own feelings.

I like that also, about selfish and unkind co-workers showing what is wrong with them, not what is wrong with me.  I never thought of it that way.  Always thought it had to be my fault.  Everything can't be my fault!  That's just not physically possible!!!  It will be nice to divest myself of all these extra burdens I've been carrying around all these years.  That alone will lessen my anger.  And the fatigue.

Thanks, Lib!

And good night, All!

Pennyplant

[moonlight52]

Pennyp   

Wow that is a biggie I was always the fixer.

I felt soooooooooooooooo responsible for being the U.N.OF FOO . No more period.

And really it's up to each family member at some point to stop throwing the toxic football.

What I did in my process was I put the focus on the person that had hurt me  my whole life and let the anger flow though me and did not stop it .

I did this lying down and let my mind use a symbol and focused until the toxic anger left my body.(this took hours)

But I guess the method used is individual.I sure do feel like a new woman that's for sure .

Freedom and escape it's  just like Stormy has said so much that jac and Stormy have said has opened my eyes.

I really tend to be quite naive and gullible and  this  kept me in denial for so long.

Love to you Pennyp,

moonlight

[Hopalong]

Dear PennyP,
I just want to tell you that two things in your post were so vivid to me:

When the little girl ignored you and went to tell crush-boy you wanted to join them...I think it wasn't just being disregarded, but being humiliated. Who wants to risk rejection by that little boy? A crush even in little kids can be a thunderbolt. People seem to think sometimes that little people have little feelings. Pah. I imagine that moment in the classroom was just scalding for you, and since you hadn't seen healthy things, but explosive and terrifying things, done with feelings at home...you just reacted the way that had been modeled for you.

Thinking of you on a bed with your mouth taped shut as punishment was heartbreaking to me, and I bet it broke yours.

My brother had the double humilation in 2nd grade of having his mouth taped shut by a teacher, and being forced to stand in the corner while the class proceeded. He changed that day. That's when the bullying started.

I wonder if part of your anger is sheer frustration. You have come so far and learned so much and thinking and feeling are like your right hand and somebody else's left foot...you know there's a dance that can go gracefully, but you're still learning the steps.

Don't despair, don't give up. You are being very very very alive.

Hops

[penelope]

I have been reading this whole thread..and rereading it, but have been very afraid to respond.  Anger was a theme in our household growing up.  Except, I was the only one Not allowed to express it, it seemed (it was wrong for me to do that).  But it came out when I was a teenager (especially when I drank)

Then I read something moon wrote and I wanted to laugh and cry all at once.

You said your daughter used to thrown phones and broke quite a few.  I did this too!!     I broke a phone and a coffee table..a small TV.

But the thing that made me want to cry is your acceptance of this behavior moon.  It is a rare gift for a parent to be able to see that it is just normal behavior, "hormones," or just a part of life - getting angry.  That you wholeheartedly accept your daughter just the way she is, it makes me smile.

I wish I had had a mother who told me this.

love,
bean