This is long, but I really need input on anger and how I 'operated'---

[isittoolate]

I recalled some things but set them aside. However I think I can put them together now, Bear with me and Please feel free to agree or disagree with this scenario.

From childhood to age 30 was ‘my withdrawal from life’ because of physical and emotional abuse, my parents and my siblings, except for my brother---wait for more on him. You will know what I mean but then, as my therapist said, the car accident had to be the worst trauma of my life . Age 30

First off, only family was allowed in to see me. My dad came and my eldest sister, then my second eldest sister. She cried when she saw the mess my hair was. I was in bad shape. Then I was moved to another room after 6 days of choosing between life or death and heaven or hell. Then my boss came to see me. I became very angry at his imposition into my ‘only family visitors’ life. I felt that was like ‘breaking and entering’. I have held bad feelings for him to this day. (He is the one that called to tell my about my daughter, and I told him to stop.) I missed my daughter and had no idea what was happening with her, let alone me. I didn’t cry and I didn’t show any anger. I lay there and picked the scabs from my arms and face. I was having passive therapy that caused me so much pain  Then my second eldest sister’s minister came in and I felt an imposition again. Then I was moved to another room, and my lawyer’s ‘runabout’ came to see me. This is where the outsiders were allowed. Then more friends, one with a 12” TV to keep until I came home. My boss kept coming every Tuesday and Saturday and sent flowers every Friday. He was ‘making me beholden’ to him. I was angrier. He said my job was there for me no matter how long it took for me to recover. --oh Lordy--very nice but what do I owe him now? Then I had an infection in the long scar on my back and was moved to a private room. The family was dropping off at this time, and a few friends came. All the while I was writing to my younger sister who had taken my daughter. She had not yet come to see me, and bring my daughter. My brother never came to see me. He did, however, provide the storage space for all my furniture and things. My mother didn’t come for 2 weeks.

I really think at this time I was ‘choosing’ who to hate and who not to. The worst was my boss. I had all that therapy and was moved into another room, as I know from there I went to the hospital gym for exercising. One exercise was to sit on a wooden stool. I had no balance. The therapist would shove me to the left and I had to correct the fall and right myself. Then she would shove me to the right and I had to right myself. She would do this with one finger poking. Then she would poke me in the back and I had to stop myself from falling forward. Then she would poke me in the front and I had to stop from falling backward. I HATED her with a Passion!!!!! Poke poke poke poke If I could have stood up and turned around I would have slugged her one! I was so helpless.

After 3 months I went to a Rehab Hospital and had to dress every day and gym every day and other things but this was like a “home for all us angry people who never showed it, and just smoked and drank and hid our pain”.--- and Mike and Carole attempted suicide.

I had visitors still and my brother came, finally. Brought his dog and played outside. I was not mothering my daughter. I was angry because my sister brought her only once, but now I had her caregiver (the other one I told to stop feeding me stuff that I already knew) take her in, same town as my parents and between the two of them, I had a 2 hour visit, roughly every two weeks. I was still not mothering my child..

I expect that by now, even though there is so much more, you can realize the anger that I suppressed, because I was helpless and I needed what I could get. I hated being catheterized/leg bag and have my uncle feel my leg ”to see how much muscle tone I had lost” when I figure he was feeling for the leg bag! Was rid of that after 7 months.

I was a person who seemed to just take it and never show anger.. Maybe others thought I was some kind of saint but I wasn’t. I was angry. Maybe many people ‘felt’ my anger? Is this why certain ones ‘stayed away“ afterward? Maybe they were only watching their own boundaries when I had none. .I might have felt guilt about being angry because somehow I failed myself and my daughter? I gather my family was not meeting my needs, and I was left to battle the disability all alone, and repress the anger.

I recall a time in winter when my daughter was out shoveling the snow. It was SO COLD! I called my brother, said “Hi Whatchupto?” and he was home with the children, watching TV, while his wife was at Bingo or something. I said--I ordered, “Well you get your ass down here and help your niece shovel the patio.” (The snow was so deep and she might have been 11?) I looked after his kids inside. Can you understand how totally useless I felt and how angry I was at myself and how awful I felt for  my daughter to have me as a mother?

I felt no one listened to me. Daughter wanted a puppy and we got Kintu. He was a wild little thing. I housebroke him and still have a scar on my arm from when his teeth grabbed my arm instead of the ‘tribble’ toy he loved. Daughter would go for a run before going to bed and take him on the leash. I told to keep his leash on, as if he ever got away in the dark…………… She took his leash off and he was killed by a car.. I cried.

