To find that the older I get, the angrier I get about my abusive childhood?

[IToldYouIWantedTheUnicorn]

I grew up with an abusive dad and an enabler mum. Both were physically and mentally abusive to me. My sister was the golden child but even she was abused to an extent.

I am now in my forties and have teenage kids of my own. I have been non contact with my parents for around 8 years.

I just find that the older I get, the angrier I get about my childhood. I am on low dose antidepressants long term due to my my childhood and have no depression or anxiety at all these days. I just feel fucking angry! Probably because I love my kids so much and can't imagine acting towards them in that way.It makes the abuse even harder to stomach.

I've tried (over the past 20+ years) counselling, CBT, hypnotherapy, self help books, you name it, I've tried it.

Will I ever get over this angry feeling? I'm so happy in all other aspects of my life but I still get childhood flashbacks.

Hey OP. I went through a lot of emotions as I aged, and I still do have periods in my life where it affects me.
I think the anger was the worst to deal with, because it made me a horrible person even though my life was/is great.
I don't know if you can get over it, I think you learn to live with things until such time they come up with something to eradicate memories you don't want. I've had all sorts of therapy, the only effective sort being EMDR. I had a moment earlier this year where it was on my mind a lot. I couldn't afford to go back to therapy, so I literally wrote down what I was feeling. It did help.

I was an abused child too. I had cPTSD until my 40s and had no idea of it, until a major trigger happened and I became inexplicably ill with very frightening symptoms like severe short-term memory loss. I'm so sorry you have been through this.

I picked up two gems of wisdom from the wonderful psychotherapist who treated me. One is that the earlier back into your life the abuse goes, the harder it is to unpick. The other is that CBT is often used as a catch-all for the treatment of trauma but it isn't necessarily the best as it was designed for use in very specific, controlled conditions.

I was treated using EMDR therapy, which is available on the NHS but you have to know it's there and actively ask for it or you'll likely as not be guided down the CBT route. I've also had months' worth of ordinary counselling and it did doodly squat. EMDR has very encouraging success rates and some studies suggest it actively cures PTSD (it won't, however, stop further trauma in the future which may have to be retreated). I can genuinely say it has given me back my life - a life I didn't even understand had been taken from me in the first place.

It's okay to be angry sometimes. You have a right to feel angry: this fucker took your childhood away from you and I agree that when I became a parent I found it even more unfathomable. But my monster of a father doesn't control me the way he used to.

Wishing you peace and healing. Things did get better for me. I hope they do for you, too

I'm so sorry.

I think you need to allow the anger to happen, to fully feel it, before it can flow away. With anger, often we are conditioned to try to squash it down or rationalise it away when we first become aware of it. But it doesn't just go away, it festers.

Perhaps as you are getting older you are less afraid of the rage inside you? Anger at your abusive childhood is entirely appropriate. Anger is not destructive here, it validates your feelings that no, your childhood was not good enough and no it wasn't fair and things should have been different. You deserved 'good enough' parents, who didn't abuse you. You were a kid and the abuse and the fall out were not your fault.

What made you suddenly go no contact with them?