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!

This makes sense. Last night I don’t know why it happened, I wasn’t thinking about anything I just felt like I couldn’t catch enough breath. It was a feeling I got a lot in the last year of my marriage and about the same time my dad was dying. I couldn’t think my way out of it I just felt my back was tense and my lungs solid. My heartbeat was fine not racing. I get this feeling and I really don’t like it.

Yep if you look at the link I posted earlier about the window of tolerance you will see that the advice given at the end is based on soothing your body or using up energy more so than thinking your way out of it.

I have been talking via email to my dv support worker. I’ve reached a point where talking is doing nothing for me. I know all about abuse, about what it does, what he did to me, how my brain adapted etc. None of this does anything to help me get over my feelings. I actually have stopped looking at my past now and actively stop myself from thinking about it purposely.
Those horrible feelings of not being able to breath always happen at night when my daughter is asleep and I can’t really do anything to burn it off. It’s a time I was stressed back then as when she was asleep it was just me and him and I had to hide myself.

The anger is the one thing you just have to accept, work through, try to understand, there really is no easy fit for that shit, so sorry to give you this info but is.
Try to recognise your anger as a result of the abuse and not part of you, it is a result, not part of you.
You've made it out, celebrate where you can and be kind to yourself

Agree with happystep here, when you're going through this it is so intense that it feels like you'll be stuck this way forever.....but you really won't.

This is an aftermath of abuse and grieving for the time and opportunities you feel like you lost.

but It will get better and you will get through it and the anger will subside!

It’s frustrating because I don’t want him to have anymore of my time and getting over him is still giving him time.

You sound very self aware and that can be a good thing going forward.
Why are you angry? Have you looked inwards at the root of your anger?
I had this anger too after abuse real scary rages.
I had a good counsellor (worked for me anyway) and one thing I remember them saying to me, is that anger sometimes manifests as another emotion, such as sadness, injustice, disappointment etc?
So whats underneath your rage? When it comes up sit with it and observe it sort of try to detach?
For me it was I was angry with myself! For allowing it to carry on, for not having better boundaries, for not being stronger.
This really helped me to unpick what I was really feeling and then work through the sadness/ loss of the hopes I had of the relationship working out.
I think if you dont get to the cause the problem may remain and you stay in anger mode. Hopefully you can get to acceptance too.
Anger does burn out though maybe punch and scream into pillow to help diffuse it. You have been through a lot and its ok to feel all your emotions/ have a good cry etc until you get through each day functioning more healthily.

Through therapy, a good therapist will tell you the anger is good and you need to process it.
This takes time, it is frustrating but there is no quick fix. It could be all the feelings you've had to push down over the years. All the times you've been taught to ignore your feelings. They are coming to surface.

I have a whole load of anger for a lot of people. For my mum for creating a child with no self esteem and anxiety. I spoke recently to my aunty (who chose not to have children) and she said they were raised by cold parents, my grandad was an aggressive drunk and my nan never never cuddled them or showed love. My mum raised us the only way she knew, but it’s caused me a lot of damage. I’m angry at myself for getting into my marriage, although at the time I didn’t know what was going to happen. I can’t believe I let someone treat me so badly, but then abuse is not something you know is happening. I’m angry at my husband but there really isn’t much point being angry at him because I should never have thought it was acceptable. I’m angry that the experience of having children is ruined, I was too anxious and surviving him to enjoy any of it. I’m angry that I just put aside my career for his life. I’m angry that I never took him up on one of his threats.

I’m angry at the very fact he didn’t give a s**t about me really. He so very easily just let me go when I said I can’t stay in a relationship with him because I can’t be a good mum to our daughter. After desperately trying to love bomb me into changing my mind I still said I can’t do this anymore. He said right give me back my wedding rings and get out of the house (much more violently then that).

You aren’t giving him more time, you are giving yourself and your daughter time. I know the anger. You are angry with yourself for putting up with the shit. You have to feel this first before you can let it go and start to accept, forgive and love yourself.
It’s taken me my whole life.