We got another puppy, Jedi, and I housebroke him. (I would grab the little fellers by the tummy, put them on my lap and wheel them out the door, every hour, and sit there until they did their business then I would pick them up and wheel them back in on my lap. One day, Jedi scared the hell out of me cause he jumped straight up on my lap. I realized that that was the ‘foreplay’ to getting ride outside---that’s hoot!)
 
The boss took him for some reason--I was at home-- can’t remember, but I told him to leave his leash on. He took it off and Jedi has ‘fun with a skunk’ just outside my door. I grabbed 2 tins of V8 juice and handed them to him and said “Take him and bathe him at your house. I don’t want that mess in my bathroom and keep him there until he is dry”  When he was dry, boss calls and I reminded him about the leash. No leash on him, again, and another encounter with a skunk. I just shook my head re the stupidity, and was it his or mine. He went to the store for tomato juice and bathed him in my bathroom and totally cleaned it after ward. Why don’t people listen? So I’m still angry useless annoyed and yet in the right company will tell these stories in a humorous way, forgetting the anger.

Now daughter had a boy friend and was gone a lot in the evenings and I couldn’t take him for a walk as every street from my house went UP--even if they went DOWN, I would have to do UP on the way back. I asked if she would please be more available for him and one day he wasn’t there. I didn’t know what happened, so I asked her where Jedi was. She said, “I gave him away--put an ad in the paper and gave him away.” I was sick! But never said anything. I couldn’t believe it! And I cried.

Maybe I feel ‘crazy’ from anger, uselessness, responsibilities, missing people, then daughter meets an N

Do you know that the N I met was fascinated with the wheelchair and it never bothered him any place we went. My disability didn't prevent our haveing a complete relationship and he loved that I was so willing to try new things, that I had a sense of humour and that I took all setbacks so well.----OOps that wasn't the N that was the facade, the puff of smoke.

The N really expected if I tried hard enough I could walk again, would yell with anger when the chair rattled in the back seat, always put thiings like 5-6 computers on the floor in my way. I would carry them to the head of the stairs and he would just leave them, jump over them and the pile just got bigger. more crap than that.

I don’t feel that anger anymore. I am alone and no one bugs me. I do what needs to be done.

Yep! I am content to live alone with no pets..




Oh yes. None of my family was available to take me home when I was released, so who does it????? The boss. After daughter was settled  in new apartment and in bed and sleeping, he wanted sex. I said no. He Said
“It used to be that you could have any man you want, and now you can’t, but I want you”


[attachment deleted by admin]

[changing]

Izzy-

I cannot  relate to all that you have written, but I can to so much- the rest just makes me cry. My brother came to visit my NF after my accident. I had been through experimental surgery, and excruciating rehab. B called me and wanted to go out to a certain place (I don't like it but was happy to take him, pay, etc even though my money was sorely depleted and he is quite well-heeled). We parked and walked the short (long for me then) distance to the cafe. B said "Can't you go any faster" At first I thought he was praising me by way of kidding- my surgeons would have me walk up and down a hall for visiting doctors to show their work off, and the famous ortho man who told me that I would never walk again called me his miracle child. But my B was not kidding!!! As for NH Bagworm, he deserted me- I should have divorced him right then, but I forgave him (Sick, very sick).

I cannot bear anything happening to my animals, and the idea of one being given away without my knowing (and stopping it) seems beyond comprehension. Perhaps your daughter felt that she was doing the right thing at the time, and made a youthful error, full of the hubris of that age.

As fior you, such devastation at age 30, and such a heroic mother! I know that you wanted everything perfect for your daughter , but she had everything in you- you provided a home and love and so much more. A sweet little family, a young girl shoveling the snow (((((Izzy and Adorable))))) it makes me think of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. You both have made it through, and now the cycle of worrying about a child's possible youthful indiscretions, life's demands and the need for love and family is coming around again. And you are ready Izzy. Just box that old fiend ex-boss's jaw for him, and enjoy your family.

Love From A Friend And Fan,

Changing

[isittoolate]

Thanks changing.....

.....even if you cannot relate to the anger that I repressed over that year. and then afterward. I don't know that anyone else will understand either.

My sister said to me once, "Sheesh You're so slow"

Ridicule and taunting from my childhood seemed to come back to me and increased my anger.

