Healing emotional wounds -- Victim Anger

[Gabben]

So this is what my phobia is?  It's good to know I'm not just a big chicken, now that I know others reach to violent onslaughts the same way.
nogadge

Hi Nogadge,

I'm not sure I get what you are saying but I think it is supportive (((((Nogadge)))))

Anger is not an easy thing to overcome. What makes it harder is when others make you feel ashamed for the anger which is what my Nmom did to me. I was not allowed to express my anger at her injustices that is why I stuffed it and why now, as an adult I have had to relearn and re-feel it to heal grow and overcome being an angry person.

There really is nothing wrong with the God given emotion of anger what is wrong what we do with it that is unhealthy.

Peace,
Gabben

[Gaining Strength]

I began reading this tread again thanks to your renewing post Besee.  This is a significant thread for me.  It really touches profoundly the depth of th struggle to heal any aspect of the deep psychological damage done growing up with my N parents.  I agree by my experience that expressing anger actually just feeds it.  It does feel good but it just grows and grows.  It feels good when it explodes but then it engenders shame which aggrevates the deep pain and a cycle grows.

I have found a few ways of dealing with anger.  One is to forgive.  For me that means forgiving in my heart and imagining a conversation where a problem is resolved.  It means imagining a change of heart for th people who have been unkind or damaging.  And for me it means getting at the shaming experience that I have lived with far, far too long.  And that has been ever more difficult than dealing with the anger.

This has been one of the best threads for me as it really gets at some of the nitty, gritty ways to get at real, life transforming healing.  Thanks.

[Ami]

I think that GS has a wonderful point. In fact, there were two people who treated me unfairly, whom I was kind to. It IS the ultimate freedom, GS, isn't it?
                                                                                                               Ami

[Certain Hope]

Dear Besee,

For me, I think it's been about the anger feeling safer... because to admit that beneath it was hurt, meant that there was seemingly no solution for it. Of course, anger offers no solution, either, but for a time it appeared to... if I could get angry enough to cut myself off from whomever/whatever seemed to provoke it.
These days, I rarely get angry with people... but I do feel some great amounts of sadness and disappointment, at times.
What I'm learning is that as much as the sad disappointment may hurt, it does diminish and, in some circumstances, end.
The only factor which prolongs it is if I take that left turn back into anger again! Not going there is a simple matter of reprogramming the mental processes, for sure - - recognizing that I can choose which feelings upon which to build and which to reject as unprofitable. The very fact that it's my choice was enough to make me madder, before... lol... but I think now that's all part of growing up. ((((((Besee))))))

Love,
Carolyn

[Certain Hope]

((((((((Besee)))))))) thank you... your hugs help.

I've thought the same about my maternal aunt (always suffering that endless, helpless hurt) and her very un-emotional, un-empathetic sister, my mother. Their mother was 100 percent cognitive, as far as I could see... and her two daughters seemed to choose diametrically opposed paths as far as dealing with their own emotions (or lack of them  ).

Seems like I've pretty much exhausted my own feelings about the past. There are still some occasional olf triggers, but now it's more like - oh yeah, there's that again.  I think what I've got now are some very real and very current feelings, which I'm just not accustomed to having surface so readily. It's disorienting. I can share some of them here, and some with my children (especially the two girls who are grown now)... but my husband, for instance, is another story. He's another very cognitive one... and so... it's kinda like being all dressed up with no place to go, where my newly discovered feelings are concerned. Most of them, I just take to God in prayer...
yet I'm consciously concerned about not returning to ultra cognitive mode again. Definitely know what I don't want! I don't want to be like my husband in style... No more blending in to suit, like it always used to be. But as I practice being me... I am more alone than ever before... because I don't know how to reach out to the cognitive ones without losing myself again... and maybe that's just how it is.

Love to you,
Carolyn

[teartracks]

Hi Gabben,

Healing!  Healing!  Healing!  Don't quit.  You're on a roll, albeit painful.   So honored that I get to weep with you and laugh with you and share your burdens.

Love,

tt

[teartracks]

Hi besee & lollie,

If a raised brow indicates condemning, what does a wink where there are more than two indicate?

I was just thinking of this a few days ago and wondering.

tt

[teartracks]

besee BEHAVE!

I was thinking of a passage in the Bible a few days ago about winking.  So when I saw that you and lollie were discussing body language I thought I'd ask what winking indicated.  I did a reference and found the verse I was thinking about just now. 

Psalm 35:19
Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause.

Another translation uses the word make sport of me instead of wink.

tt

[Gaining Strength]

resentment for me was indeed the keystone to turning the corner for me.  I didn't realize it until I read your post Lollie.  Last year I FINALLY understood how full of resentment I had been my entire life and slowly but surely I could begin to name it.  I saw, for the first time, how seething with resentment, I had been someone who my childhood friends had simply lost all interest in being around.  It is still painful for me to be completely frank about how damaging being eaten up with resentment was.

Oddly enough, it is not that the resentment wasn't justified - it was.  But it did noone damage except me.  And the damage it did was incalculable.  But now if and when I catch myself feeling resentment I am finally able to let it go and give it up before it festers and does real harm. 

For many, many years I tried over and over to change my attitude from a rotten, pessimistic, negative, caustic, sceptic to a positive and joyful person.  No luck.  But how could I, I was eaten up with resentment and was blind to that.  Resentment can certainly gt in the way of being positive and joyful.  Oh not that I couldn't try but it was just another example of driving through life with my foot on the break.  Boy is that a lot of wasted energy.

Once I got through the resentment what was left was fear.  And that is what I have been dealing with now.  The fear is easier to overcome than the resentment but it is not quick.  I feel llike once I fgured out resentment then the leak was sprung in the dam and the dark ooze has been draining ever since.

