Angry all the time post abuse, is this normal?

[Fightingback16]

Has anybody gone through this and have any advice, will it ever end, is this normal?

I came out of 11 year abusive last year with trauma and PTSD. I seem to be moving past constant fear and onto anger. I’m angry all the time, just scratch the surface and I’m pissed off. I know I’m not angry with the situation or people in front of me now. I’m angry about what happened, how it happened, how I never knew I was living so bad. I’m angry as when I met my husband I just finished my Masters, i’d been in magazines, newspapers, the radio, I was a vibrant achiever, I was in the flow of opportunities. It literally stopped the day I met him (I won’t go into details, I’m sure we all know how abuse works).
Now I’m none of those things, I’m struggling to regain my identity, working through my fear, trying to raise my daughter alone, trying to get myself working like a normal human and not get freaked out by the slightest thing. I am not myself at all, not like I was, so I’m pissed off at life and at him!
I have a right to be pissed off but it’s not really helpful all the time!

I understand completely, I had a thread on here at Christmas when after years of abuse and getting more and more anxious, shy and scared, I very suddenly became angry and bit the tip of my partner’s tongue off after he tried to force himself on me. I was horrified and very shaken. I’m still months on getting surges of anger. I’m trying to just acknowledge that this is part of healing process. I’m trying meditation to try and combat it. He still has a massive amount of control over my life and I’ve realised that it won’t be until my two year old is adult that I’ll be free. If ever.
I do think you need to try and heal before starting a new relationship. Try therapy perhaps?

@QuentinWinters that diagram is brilliant and spot on. I’m most definitely at anger and when I’m not angry I am at the who the heck am I, which sends me back to anger as I should know that and he shouldn’t have taken that from me. Thanks for sending that!

I’m glad that anger is normal, I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I’d left so why aren’t I happy.

Self compassion is a useful way to deal with anger - if you google it look for a TED talk on this. Its a simple concept but so much better than the complexities of building that elusive self esteem.
Also - "getting over things" - balls to that ! getting over something often involves negating the experience - and its now a big part of your life - trying to get back to the path you were on before this all happened is self destructive and I would suggest you can't get back to your once familiar creative stuff is because you are not the same person you where when you stopped.
Acknowledge the anger and unfairness and how it has made you someone you might never have had the chance to be otherwise - not a lesson you wanted to learn but it has changed you in exceptional ways - use that in your new work.

It's perfectly natural.

It's good as it means you feel you didn't deserve the abuse, it wasn't ok. So you aren't 100% blaming yourself, and it will also mean hopefully you don't put up with such stuff from any partner you have in future.

If the memories are painful, EMDR therapy is really good.

@665TheNeighbourOfTheBeast I think this makes a lot of sense. Someone told me to think back to who I was and try picking up from there. I can see who I was but it’s making me anxious because I don’t feel how I was. I picked up my pen to draw because that had to be my thing but it’s not working now. I’m getting myself in a stew trying to be someone else, who I was has gone.

@NoMoreDickheads I 100% blame him. I was lovely and creative and caring when he met me, there wasn’t a single bad thing I could say about myself. Can’t say that now though, not exactly happy with myself but then I’m not happy with what’s happened either. I would like to be the gentle caring person I used to be but not going to happen!

You need to find the right counselling for you. It is very very difficult to unpick without help. I had hypno psychotherapy which really helped me. My ex is a narcissist who systematically destroyed my self esteem and self worth. I had to come to terms with what he'd done and see why I'd allowed it (or more accurately why he'd done it and I hadn't realised what was happening). Conditioning that has taken years doesn't leave you straight away but the right counselling really can help.

For me it’s coming to terms with it that I’m finding hard and I’m so desperate for my counselling to start. I was conditioned from childhood. My mum had a drunk father and a mother who was cold. My mum did not know how to show me love so I didn’t have that connection. But I was in a normal 5 year relationship before my husband. He behaved in such a way towards me that I think would throw off many people, strong and weak. You can’t help how you behave whilst in survival mode. It’s a double ended sword because he may dampen the effects but it also keeps you locked in the relationship as you lie to yourselves about what’s happening. Regardless of who I was and I will not accept any of this.

Be proud that you got out of it. When you feel the anger rising, pat yourself out on the back and think of what you’ve achieved. Getting away from an abusive partner is incredibly hard plus you’ve had to go to court. How strong you are! Be kind to yourself now. Stop thinking about “shoulds” that’s the first thing a counsellor will tell you. You now think about “what is” and “what can be” distracting yourself from rumination is key. If you can’t commit to a full time course, how about an online open university? If you fill your time with meaningful pursuits then you’ll feel better about yourself. Look at it this way. You were with him for 11years. It could have been 20. You’ve saved yourself a lot of years. Time to fly. Remember that the best revenge is to be happy

When is your counselling starting? Lots are doing zoom/online counselling so you could start immediately

I’m not really proud so much, I didn’t get myself out of there. I had a breakdown, I was traumatised and he told me to get out of our house or else. I’m proud I guess that I’ve not gone back, although to be honest I don’t remember ever loving him so that was the “break” I needed. It’s just such a shame it came to that.