When My brother, and the sister who had my daughter, came out at Aug holiday, all was fine,

I took one opening to ask each of them what they had felt after hearing about my accident. Brother hesitated then said, "Helpless" then sister said the same.

I wondered, a long time ago, and still do, if they are all afraid that one of them might have to take me in when I'm 105 and she is 107, but I won't go.

I'll go to a home. Maybe I ought tell them that?
Hoot Hoot
Love
Izzy

[lighter]

OMG Izzy......

The boss.... the freaky wierdo boss.

Your family left you at his mercy, to some degree..... and you can forgive them for feeling discomfort at your anger.... for keeping their distance but..... they still left you pretty well on your own and didn't step up to the plate.  They didn't.

Your sister took your daughter, and you HAD to be grateful she was cared for..... not make big unhappy noises bc what happened if they handed her back to you at the hospital?

You kept your anger inside so you wouldn't lose what little they were willing to give and that makes me very very very angry for you.

I guess your parents weren't able to do better and your sibs?  They couldn't do better either.

Reading your post makes my stomach burn.

I hope getting it out and putting it on paper helps. 

You were robbed of so much..... that idiot date..... penniless petulent date rape child that he was....... changed everything.

Capable Izzy had to learn to be capable again. 

It's no wonder your boundaries are so high.

So many moving parts.... hard to focus on any one and find closure, I'm sure.

No wonder you're so ticked off at that creepy boss.

No wonder you were attracted to your N.

And how awful it must have been for you to watch everything you loved about him dissolve into a nightmare of being picked apart, starting with all the raw places you thought he'd embraced. 

THAT's the kind of trademark slithering, slicing....... deceit N's practice. It's so wrong, so hideously evil..... it's impossible for people comprehend it unless it happened to them. 

[gratitude28]

Izzy,
There are so many things that can be pulled out of your story. I will start with the easiest, as I see it. Your fisrt "disability" was growing up in a family that was dysfunctional and within which you never learned to express emotions. So when you had major trauma, you were reasonably distraught and unable to find any emotion other that the one you were used to - anger. You had seen it in them and it was accessible. I am also guessing that they gave you more physical therapy than mental therapy in the hospital and you probably needed a balance of the two.
As for your boss... you don't know all the reasons he was there. Perhaps he let something go in his own life and was trying to make up for it by being with you. Perhaps he just cared deeply for you. Perhaps he didn't want to lose his best worker. Either way, you didn't owe him anything - but you were brought up to think you did. Regardless, I think you were angry with him, because it should have been your husband or your family caring for you - and instead it was a stranger.
The relationship with your husband underwent a dramatic change. If it was a strained relationship to begin with, it would be even harder for you to accept his false kindness - and then passive-agressive acts afterwards. You needed love and care, not games.
Izzy, all of your anger was justified. For a multitude of reasons. You should have had family rallying around you during that time and making you feel loved and whole.
Love, Beth

[Ami]

Dear Izzy,
  I read this in the middle of the night last night. I wanted to give you a big hug. You have been to the "bottom" with pain. I was 'speechless" b/c I had so many emotions.
 My heart goes out to you for all you have suffered. You still have your 'zany" sense of humor.
 If you are asking a question---I am not sure what it is. You could clarify it and I will try to respond,if you care to.
 I can see how you got so shut down in your emotions. Every time, you reached out, there was a horrible, destructive hand slapping you down. I could see you wanting love with the N who accepted you without"conditions'(it seemed). What a horrible dissapointment that must have been. I could see how that could be the "last"of your tears.
  You shut down so you could survive(emotionally). There is only so much that a person can take before they break. You took enough for 10 people, Izzy.
  I am really glad that you shared with us.             Love   Ami

[Hopalong]

My
search
for
a
hero
is
done

Izzy, here's what I am absolutely completely would-stake-my-LIFE-on positive of:

You did it perfectly.

All of it. Pefection. Absolutely nothing other than what you did would have done.

It was perfect, what you did.

It was perfectly, completely correct.

It was perfectly real.

It was perfectly what it was.

You were perfectly alive.

It was continuing to breathe.

It was doing whatever you knew to do.

It was feeling whatever you felt.

It was surviving...what you survived.

You and your grandson have a lot in common.
I wish you could send him this story.

Your family is incredibly lucky to know you.

You redeem everyone you know, whether
they know it or not.

Every contact they have with you, small or large,
belated or inadequate, okay or not, is a gift to them.

