Does anybody ever get angry here??

[reisha]

Things i have done in my rage & w myanger. My 'line' was to never harm living things (physically). For a long time, i raged very ineffectively at theworld at large, causin damage & hzrm to many. In my home, i called it 'redecorating. Id pull down bookcases, kick over tables, once, i rammed a hiking staff repetedly thru the wall ( we were remodeling, & the wall was commin down for repair anyway, but thats not the point).
Yet, like easywind, idjust as often direct it inward. It wasna til i was raped that a path opened for me. The crisis people who came w police were w
To hosp, thru court, every step. The only they asked of me was to attend their counseling group for 12 wks. At the end of that, if we wanted, there was 12 wks of anger mngmnt. This was ,late 70s, i expect tecniques have evolved since then.

We learned healthier ways to dissapate our rage. Like takin a PLASTICbasebzll bat to beat the dust outta furniture. Going to a lonely place & screaamin bloody murder til our throats were raw. Throwin rocks inna river, or icecubes inna shower (sounds like brakin glass) throwin paint onna sheet. Goin for a long, hard run/swim/etc

To 1st notice what signals our minds & boxies were sendin us when we START to get angry.
( still workin on that one, lol)

The leader aas alwaystellin usthat pent up anger requires PHYSICAL release. From my biomom beatin the crap outa me, i already kinda knew that, but from the recievin end. My own rages certianly proved his point.

Fliffo, thanx for startin this thread!

Sendin gentle support

[Flifflo]

Hello Reisha, It sounds like it’s no wonder you’ve had so much anger. I think it’s true that it helps to feel these feelings in a healthy and safe way. Good for you for working on that. All those options you learned long ago still sound pretty good to me.

The other night I wanted to go somewhere and scream my head off too. Or punch through something. I settled for the loud screamy/rage filled music. It kind of did my screaming for me. I’m listening Reisha. Compassionately, Flifflo

[Flifflo]

.....so my angry tirade the other day was right after my EMDR session with my T. I seem to process most of my stuff after I leave the session. She was really excited that I got angry. Said it meant I was healing. Putting stuff in its place. I had another session today. It does seem to help me access my emotions. Some wild weird stuff. I think this was my 4th session. Interesting... FYI

[reisha]

Noddin my fool haid off at yer words.ESP the '....process AFTER. .... part. Me Too.
But, it just now occurs to me, guess itd be kinda hard to process b4, huh?
So, then, we're desireing ... to simutainiously process At The Same Time, both the experience AND ouremotions? Is that rite? That cant be rite. Info, for me, w ' deep shit' i cant walk & chew gum At The Same Time.
So, why do we ***beat ourselves up, &/or wanna 'kill th whirld',**** <---- she asks, etorically...

Doin Anger Work i found to be necessary for me. & while im NOT grateful to hhave been raped, i AM grateful that i was introd to it so early in my healing. There is a HUGE amount of neg energy that gets.. revved up in anger. (Duh). Findin SAFE ways to 'shake it off' imo, is kinda parta ...'foundational Work'.

Or, ua can look at the scienticif bennies - aderniline release, 'runners high', etc.

What else do ya do to dissapate to dissipaite yer anger, flifflo?

Here, listenin

[ephes]

...I enjoy a good rage rant as well (ie. Beyoncé the queen of many things including spectacular rage rants in her music). Was hoping to find some here I could relate to.
....
I had to just drive as I couldn’t come home to my family like that.

Hi
Can relate. I'm often angry or feeling rage. Also, driving long stretches of roads with little traffic while having music on and not singing but screaming along to the songs is one of the most cathartic things I can think of. Makes a panic attack go away and soothes the anger.

Confession: I feel so much rage sometimes that I wish somebody (appropriately stronger than me) would physically attack me for no good reason so I could fight back like a berserk. Of the different kinds of abuse I suffered as a child, physical abuse was the only one I managed to develop some sort of resilience against. It's the only abuse/threat that leaves me not feeling helpless. Fighting back physically makes me feel like I'm NOT a powerless victim. It's because of a combination of unusual circumstances in my youth and I consider myself lucky in that respect.

