Anger issues

[Ripped Heart]

Just come back from my T appointment and we explored the fact that I have issues around anger. This caught me off guard a little because I'm not violent or abusive, in fact I would say very much the opposite and it is in fact here lies the issue. I don't get angry at things I'm supposed to be angry at but then I was the one to throw in what I felt was a curve ball. If anger is an expression of our own emotions and feelings, how can someone else tell you what you are supposed to be angry about?

It's not that I don't feel anger or frustration and it's not that I don't have a healthy way of releasing that anger. Quite often I diffuse the anger before it even has chance to build up by addressing the feelings behind it, taking responsibility for those feelings and in turn turning healthy anger into guilt for feeling that way. Why? Because I was always brought up to feel that anger was a dirty word and should I ever try and express that anger towards my parents, it was immediately thrown back at me in terms of guilt. I learned to feel empathy and sorrow towards the person who I was angry at, take ownership for their actions and in turn switch off from abuse. I would empathise with my abusers rather than address my own feelings. And this is where I have an issue around anger.

PatientandClear asked me the other night how I felt about my BPDgf cheating on me. And why I could suddenly go from feeling so much pain about the infidelity to saying that was last month and today is a new day. So in a way to say thank you for PatientandClear challenging me on that one, we focused on that today and found the answer to the question I was asked. Aspergers does play a role in how I process things, sometimes it can take several days before the logic and emotions match but that is who I am and as much as I try and adapt to others understand them, I have to allow people to adapt and understand who I am.

So, someone does something that I feel anger about. I analyse my feelings and discover that the anger is from my own insecurities or feelings and that I'm being unfair. So I find closure, apologise if I'm in the wrong and move forward.

Sometimes that anger is justified and I attempt to address the situation. In terms of someone like my mother, it's thrown directly back in terms of guilt or in BPDgf, ignored completely, or trigger her emotions. Out of my own fears of hurting others, I apologise and absorb it but have no closure. For me, there is no outlet, I can go for a walk, listen to music, go to the gym and release those feelings but it hasn't addressed the issues and they sit there building up over time. Eventually I reach a stage where I either drag up an issue from the past that is still bugging me, in which case I then feel guilty for addressing the past or I just let it go and allow that person to keep doing the same thing over and over again.

It came out today that I still hold anger towards my mother for not giving me the opportunity to have wants and needs of my own, that my role in life was to take care of others. For me to believe that being selfless was the right thing to do whilst showing any signs of anger or frustration were signs of being selfish and that was wrong. Should I ever express any wants and needs, I was always told as a child, that I was just like my father and that used to hurt because that is a man I never wanted to take after, violent, abusive, selfish and would destroy anyone who got in his way, even his own children. To be compared to that man hurt a lot so I gave up ever wanting or needing anything I couldn't take care of myself. However, if being selfless was the right way to behave, how come my own mother never felt it acceptable to take care of my needs, especially as a child? How come if I ever raised the topic, I'm the one made to feel guilty for even bringing it up if it was the right way to behave?

So many of my issues stem from FOO and given that I can't address those feelings without being made to feel guilty for having feelings T has suggested I write everything down and write a letter to my mother about all the anger and frustration I've built up over the years and give it to T. It's time to release that emotional baggage that has been weighing me down for all these years and I do want to thank PatientandClear again for challenging me on this one in a previous post 

[Pingo]

Whoa, Ripped Heart, I certainly can relate to much of what you are talking about.  Anger has always been a tricky thing for me. 

"I would empathise with my abusers rather than address my own feelings. And this is where I have an issue around anger."

I too had a mother that wouldn't allow me to show anger and so I never learned how to.  Now I get triggered over things that make me so angry and I wonder where is that coming from?  I think it's repressed anger towards my mother and the inability to express it.  To this day it is very difficult to express anger at my mother.  She has a way of twisting anything I express into me having 'issues' and accusing me of being a horrible person.  For me, I have gone NC or extremely LC (Christmas, birthday cards).  I hope to one day feel strong enough that I can not be so triggered by her but I'm not there right now. 

The idea of writing to her and giving it to your T is a very good idea.  I wrote my mother (and actually sent it to her) a couple of years back but again she twisted it and it was pointless.  So now I write in my journal. 

Have you read any of John Bradshaw's books?  They were really helpful for me in getting in touch with those feelings I have long repressed.

Thanks for sharing.

[Ripped Heart]

Pingo,

It's a very difficult situation to be in because we are taught to have respect that respect for our parents but at the same time are limited to how we are able to express ourselves and any sign of doing that is projected back at us. Which in turn triggers the guilt because we were taught to have respect for our parents. It's a tough cycle to figure out but given what said about your own upbringing, it does make sense that is where your anger and frustration lie too.

