To think such anger and irritability is normal

[justajother]

When going through therapy?
I have had a lot of trauma in my life. I was dumped by my husband out of the blue for ow and left parenting three kids with SN. I've managed through it and have had periods of low mood. I've had plenty of counselling but none like I'm presently having.

I really click with her but for the first time ever my
Anger and rage is bubbling and rising to the top.
My friend said to me ..'about time..' as I'm Very passive really and feel just broken from it all. I am now full of rage and anger at the unfairness of my life.
Is this normal??? Five years on ?

I think so. I imagine you’ve been too busy to get angry and anger is a normal response to what happened. Your new therapist is helping you to get the anger that you’ve suppressed out and hopefully gone. People do bury or retain emotions for years, PTSD for example. I hope you’ll feel much lighter soon.

Where does the anger go though? I feel like I'm breaking down or something

It can be normal, I certainly felt a fair bit but nothing that massively impacted my life.

Unfortunately though, I once had to detach from an acquaintance who became consumed by anger and rage when she was having EMDR because she became really difficult (and frightening) to be around and would share fantasies of her parents death and things which was very upsetting. She claimed it was all a normal part of EMDR, as did her therapist, but her personality had changed so much that I no longer felt safe.

Does your therapist give you tools to manage and release the anger in a healthy way? Is it affecting your day to day life?

I may get flamed for saying this, but I regret how long I stayed in weekly therapy (years) and feel it kept me stuck and traumatised and in a "reactive", "reliving" state which stole some time from me. It would take about 3 days to get over a session evedy week. Beyond the initial processing, I think I would have benefitted more from a sort of coaching for how to move forward and more practical help. Therapy kept me in quite an unhealthy state and when I'd mention this (ie I'm reacting to an reliving 30 year old pain when I need to focus on my current relationship) she'd keep saying this was necessary and I needed to go deeper, to the point where I then felt too afraid to stop having therapy. In the end the pandemic meant I had to stop and I never resumed and actually I've been much better since. My relationships with family haven't been so affected by the anger and rage I was experiencing from decades old wounds, since I stopped therapy.

As great as your relationship is with the counsellor, they need to help you with strategies to cope with this anger.
Otherwise, it might be that they are the wrong fit.