connections betwen rage and shame

[Gaining Strength]

My son has gone away with his godfather to the beach for a week.  I have not been functioning as usual.  So frustrating.  I am going back into my memory to unlock the actual pain of a childhood that even in my 20s I thought idyllic.  How?  repression.

Here's an article that helps me and might help some one else here.

http://find-a-therapist.info/articles-mainmenu-46/33-borderline-personality-disorders/23-rage-shame-and-the-death-of-love

I know not by my memory but by the results, that I experienced severe psychological trauma. I further believe that it is that trauma that leads me to live in the conditions that I live in - my slum of a house and my profound inability to maintain work and to take care of my financial responsibilities.  It is humiliating but it is self-destructive as well.  It is bad enough that I suffer it but I am determined to break through this for my son as well.  It is not fair to him and not fair to me either.  I have so many interests and now I realize I still have some real abilities that have been locked off from me by what happened to me as a child.  The events though not clear to me are not horrendous or noteworthy in any particular event but it is the slow drip of water that had a devastating effect by accumulation over time.  That makes it ever so much more difficult to identify.

Now I understand why it has been so very difficult to get at.

This line from the article is so powerful for me.  It encapsulates my own life experiences. 

 Rage operates as a mechanism to empty out "bad self" or shameful feelings from within the psyche.  Rage, while conceived from an effort to connect, to correct an injustice or insult, causes great emotional consequences, namely that it is alienating, destructive, and inflicts pain on others.  If this negative energy is directed inward, it is experienced as masochistic self-criticism and self-loathing. 

The pain he feels about his worth would create massive fear and anxiety about being abandoned by his parents. The child would then feel helpless, weak, worthless and inadequate.   He would also be incredibly rageful but have no one to direct it toward but himself.  This circumstance would create massive shame and intense defenses to ward off the dangerous rage that he felt toward his parents.

In the genesis of the shame reaction, the parent's attitude toward the child is one of angry rejection of the child himself.  The parent fears and rejects the child's dependency and masks the fear with anger.  Punishment is used in the form of humiliation and the parent takes the transgression as evidence of the innate badness on the part of the child.  The "badness" on dispassionate examination turns out to be a common human impulse (such as needs). But the parent attacks the child's right to such an impulse and thus degrades the child's self concept.   This includes threats of abandonment and is followed by an angry separation of the parent and child.  The child, through repetitive similar onslaughts, is forced into the humiliating attitude of being worth less than the parent is worth.  He fears abandonment, fears his own resentment, and suffers a decrease in confidence in his own capacities.  All this is most painful, but since the child is held at a distance and finally left alone by the still angry parent, the child must resolve the tensions by himself and with himself in painful solitude.

Sylvan Tompkins, a neurologist proposes a physiological explanation for shame.  He describes a neural pathway in the brain for shame. He believes that shame is a universal condition shared by all human beings.  He further asserts that these shame neural pathways are also linked to joy and pleasure.   Tomkins' theory concludes that people are most acutely sensitive or "shame prone" when they are joyous and vulnerable.  There is comfort in knowing that we are not alone.

[Ami]

((((((((((SS)))))))
It is so hard to break out of this. I am wth you, SS, and on your side.    Love    Ami

[Gaining Strength]

Thank you Ami.  I feel like I have broken into a differnt arena.  Things are definitely different now.  Thanks for your support.

[Ami]

Dear SS
 Today I feel really different. I feel an Alice in Wonderland feeling about my life. I, always , thought my F was the "good" one who married my M, by some fluke. I thought he was the "beautiful princess" who got caught with the wicked witch and imprisoned. However, I see that he is a blank, too. I look back and see that,of course, he was a blank, but *I* had to hold on to the fact that s/one was "home", s/one felt something.
 He was not overtly cruel or mean.  He has no feeling for me,though. It was play acting. He does not  feel any anger or outrage at the person who abused me all these years. He is his friend.
 I feel so,so unsettled. I see that my rcurrent dreams of my F leaving me at various locations and not picking me up was my body's way of trying to tell me the truth. I feel so,so upset to see it,but free in a new way, too.
 Nothing is as bad as feeling 'unreal", numb. I have to remember that. You, too, dear friend.      Love   Ami

[Gaining Strength]

Reading about your father breaks my heart.  I am so sorry that you are seeing this truth.  I know that experiencing the pain now will help free you but I am sorry that you have to go through it and that you have lived it.

[Ami]

Dear SS
 I don't know if you(or anyone) ever had this,but I feel so irritable that I could hit the roof. I never felt this irritable,like I have one nerve left and it is on fire. This is worse than any hormonal feeling. If s/one has felt this way, I would love to hear about it.             Ami

[Gaining Strength]

In recent years there were periods when I felt a similar feeling more often than not.  It was horrible!  And that was one of the reasons that I really hate to feel angry.  It is for me such a bad feeling - For a while it had me and I could not control it.  For a long time I simply saw it as a character flaw and then I finally figured out that it was out of so much anger that it just overflowed but reading this article really, really helped me.

I am somewhat surprised that it does not strike a chord with more people here.  Making connections and sharing on this site has truly changed my life.  It means everything to me.  Before I came here I had absolutely noone to talk to about this stuff - never had found ANYONE who understood in any way and had lost several friends who were simply tired of hearing about it.  But it was eating me up inside and destoying my life. 

Now I am finding my way out and this article appeared at the right time to push me forward another step.  I wish it meant something to others but I am strong enough for it to be only important to me.  This place has been a life changing place - like nothing I have ever experienced in 3-D.  I can't say I really understand it but I am thankful and thankful for the friendships I have made here and the healing and life changes that I have made via those friendships.