I’m also very angry that I have neglected myself so badly over the years, I didn’t realise I was doing it. Most of my teeth have needed to be filled and my hair started falling out and going grey after a few years with him. I’m literally falling apart at 37

Work through the anger. It's bloody annoying but it's good. It shows you care about yourself and are working for a better you.
It's normal that once out of an abusive relationship, you realise what other shit behaviour you had from people who were meant to be there for you. It's prob why you eneded up on that relationship, it's all you knew about love.
It's ok and it's healthy. It is not your fault.

I don’t really want to be angry with my mum anymore. I’m very snappy at her because she really is the cause of all of this. I used to be a very anxious person around her, I always tried to please her. I’m not sure if she was intentionally a rubbish mother or not. I’m not anxious anymore as an adult. She is trying her best, she helps me financially and with my daughter. She isn’t abusive now but she does nothing for me emotionally, she isn’t someone I can go to for emotional support, she just isn’t capable of it. I don’t really understand the relationship we have.

Its good that you are identifying why you are angry. Its a good sign that you are not prepared to be treated like this any more.
It can be a turning point, healing you so once you move through this you eill be stronger emotionally.
Its never to late to have better boundaries and say enough to people. You deserve better and your anger is a reminder to not put up with others poor behaviour towards you.

It’s just a shame I didn’t think more of myself 15 years ago!!!

I know.. be angry about that too of it helps but it never too late to make different choices. See red flags in people going forward. Its easier to not get involved with abusers in the first place. I used to see the good in everyone and thought they would change etc if I was super nice etc. Sadly some people cant/ wont change but you need to weed them out very early on ok. The love bombers/ people that are self absorbed, make unfair demands etc.
You are enough as you are zero tolerance from now on 😊

I don’t think I’ll be “normal” enough to be in another relationship. He seriously messed me up sexually, he convinced me for over a decade I had problems because I couldn’t do what he wanted, or connect to him that way. He has really humiliated me, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get passed that.

Oh fighting
I felt like that too. I remember telling ex-H I thought he'd ruined sex for me (and him looking pleased).
BUT turns out I was wrong, which I'm very happy about. DP is in no way exploitative, never pressures me and genuinely just loves whatever we do. We have been together 2 years and it's the best sex of my life. I feel extremely lucky (and also very sad I didn't find this before).

I hope that happens to me. God knows how you date as a single parent with a 4 year old .

I’ve realised I don’t feel so anxious the last few weeks. I wonder if this anger is just the energy I’m used to producing to be on guard and then anxious. My body needs to get used to not needing this level of ever now.

Maybe the anger is replacing the anxiety?
All the repressed feelings are coming out.
That's good. It's only now after many traumatic things happened to me, i have found my anger because I freeze
. Protection mode. It takes a while but it's healthy. It's processing

My protection mode with my husband was freeze and then often flop.

Sometimes I literally can’t believe the things I know remember and I put up with and how I behaved....It’s hard to accept that it was a different time and I was in survival. Some things are so bloody ridiculous I really believed it!!

Sometimes I find myself asking myself just what we’re you thinking. I’m not stupid, I know right from wrong, I know what love and respect is....just wtf were you thinking, then you have child!!!! I have to convince myself that’s the whole problem I wasn’t thinking, I was reacting, that’s how abuse works, they don’t want you thinking, they give you no time to think! Now I have time to think it’s so bloody hard to rationally think about it which is probably why I’m angry at myself!

Its cognitive dissonance. Your brain was trying to make sense of two opposing states. One being I'm married and spouses love and care for each other even when things are hard, and the other being my husband is sometimes abusive and unloving to me. Your brain can't deal with both, so denial of one state is the result. In both our cases, the denial was of the abuse. It's not our fault. We were trying to preserve state 1.

dilbert.com/strip/1992-08-09

It doesn't help coming from a background where you don't learn about healthy loving relationships.

I found the shark cage metaphor useful, unfortunately the original description is not widely available as it's being used for training, but I found this useful site about it

www.google.com/amp/s/www.oomm.live/the-shark-cage-metaphor-spotting-potential-abusers/amp/

It feels odd in my brain because I still have the memories of thinking it was ok but now I know it wasn’t, it makes me feel foggy. I feel like I was brainwashed and now awake and thinking what the hell happened. Invasion of the body snatchers!