Dealing with anger

[greybluegreen]

I feel SO angry at the way I've allowed myself to be treated in the past. I was such a doormat and people walked all over me. (Abusive childhood). Friends, boyfriends, family all treated me like crap.

How on earth do you deal with the anger? I'm inwardly screaming at them and feel so pissed off with myself for being so spineless. I am having therapy.

Didn't want to leave your post unanswered OP. I don't have any suggestions on dealing with anger (you're already having counselling which is a good start). However, you're not alone.

No history of abuse for me but I do struggle with anger. I'm VERY angry and anxious ALL THE TIME! It's exhausting and overwhelming.

I hope the counselling helps you with acknowledging your feelings without letting them consume you. Talking things through will help you to let go of the past and teach you techniques to ensure that you don't allow yourself to be treated the same way in the future.

@greybluegreen I'm sorry for what you've been through.

I'm not an expert. But what struck me is that it's right that you feel angry. Anger sounds like an appropriate reaction to what has happened to you.

We are often conditioned not to be angry- but sometimes it's justified.

I can understand though, that it's a difficult emotion to feel, and I'm wondering if you can work out what bits of it are particularly hard and work on those bits.

Maybe you could ask your therapist what they think about your anger, and how you might be able to cope with it?

@HardcoreParkour Thank you for your response, I really appreciate it. I completely understand how exhausted you feel with it. I feel the same way. I'm so tired of this and don't know how to process this anger. I don't want to feel angry at the past, which is what I'm doing. I'm ruminating and going over things that happened years ago and I want to just move on. I'm not sure if this is part of the process or if I'm stuck. I have really bad anxiety too, so I'm sorry you feel that way.

@freckles20 Thank you for being kind. I'm having Gestalt therapy and she talks to me about grounding techniques and trying to get the anger out but I don't really know how. I actually have got to the stage where I feel like smashing down walls with my fists. I feel like I could rip someone apart with my hands; it's frightening to feel so much rage.

You're right though, that it is the appropriate response to what's happened but I'm kicking things across the room! I'm not usually like this. You're completely correct in that dismissing my feelings like anger was conditioned into me. I wasn't allowed to express feelings and so didn't learn how to safely and healthily deal with strong emotions. I just want to be at peace but I'm wondering if what I'm doing is healthy.

I'm doing mindfulness meditation every day. At the moment, I'm doing a meditation called "turning towards difficult feelings", which is what I'm trying to do instead of repressing everything. Thank you again.

@greybluegreen that sounds really difficult. I hope your therapist can help you find a way to process your anger, or reassure you that this is an uncomfortable but necessary part of moving forward.

Would it be silly to suggest you use a punch bag or something else that you can physically hit hard?

I'm not great at exercising but I wonder if something that is strenuous for you might help too.

It's a credit to you that you're working through this stuff, it's never easy but often very worth it.

[quote freckles20]@greybluegreen that sounds really difficult. I hope your therapist can help you find a way to process your anger, or reassure you that this is an uncomfortable but necessary part of moving forward.

Would it be silly to suggest you use a punch bag or something else that you can physically hit hard?

I'm not great at exercising but I wonder if something that is strenuous for you might help too.

It's a credit to you that you're working through this stuff, it's never easy but often very worth it. [/quote]
It's not silly at all! It's a great idea and something I wish I could but I have a chronic illness and can't expend that much energy unfortunately. I think going somewhere to scream would be great and punching a pillow would also be great. They're all excellent ideas that my therapist has already suggested. She wants me to do a chair exercise where I tell the person what I think of their behaviour, but I don't feel ready for it yet. Not sure what I'm waiting for.

I think it's part of the process. The anger has come to the surface and I'm having to experience it and deal with it. I started having flashbacks as well, so it's been very difficult especially during lock down where I have no distractions.

Thanks for the credit, I appreciate it. It's been hard but the alternative is remaining in a state of suffering and I want to move on and hopefully change. Ty

It sounds really hard. Especially having to conserve your energy when often we associate dealing with anger by using a physical release.

Lockdown has made things so much harder for so many of us. So many of the 'usual' ways to distract ourselves aren't available, and getting support from others is harder too.

Keep going @greybluegreen, one step at a time, slowly slowly moving forward.

Does writing it down work? It works for some people. You can dispose of it afterwards if you don’t want to read it back or for anyone else to read it. You can scream if you want to too. Maybe into a pillow if your scared of other people hearing. Or stamping or hitting a cushion.