Thanks for this remarkable thread.

[teartracks]

Hi besee,

Yes, Gabben posted a fairly concise picture start to finish of what takes place in a childs psyche while under the control of N parent or caretaker.   I think the Members Story board gives an invaluable and broader overview as well.  I can't imagine how it must feel to have a mind that has not dealt with the warp and woof of narcissistic manipulation and abuse.

tt

Gabben,

I'm so loving it that light bulbs are going off for you during this painful period of healing.  Comparing you to where I was about 4 - 5 years ago, I'd say that after this period, things will begin to let up for you.  I so hope so. 

Love,

tt

[Hopalong]

Resentment = chewing on poison and waiting for the other to die

Drain on, GS.
I hear you.

love
Hops

[Gabben]

Hi ((Lollie)) ((Besee)) ((GS)) ((Phoenix)) ((Ami)) ((tt)) ((hops)) (((Carolyn)))

I've been away on  mini retreat for a couple of days. I'm just now reading this thread.

Besee -- I'm happy that this information was insight for you. It proves for me to be the most insightful and useful aid to getting deep into the pain of my abuse as a child, this was the pain that was fueling my resentments and rage that was being directed towards myself in many manifesttations. I meditated and reflected on this blaming myself to seek relief and then minfully watching my behaviors to see exactly how I was doing this to escape from the pain.

I tell Ami that I have to take time out of my life to allow the hurt to surface and just be with the pain as I feel it wave through me to pass through me I pray for forgiveness as well as I pray for those whom I still fear resentment towards. It just keeps getting better and better but it sure is a process that take hard work and willingness. My anger is dissolving, slowly.


Lollie -- just as I was reading through Besee and GS's dialogue I started think about resentments how do I get rid of them (even with all of my experience in AA and with resentments I still struggle from time to time -- In cluding this morning). So I was happy to see your post, perfect timing in this thread. THAT WAS A HUGE HELP -- I'm ordering the book!!

GS -- "Once I got through the resentment what was left was fear.  And that is what I have been dealing with now.  The fear is easier to overcome than the resentment but it is not quick.  I feel like once I figured out resentment then the leak was sprung in the dam and the dark ooze has been draining ever since."

I could so related to this. Thank you for your candor. Lately I have felt fears come over me, as I read your post I realized that these are the fears that were under my resentments. Fear of my being loved, fear of rejection fear, of what others think etc. It was as if I was 3 years old all over again, afraid with no one to turn to. I wonder if we can repress fear because as I just allowed the fear to wave through me the fear dissipated and soothing comforting feeling of detachment came over me. What do you think?


Gabben

[Gabben]

For me, I think it's been about the anger feeling safer...

Exactly, this one line causes me to reflect on how much I am addicted to safety in my life. I depend on security, emotional, financial extra.

However, I am not as attached as I used to be but the fear is what is under and generating so much of the hurt and rage against the world so to speak. The primal infantile fears of not getting my needs met which could lead me to die. At least for me because so much of this pain and anger that had surfaced this past year was infantile and first three years of life rage and hurt as just the deprivation of genuine love and the pain of what toxic love at the hands of a N parent did to me.

Miss you Carolyn! Love.........Gab.

[Certain Hope]

(((((Carolyn)))))

because I don't know how to reach out to the cognitive ones without losing myself

again... and maybe that's just how it is.

  I feel lonely around a cognitive friend


love, besee

(((((((((((Besee))))))))))))  exactly, yes. It's a lonely feeling indeed... and just reading this from you gives me so much relief... thank you! See... I'm so conscious that at my current stage of life... I shouldn't necessarily trust my own feelings when they start to emote... lol. I mean, they can go pretty bonkers, at the drop of a hat... and by the patterns, the ebbing and flowing, it must be mainly hormonal. And I shoulda known better than to say that I rarely get angry anymore... famous last words    cuz then, of course, that was tested... but it's okay now, I didn't explode. Just had a very damp and weepy couple days feeling pitiful. Sometimes I think that I would be far more suited for a desert island. And then my hormones shift. ugh. Anyhow, thanks... you are a blessing.


((((((((((((Lise))))))))))))  I have missed you alot and wondered where you were. I've not read the board much past couple days, but saw your name here and rejoiced!  So happy to know you were able to take a brief retreat... and very glad to read you again.

You wrote:   

Exactly, this one line causes me to reflect on how much I am addicted to safety in my life. I depend on security, emotional, financial extra.

However, I am not as attached as I used to be but the fear is what is under and generating so much of the hurt and rage against the world so to speak. The primal infantile fears of not getting my needs met which could lead me to die. At least for me because so much of this pain and anger that had surfaced this past year was infantile and first three years of life rage and hurt as just the deprivation of genuine love and the pain of what toxic love at the hands of a N parent did to me.

Miss you Carolyn! Love.........Gab.

Lise, I am extremely security-conscious still, in some regards... and here I'd thought I had that beat, you know?! I mean, I've lost so much (materially) over the years... yet the deep yearning for emotional safety is still there.  At times, I've felt the need to repent of this, because that fear runs so counter to the faith which generally keeps me afloat. But other times, I don't wanna repent, doggone it... I want to be able to control my own destiny and not have to always be so far out on that old limb... waaaa. Yeah, it's been a rough couple days. I got angry... and upset... and wanted to run away from home. Too old for that nonsense... lol. Anyhow, I'm babbling.... but I hear you, loud and clear... and you're not alone!! 

Hope you'll be able to post some more, Lise...  your contributions are invaluable.

Love,
Carolyn