It’s a double ended sword because he may dampen the effects but it also keeps you locked in the relationship as you lie to yourselves about what’s happening.
Yep. I recognise that too. The worst thing for me about my divorce was realising my marriage was a mirage

You are doing well in recognising all this. Please try to be kind to yourself.

@Fightingback16

There is a women who was at the freedom programme with me, she met a new man a few weeks after leaving her abusive husband of 12 years. I want that, but I’m so not in the right place, how can she be and not me.

That doesn't mean she'll be happy with him. I don't think it's recommended that anyone starts a new relationship that quickly - it's easy to be love-bombed and to find yourself with someone who targets vulnerable people.

It's perfectly normal to be angry, I was furious and so very angry. One thing that helped me was to write everything down, I wrote page after page of ranting, I used to push my pen through the paper. I didn't send my ranting to anyone but it took the edge off my rage. It ended up being very therapeutic.
Please don't feel bad about how you got out. You're out and that's the main thing. I hope you are able to access some therapy or counselling soon.

Anger for me lasted the longest. But I was glad when it came because to me it signified that I was free. Because I suddenly felt I had the right to be angry again. Without having a million thoughts in his voice telling me why I shouldnt be and must be a bad person to be mad at him.

Also, I'd be inclined to think that lady on the course who found a new partner right after leaving her abusive one...is taking a big risk. Its common to jump right from one abuser to the next and he may be acting all sweetness and light right now but I'm betting that'll change.

You gotta learn to be comfortable in your own company again. Also have a lot of work on learning how to spot these bastard in future to do before you start dating again anyway. It will get easier though.

I totally recommend dancing to music when you get angry btw. Always made me feel so much better. Even if it meant dancing until I was exhausted. Some people run instead too.

Yeah I’d rather be angry then guilty. At least this way the decisions I make about child contact and the financial settlement (whenever that gets through the court) will be on mine and my daughters best interests. He said he would make me suffer for leaving him, I was terrified of what that meant but now I’ll quite happily take as much as I can and I don’t care what he ends up with!

Aye fuck him. Go all out, take everything you can get as you can be damn sure he will try to do the same from you. Kindness and compromise will only be seen as weakness by him so don't try and appease him at the expense of anything you want. Make sure to quote what he said in any court/to others to show what a nasty bastard he is. He wont want people knowing he said that xD

I have it all in text, he went all out when I left, threatened his own life, called me all sorts threatened all sorts....I’m so pissed off that I left the house and took no money. So now he has spent most of it, sent it all abroad to his family and won’t leave the house that’s got to be disputed through the courts. He will make himself out to be the biggest twat/bully and I will put my anger into making sure that they hear it all!!!

Maybe he'll bugger off back abroad to live with his family after it all.

Hope you get the house! Take him for all you can in child support.

Either way at least you and your kid got outa there and your sanity has returned. Even though it might not feel it atm but anger is a really good sign :)

I went through this last year. I was very angry at everyone.

I’m not angry at my daughter by the way. I’m angry at myself for when I get angry over stupid little things that don’t go right. I get to the end of the day upset with myself

Have a read about the window of tolerance. It can get very narrow after a long period of stress....and then the smallest thing can throw you out of your window that you can tolerate stuff in, making you very angry or upset or so on.

It is definitely possible to widen the window again but it takes time.

www.attachment-and-trauma-treatment-centre-for-healing.com/blogs/understanding-and-working-with-the-window-of-tolerance

Give this a try.

It's helping me with anxiety, it's a well thought of book by many people in that field.

Good luck.

@user1481840227 The lady who is waiting to see talked a little about this. She said before trauma therapy can start I need to work on downgrading my system so that I can stay within my window of tolerance. Once I’m out then I’m not able to listen or process anything.

I’ve had a read now. Makes a lot of sense. I’m bouncing between hyper and hypo, in none of there states can I process any of what’s happened. I’m freaked out when I think about the lack of control I had over those years, it’s scary. I am also staying with my mum so I can afford to pay the lawyers to get the house sorted. She is doing my head in and it just reminds me how crap our bond is and she is so negative. (I had a thread on this and I do need to get out, I just need to money to afford the lawyer)

Yes I can understand what you're going through completely. I was bouncing in between those 2 states also. It was awful. I also had chronic insomnia at the time which made it even worse because there was no break from it. Like you I had a cold upbringing which basically set me up to end up in bad relationships.....and like you felt such a lack of control and like I was powerless about things that happened in my life.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though, I feel fine now. I obviously still have trauma from the past but it doesn't affect me day to day at all really!

That seems strange to me that you can't start therapy until you've widened your window of tolerance yourself. I had a small amount of therapy last year and the first thing he discussed with me was the window of tolerance and said we would work on it together. I found that in the sessions I wasn't going out of the window of tolerance at all...because it was a safe place where someone was listening and actually hearing me!