Ami, anger is a very important stage of growth. You seem to have unblocked the pipeline to your recovery through the loss of Scott, and I am sorry this loss had to be the catalyst.
I recently, went through, a period of great anger, absolute rage, actually. I, found out after trying to work out what was wrong with me all these years, that it wasn‘t me but my mother and my continued insistence on choosing narcs, of both sexes, to relate to because that is all I understood. When I was about 7 or 8, my mother took me to see a psychiatrist because there had to be something wrong with me. She found me impossible to deal with and I was fighting with my younger sister, who got all the attention.
I met someone on MySpace, and we started talking late last year. He had a NPD wife, and the more we talked, the more I realised that all the counselling I had done over decades, had brought me to a point in 1990, when I had explored all my options but I just didn’t have the final piece of the jigsaw. I suddenly realised, that I had wasted more than 50 years of my life feeling inadequate and, at times, I felt like I had two personalties and I did - hers and mine. I was outraged to realise that several people had lived, vicariously through me. I did all their feeling for them. I was the human face of so much destructive behaviour and I did not know what to do with myself.
Once I calmed down, which took several weeks and lots of deep thinking, I decided that now that I know what is going on, I am going to take charge of my life. I have lost 50 years of my life. I am, no longer, going to let them control me. It is my time to be myself. I shifted focus from them to me.
I stopped wasting time with or even thinking about people, who can’t or don’t want to understand. Ami, you need to stop wasting time with your husband (and anyone else, like him) trying to get him to understand or, at least understand your position. He will never understand so cut your losses in terms of effort. Limit your time with people, like him. Instead fill your life with people who energise you. Steer clear of anybody who exudes negative energy, whether it be at the shops, at the school, or anywhere at all. Start surrounding yourself with people, who love you or, at least give off positive vibes.
I did not think this up myself, I found great comfort in the writings of “Kübler-Ross see her Grief Cycle, the third stage is one of outraged anger. In order, the stages are: Shock, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Testing, Acceptance.
Symptoms
The next step after denial is a sudden swing into anger, which often occurs in an explosion of emotion, where the bottled-up feelings of the previous stages are expulsed in a huge outpouring of grief. Whoever is in the way is likely to be blamed. In a company this includes the managers, peers, shareholders customers and suppliers. The phrase 'Why me?' may be repeated in an endless loop in their heads. A part of this anger thus is 'Why not you?', which fuels their anger at the those who are not affected, or perhaps not as seriously so.
Treatment
When they are angry, the best thing you can do is give them space, allowing them to rail and bellow. The more the storm blows, the sooner it will blow itself out.
Where anger becomes destructive then it must be addressed directly. As necessary, you may need to remind people of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. Reframe their anger into useful channels, such as problem areas and ways to move foreword.
Beware, when faced with anger, of it becoming an argument where you may push them back into denial or cause later problems. Support their anger. Accept it. Let them be angry at you.
Someone has expanded on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s treatise on stages of grief
Anger Behavior
Questioning
Crying
Shouting
Belligerence
Hostility
Sarcasm
Bitterness
Anger Feelings
Guilty
Hurt
Irritated
Cheated
Angry
Enraged
The next and hardest step is getting rid of the destructive repetitive cycles of anger and moving forward to self forgiveness“
I have a lot of trouble with this but I am trying. It goes against anything, we were told or intuitively knew during my childhood.
I hope I haven’t stood on anyone’s toes. I try to be sensitive.
Kim in Oz
