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Anger can be a difficult and powerful emotion. I am not entirely comfortable with anger and sometimes still feel like pushing it away. This is a giant leap ahead of my previous attitude toward anger: dismiss its relevance and reject its existence.
Although the idea ...
Thank you Kimberly for sharing your insight. As a PTSD sufferer I used to wrap my
anger around myself like a blanket, protecting myself from getting hurt. Holding the anger so tightly to yourself I have learned in the long run only hurts YOU. We have to put anger in a place where it is accepted, understood and then put aside so we can
enjoy the feedom from it. So we can find the joy again in our lives.
Dear vlbhopes,
Thanks for your response and your thoughts. I agree.
Accepting that anger is a normal and healthy emotion changed up everything for me. Seeing anger only as "bad" and abnormal meant it was something shameful to run away from and/or hide it from others.
Knowing that it was okay (and normal!) to feel anger was important for me understand. Anger presents itself to alert me that something is amiss. If I feel anger, I am feeling anger for a reason. There is always a reason. Getting to the reason, and then resolving it, is what is important.
Also similar to you, dealing with anger when it arises allows me the freedom to go about the other business of life. I don't have to be afraid of anger or dismiss it. I can accept that I am angry, deal with it, resolve it, etc., and move on. If I pretend I am not angry or hold onto the anger and do nothing about it but get more angry, the only person it affects is me (and in an unhealthy way).
Anger can be used and misused in ways that are harmful to us. Appreciating the emotion of anger for what it is was difficult for me, and your response is appreciated-we are never alone! Thanks.
Best,
Kimberly Tyler
No we are never alone, we only need to reach out. To help ourselves and
help each other.
Hi,
What an interesting post. Thank you. For me I struggled with the whole concept of anger. When I was depressed my therapist said I was acting with repressed anger. I just couldn't see it. I thought I was expressing anger by just saying "I'm angry".However, I didn't feel less angry by saying it.
I remember saying "I don't know how to express my anger". My therapist didn't ever really answer my question "How do I express my anger". They just kept saying "by talking about it". However, I was never feeling anger when I was asked to talk about it.
I remember one day I was extremely angry and I contacted my therapist saying that I wanted a whole session on expressing it. My therapist cleared the room of objects, gave me boundaries on what my allowed behaviours would be. What did I say..."I am disappointed by my abuser's behaviour". My therapist said "What? Is that it? Only disappointed?". "Yes" I said.
It took me a couple of years to fully understand that I had gained an extremely high frustration tolerance so I would tolerate quite bad behaviour towards me before I became angry (and sought safety). This meant that I did not remove myself from abusive people early enough to fully protect myself. This I believe had arisen due to the dichotomy of having my parents and therefore my main carers being the source of abuse and looking for care from my abusers.Also from being a child carer for my parents.
Now, I still have to check with myself that I am not missing abusive behaviours towards myself. I am always quick to protect others from abusive behaviour by others, but still recognise that I have a capacity to tolerate an awful lot of bad behaviour towards myself before acting to protect myself.
So for a few months I practised being assertive at the very moment I recognise that I am being transgressed ....rather than waiting for the transgression to become worse and for me to become angry... I find that in this way I am able to express my anger appropriately and ask for the respect I deserve and where necessary edit people out of my life either temporarily or permanently to ensure my own safety. Now the word on the street is "I will not tolerate transgression".
Hypno