Thoughts on Anger and My Path to Resolution

Over the years, I've filed many things about anger and wrote about it on my journal. As you hear this you may begin to understand that anger was one of the biggest mountain I willingly climbed and was also the hardest to climb down from.

Anger to me was the most difficult emotion to understand. On one hand. it has protected me and has become my self-defense from pain and betrayal. Heck, it has even stopped me from physically hurting myself. Yet on the other, it has also stopped me from feeling relief from the pain that others have caused.

Throughout my journey (as it yet continues), I've written phrases about it that I wish to share with you. I wrote them down as they were my light bulb moments:

• Anger can be directly and respectfully addressed

• Anger can hijack and take hostage of myself....of yourself - it's called rage, or explosive anger

• We have every right to feel anger. It is what we do with the anger that isn't always okay

• Anger is real and no one is allowed to invalidate our feelings of anger. However, we are responsible for our emotions.

• Persisting anger and blame can eventually lead to shame which will continue to spiral to anger, then blame then shame. It is a vicious cycle. However, it can stop. It is not permanent. It takes courage to move past that cycle. But it is not forever because we all have a choice. It really just takes a lot of courage to face it. Yet when we are ready for that change, we know, because somehow we are tired of being in that cycle.

• Function of Anger: 
• To motivate a change.
• To protect or warn us when our moral boundaries or beliefs have been violated

• Anger can help us determine if injustice is going on, we can ask ourselves if we can fix the situation, address it or must it be radically accepted that the abuser will never take responsibility for it, so we must move on for the sake of our own self - not them the abuser!

• Distraction can help with anger. One may say that distraction is only temporary. I agree, but it can help delay and can help us from exploding. It can stop anger from taking us hostage. Distractions can either be:
•  activities (sports, exercise, arts and crafts, places to go, books, puzzles, games, cooking etc)
• feeling other emotions by assessing your entire experience which can be done by validation and understanding
• pushing away and leaving the situation. Avoiding.
• alternate thoughts, being mindful. So instead of saying, "I can't stand this", challenge your thoughts into "I can do it" or something less painful like "just breathe" or a more truthful approach and self evident like "I know who I am, and that's not me" or "I've come from worse times" or "I would never hurt anyone"
• self soothing sensations using your vision, touch, hearing, smell and taste
• connecting to environment (calling someone, making eye contact, honesty with treaters, volunteer, pet animals, go for coffee, asking someone and being interested of other's well being, hugging someone)

• Some people deserve to know about our anger, especially our abusers and/or the people who have betrayed us. However, I've painfully come to realize that some of them don't really care about our anger and pain because they emotionally and mentally can't. Which gives it more evidence that they don't deserve any part of me, of us anymore. They don't deserve anything, not an ounce, not a second from us. They are simply suffering and sad human beings who are far more lost than we are. They live in a world with much more pain and that is why they can throw pain at us without any thought. They are thoughtless, and heartless and numb. They are farther than we are in the healing process. They are in pain just like we are but they are far more suffering. You may want to help them and give them chances, but ultimately, if they aren't ready for a change, as they have shown on how to handle our honesty and courage, they will continue to hurt us. Radically accepting the pain that they threw at us could possibly be the only way to heal and forgive. Accepting the fact that we may never hear their apology and feel their remorse. Forgiving them this way is giving up the hope that the past could be any different. We are accepting that it is not us to blame but them, yet at the same time, accepting that we can't change the person who made us feel this way. But we can change our own path, our destiny, our future so we can live our own lives how we want them, by our choice, not theirs. We make the decision to heal and move on for ourselves, not them. They can't stop us from feeling joy. We matter, not them.

Blame

I received this article about blame when I was at the hospital in 2013.  It is one of those things that made me think so much about the choices I make everyday and where I truly wanted to be in the future. I believe it is part of a book that deals with anger. I tried to research where it came from but unfortunately I couldn't track the book. Either way, it talks a lot about what blame is and what it does to us.

It is a great article to educate us more about our feelings surrounding anger. I truly believe that by understanding our emotions, it takes us one step closer to begin our healing journey.

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Blame

In order to heal you must look at blame. Only after anger and blame are expressed and supported can they be replaced with forgiveness and pity. Without forgiveness, you cannot experience freedom from the anguish and control the abuse has over you. Many survivors join together to bash their abusers (and sometimes men in general). Letting out their anger towards their abusers and the world becomes the stopping point for some victims. It is important that you do not misunderstand anger. You have every right to be furious and rageful at your abuser. But when you get stuck in the anger or blame (either toward your abuser or yourself), it becomes destructive to you. There is a place and time to let out the anger and blame, then it is important to move beyond it. This journey is designed to help you deal with your rage and blame. You must tame those animals so you can move forward, out of the dark forest. If you do not tame or leave the animals behind, they will eventually control your life as they attempt to devour you.

Like other defenses, blame protects you from pain. As long as you are continually blaming others or yourself, you remain a victim. The pain that is protected by defenses creates a wall that keeps you in a powerless state. As you hold onto blame, your energy is focused on other people controlling you. It is hard to stop this pattern as long as you put yourself in the victim role. When you were a child you were truly a victim and others were to blame. This set up the pattern of coping during a time when you did not have control. That pattern often remains as one grows into an adult. The child's survival defense is based on the belief that people will hurt you, that they (or you) are to blame, and there is nothing you can do. The problem with blaming as an adult is that it continues to render you a helpless victim. Again, I need to make sure you do not misunderstand that I am not taking responsibility away from the abuser. Your abuser is at fault for the abuse and therefore deserves your anger; but when you hang onto the blame and the rage for years and years, it is you who is re-abusing yourself by allowing your abuser to continue to control your life and happiness. The abuser sucks you into the vicious cycle of abuse and you then pass the effects of it on to others in your life.

By now you are probably asking, "What am I suppose to do if not blame my abuser for what he did to my life?" First, you must see that your abuser only has true control over you if you are a child. Now, as an adult, it is you who decides what will control you. It is your wild animals which you must leave behind or tame. 

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I wish I knew the name of the book from where this writing came from so I can share it with you and I can learn from it too. As I understand, the book is about dealing with anger and blame and understanding those wild animals inside of us. If you know the book, please share it with me and others.

I hope that by sharing this short piece with you that you may find hope in your life today. Also, that by reading this, that it will make you want to understand your anger and start the process of healing and moving on.