As an adult I would never attack someone physically myself, even when pushed while being in a fragile state of mind (put to the test some years back). I will not physically fight an obviously weaker person attacking me but rather avoid them (some older, shorter but horizontally larger person a couple months ago). But as a child I regularly fought and wrestled boys mostly stronger than me. This fighting/wrestling was mostly good-natured physical competition among children. It was an ok way of dealing with aggression because there were unspoken rules like "not fighting someone who's smaller, not fighting someone who's on the floor, not fighting someone who's crying, only one person against one other at a time, no sticks or rocks etc". Anyone going against those rules was socially shunned and ridiculed by the other boys. I stuck to those rules RELIGIOUSLY, especially since I didn't belong there in the first place, being a girl, and the boys didn't like me participating. But they couldn't turn down a fight against a girl either when dared and I was already known as an oddball, never playing with dolls and other things acceptable for girls, but rather roaming fields and forests, climbing trees, making little dams in creeks, building huts etc. It's not that I wanted to intrude into "their world", it's just that because I never learned "how to girl" and really saw myself rather as a boy, and also partly natural inclination and interest for those things. This "not fitting in with the girls or boys" felt like just another random part of me being a general misfit, the way my parents made me feel systematically.
The boys certainly didn't go lightly on me because I was a girl and once a group of them got me alone and beat me for having won against one of their friends (3 or 4 boys and all I could do was scream that it was "against the rules") and then tied me to a tree for whole afternoon in the middle of the forest. That wasn't the only such incident, though it wasn't particularly traumatising (I knew they were in the wrong, and I knew they did it because it was humiliating for them to lose against a girl). I was certainly never accepted by the boys.
But I wasn't a victim. Though most often I lost, sometimes I won. Not because I was stronger (scrawny kid) but because I was fast and fought like a banshee with all the fury the abuse at home had left me with.
I fought back at my father sometimes too, but of course that just resulted in me getting hurt much worse because of it. But he couldn't intimidate me with physical violence because he was paranoid of being seen as a bad parent (was threatened to have children taken away from him before) and so couldn't really leave too many visible marks of physical abuse on me. And him trying to hurt me without leaving marks gave me sometimes opportunity to run. And much more importantly, I recognised that what he did was WRONG, because he was much stronger and larger than me and that went against the unspoken rules of fighting.
As an adult I've been attacked in the street in a mugging attempt and fought back reflexively (got beaten up and wouldn't recommend fighting back in a situation like this). Since then I feel a much stronger urge to fight back when physically threatened.
Obviously, physical violence is not a solution to anything.

But I get so desperate nowadays. There's so many things in my life that leave me feeling like a hopeless, powerless victim. I rage at the past abuse, I rage at the ongoing results of that abuse, I rage at my helplessness. Just physically fighting someone doing me wrong would be such an EASY way of dealing with "someone doing me wrong".
Some weeks ago, there was a group of young men (18 - 22?) prowling through one of the busiest street in my city. Officially, they were under the banner of demonstrating against their government. Except they spilled over the border and where now in a country with another government, a fact which seemed lost on them. Unofficially they just wanted to break things and spray cars, buildings and people with spray cans. So I was walking behind them and heard the tallest one at the front of the group bragging loudly how those stupid people here were so afraid that they were actually running from him in the park back there. The people in the very busy street kept a 3 - 4 m distance around the group, most of them hastily scuttling out of the way. This made me angry. And because of all the pent-up rage I want to fight. I had nothing on me that could be broken, wore a sturdy leather jacket and jeans, flat shoes with very grippy soles.
So I walked quickly along the group to catch up with the mouthy one. Then without ever looking at any of them I casually changed direction and stepped in front of him so he had to side-step to avoid bumping into me, which he did out of reflex. I walked a bit slower in front of them for 2 or 3 steps and then matched their normal pace while walking in the same direction. That was an unspoken physical provocation, though I wouldn't be seen as the one "starting the fight" if he attacked me. I wanted him to attack me, giving me opportunity to "rightfully defend myself" and I knew I didn't risk being beaten to a pulp because there were so many people all around.
But he didn't attack me possibly because I'm a woman, as a man I might have gotten a shove. There was just a sudden silence and then he started making a very obscene and graphic joke about women. Most of which I didn't hear or understand and walked off into the crowd ahead acting like they didn't exist.
That was obviously stupid. I didn't think very long about it but it certainly wasn't an impulsive decision either: I coldly considered feasibility and repercussions and then consciously decided to go for it: that is the part that makes me most uneasy about myself now.
I should have felt fear. Fear would have made me react appropriately and would have told me the truth: that it's not worth getting hurt for this.

But I feel fear all the time. When outside I usually try to avoid people and when I can't I try to blend in with the crowd or be as invisible as possible. Interacting with people is triggering and so I fear interaction, and I fear people.
And that anger was so liberating for a small moment.

I do realise this is messed up and I wouldn't talk about this to a 3D person. I am not a danger to society, that much I know. I don't risk cracking and just attacking people or something like that. After the mugging attempt I was scared of my reaction and went to self-defense classes to desensitise myself and control the "urge to fight back when physically attacked". I should probably do another round of that. But most of the anger and rage I feel is ultimately turned towards myself.

I can channel a good part of that rage into physical activity and am working towards being in a physical shape that allows pushing myself hard again. Which is the most efficient and long lasting solution to feeling rage for me.

[reisha]

Ephes, just a quick note, cuz i dont wanna hijack the tnread - on that last bit, bout steppin in fronta that that guy - ya did a risk assessment, & ya made a Powerful move. Period. End of discusiion. Dont 2nd guess yerself. Where once ya woulda pounced on him, now ya Slowed His Roll. He 'fought back' aas most <explicits deleted> do, w a buncha word vomit.