So much awe and love,
Hops

[isittoolate]

This thread began when I realized my bottonless pit of anger was gone, so I put together things that made me angry and they were mainly my first years with everything culminating in that episode of one year's hospitalization from a life-altering injury.

Dear CB,

I am so pleased with your reply, because I know you understand, and to see the poke, poke, poke, poke as a metaphor for life. Those pokes were so infuriating and to add more about that, I had no balance and would have fallen except she held a hand on the opposite side of the poke and would stop me from falling. That was learning to trust that Someone is there to 'save me'.

You understand that the best way to go is to move forward, and while in the midst of a struggle, some dear one will drop out of the journey.

(Gee, I just felt like I was re-writing the Bible)

Thank you

Dear lighter

It did help to write it down for perusal by my friends, and I see that they are understanding. Your seeing that family might have said "Leave her to the boss! He will take care of her!" and I began to hate him very early on.

And yes, I kept my anger in because what little, or more, that was given, was better than nothing, and kindness did not deserve an angry blast!  but it did bring on a terrible feeling that there were people I owed, Not so!

Thank you

Dear Beth

Aha! my friend, and you, my dear picked up on what I was missing too, counselling, mental therapy. All my thoughts were mine, no matter which way the wind blew I had a different answer for the outcome.

Thank you for saying my anger was justified. One of my sisters, as time went on, made a remark of the sort that I ought not be angry, because the accident was my fault 'because I was there'. well yes I was there-- makes sense. I ought not to have been and my thoughts flew into a turmoil all over again with her. That's not family rallying around.

Thank you

Dear Ami

Thank you for the big hug you wanted to give,

I left the 'question' to be mainly comments on Was I entitled to be angry? Did I handle it right? Just open for discussion on something I realized has now left me. I think living 2000 miles away from them helps.

I had shut down to an extent before the accident and then moreso after, because there was additional trauma and anger to deal with and no one to talk about it with, no one who was there.

I also sense the suppressed anger could have been 'felt' by others-----depending on the situation.

Thank you

Dear Hops

You are always so kind and understanding with me, and I am your hero???

I feel so honoured with your gracious reply. I love it. It soothed me.


Thank you

Thank you all

love
Izzy

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Ami]

Dear Izzy,
  I was just thinking about the general question of "Do we have a "right" to be angry?. This is not related to your situation ,specifically--just the question itself which I have asked myself many times about various situations.
 What hit me is that a "normal" person does not ask that type of question b/c they have a "right " to their emotions.
  We, who were abused don't feel like we have a "right" to our emotions.
  I am trying to regain myself ,so I am seeing things in a different way,now. If we are angry, we should just BE angry and not have to have it "approved" of anyone.
 I see the 'legacy" of abuse that was left inside me . Boy, what a  mess .It is a big ball of yarn,but strand by strand ,I will untangle it.
  Izzy,please know that this post was just my "musings" and in no way any judgment of you or your situation .. My heart goes out to you,from the very bottom of it.              Love   Ami

 

[isittoolate]

hi Ami

What hit me is that a "normal" person does not ask that type of question b/c they have a "right " to their emotions.

Me and my emotions! Where are they? I might read that you told someone else she was entitled to her emotions, and it wouldn't sink in that *I* too was entitled. I sometimes feel so naive in that I don't know it applies to me too.

Now I have been told and I believe it, yet I also was questioning the recipients of my anger, when, on occasion they might do something nice for me, but still not come through as I would wish and too afraid to say.

In all my life, this is the one place that I have opened up and felt I wouldn't be ostracized.

Thank you. I understood your reason for posting.

Love
Izzy

[attachment deleted by admin]

[isittoolate]

hi Shunned,

I can believe that, really I can. I also used humour to keep people on the 'upside'. I gather those two emotions can be related.

They say that all comedians are actually depressed people, or other things, like abused as a child and have used the results of that to become a comic and make others laugh.

I'm not a comic, but I can be pretty funny a lot of times.

Did you read my post about the quad (broken neck) who, instead of healing from top to bottom, began healing from bottom to top. One day at lunch I  bent down under the table*** and tied his shoes together. His hands didn't work so it took him forever to get them tied right in the first place. He said he would kill me if he could, and it took forever for him to undo what I did.

I recall lighter saying that in a rehab full of wheelchairs, I had to disable the only one who could walk. He forgave me in less than ½ an hour.


***
See? the poke poke worked in strengthing  my muscles so I could bend right over frontwards and not fall out of my chair

Thanks
Love
Izzy

[attachment deleted by admin]