Imnsho, ya did Excellent Work in that sitch. - obviously, by his verbal temper tantrum response

Sendin continued support

[Flifflo]

Hello Ephes,

Welcome to this thread. Sounds like you have some powerful anger and good reasons for it. Thanks for chiming in Reisha, physical violence is one I’m not familiar with. From reading your stories it sounds like you might have a better understanding.

Provoking men of any age sounds terrifying to me. I hope you stay safe.

Warmly, Flifflo

[ephes]

Hello Reisha and Flifflo,
Uh thank you for not being put off or too much weirded out by what I wrote. I didn't expect any positive response to be honest (but if I can't talk about this here, where can I).
I'd like to say that I never pounced on anyone unannounced who hasn't attacked me first. The fighting as kids would always follow a pattern of provocation/announcing and only then wrestling. I did attack some boys outside of this competition-style wrestling because they were hurting animals (can't handle this), but I tried to stop them first with words.
As an adult I have control over the urge to fight, there's been this incident where I was repeatedly shoved from behind in a very crowded room, the shoves would have been forceful enough to make me fall (if I hadn't been squeezed in by people around). This was after the mugging attempt: after which this animal instinct of mine really came to the surface. Even then I didn't fight, though it took all I had in me not to. This extremely powerful urge to hit and hurt this person shoving me scared me a lot later. Which is why I tried to desensitise with self-defense/martial arts classes.
As for the incident in town, I'm afraid it wasn't really a powerful move of stepping up to bullies or anything like that. I did this entirely for selfish reasons, because as a child fighting was a way of leaving the helplessness and victimhood behind in some way, at least for the physical abuse aspect. Ultimately, I tried to do pretty much the same thing what those bullies did - find an outlet for aggression - and probably for similar reasons.
Anyway, there's this dark part inside me and I know aggression is a part of the animal we all are underneath the thin layer that civilization and social norms have allowed us to grow. But I struggle with the forcefulness of that impulse that I feel sometimes, it doesn't reconcile with who I am otherwise and who I want to be.
Anyway, thank you for still talking to me, it made me cry with relief and I am very touched. Thank you.

[johnram]

Hi Ephes,

i can relate to some degree, have spent many years visualising anger against those that harmed me (on occasion still happens), and also visualising someone creating a conflict with me in the street and then me releasing my deep wrath / "justice" (doesnt seem to happen now). Your post reminded me that this hasnt been happening as much anymore, and i think it takes time for the anger to settle. A long time even.

However, i have the problem that expressing anger isnt something i feel at ease with. I havent done it in a long time, and maybe its because i am scared of it. Its why i have been wanting to post in this chain, but havent as i know it will make me cry - but that makes me want to do it more too.

For you Ephes, i would say, i think there is good in having these responses, its your bodys natural (think original hunter gatherer) setting to protect itself, it also says that you are strong and will not be a victim anymore. I may not be saying this clearly, but i feel a narrative of empowerment in the midst of this all. Not sure if that makes sense, but i feel it has a change in it?

[johnram]

Going to try and write my angry post, as otherwise it will take me another few days, and its in my head for already 3/4 days.

Edit - i didnt know what i was going to write, and ended up writing a dialogue of a sorts below.
---------------

Anger,

i feel you in my brain, i feel you in my wrists, i feel you in my heart. I am sorry i didnt listen to you for a long time, and became an unassertive person, you scared me, reminded me of a time i didnt want to feel again, a time that was too painful, a time where the worst that could happen happened.
I am glad i have kept you at bay, as if i hadnt, i could have destroyed my father, i could have destroyed other family members and we would be worse for it. However i was to prudent, i gave up my needs to express and be myself in all and many walks of life, i lost my confidence, i lost a voice, i let others rule me as i lost you in the healthy ways that you can offer. I speak in past tense, as i feel you are with me in a way that is more balanced now. I hope i have given you the space needed, the release needed, but talk to me, as you have been my protector when i was younger, you kept the deep pain at a distance for many a year. I love you.

----------------------

Now lets test it and see what comes up

------

Dad,

I have wished you dead many a time, i have wished you the deepest pain and suffering many a time, many a time i visualised destroying you, making you pay for what you did to me, what you did to mum, what you made me do to her. Make you accountable for the harm on my brothers who became my children, because you were not able. You ruined us. Turned us against one another. Manipulated us. You dont deserve the love we gave you.
I still hate you, but i have learnt though, that anger doesnt help me anymore, it tires me, you are just a guy and a weak guy, so you are not worth it, the more i focus on me and my growth, the more i get away from you and your influence.
I expect you to come to me one day, for reconciliation, when you are on your death bed, it wont affect me, you have had many a chance, but you are weak, so pathetic and when that day comes, i shall ignore your needs as you ignored all of us.

-------

Anger,
stay with me, but be patient as we move forward, as i am still flawed and need your help, i love you for protecting me.

------