I've tried so many times in the past to talk to my mother, I've tried angry approach, logical approach, caring approach and just about every other approach you can think of but the one thing I notice, it's the same responses regardless of how it's approached. It also comes back so fast, there is no time for them to even process what is being said. I've even been hit with phone calls from my sister, angry because my mother has called her in tears because I've "blamed" her for my mistakes. That's never been the case, my actions are my responsibility but it's very difficult when someone throws them in your face to not ask them what part they think they played in all of this.

The irony of it all is that my mother had very much the same upbringing as I did. I've tried to explain it that way to her before, that it can't be her fault because she did what she thought best given the tools she had to work with from her own upbringing. My saying is that you can't tell someone what an orange tastes like, if you have never eaten an orange.

My mother despises her own mother but is able to tolerate her. Even now gets upset because her sister gets the attention and she doesn't. She doesn't even speak to her own sister because she hates her for the fact she had to raise her as a child and missed out on her own childhood. I love my sister but sometimes we do clash, the reason being that mine and my sisters upbringing were very different. My sister got the care and attention but I don't hold her responsible in the way my mother does her sister. Instead, I get frustrated that I can see things from my sisters point of view but very rarely does my sister see it from mine.

I do hold a lot of anger in partly because I have no outlet because it gets turned into guilt and thrown back at me. Last year my sister had an operation on her foot, my mother moved in with her for 3 months to take care of her. What did I get out of it? The phone calls to tell me how badly my sister was treating her. Last year I was in hospital with a 60% chance of survival. Not once did my mother come and visit and she only lives 10 miles away. Christmas and New Year, my mother spends with my sister and I spend it more or less alone. Yet I hear all about how angry she feels because my grandmother spends Christmas with my Aunt and that it's never about her. My sister lives over 3000 miles away, yet if there is any kind of crisis, my mother is there, I have a crisis I get told "You'll figure it out".

However, my sister is often on my case because I haven't called my mother to see how she is or because she is having a crisis of her own and I haven't stepped in to sort it out. As I said to my Therapist, phones work 2 ways and it's very rare I ever get a phone call from my mother to see how I am.

Not that any of that bothers me because I've had it most of my adult life but I think some of my anger is towards the fact that she doesn't see the hypocrisy and that she has every right to be angry at her own mother for the way she is treated but that I'm not allowed to have any of that.

[Pingo]

Ripped Heart, how very invalidating for you to experience your sister getting all that attention and care while you went without and had to learn to give it to yourself.  And being the empathiser, you don't blame your sister as it's your mother's doing.  This really is a coping mechanism, I know because I do the same.  I have even excused my mother, like you, because she also had a terrible upbringing.  

"I would empathise with my abusers rather than address my own feelings. And this is where I have an issue around anger."

I've been thinking a lot about this.  Something I read recently is that gratitude can be a coping mechanism also.  I would never of thought this true but when it's at the expense of the truth and covering your own feelings and pain and sadness then it isn't healthy.  Here is an example.  As I mentioned I'm VLC with my mother.  This stems from an incident involving my teenage daughter almost 5 yrs. ago.  My mother hurt me deeply and betrayed me.  She lost my trust 100%.  For the first couple of years I tried to forgive, reach out, made little gestures to let her know that I haven't just written her off.  I was trying to be 'mature', the bigger person.  I even went so far as to make this beautiful little book with different things I was grateful to her for, memories from my childhood, things she has done for me or us as a family.  I sent it to her for mother's day.  She was touched by it and I thought things could start to heal.  But now looking back, I think I was trying to sweep my anger under the rug as I knew she would never allow me to be angry AND have a r/s with her.  I had to pick be angry or let it go.  Later that year everything came to a head in a very disturbing letter she wrote me.  It was a reality check for me.  It was very painful to read but it has helped me to see that I have a lot to be angry about and it is only doing me damage by not allowing it.

When I tried to show anger as a child I wasn't guilted, I was shamed.  I was made fun of.  She would turn cold and sarcastic.  She would do things that were embarrassing.  How dare I stand up to her!  I would pay!  

It was no coincidence that my uBPDexh was so similar to my mother.  I didn't see it until near the end, I was in deep denial!  But I did stand up to him (eventually).  Took me a while but I did it!  I said I'm not going to let someone treat me like this any longer!

Ripped Heart, you most certainly do have a right to be angry.  It was terribly unfair that as a child you didn't get the love and validation you deserved.  And I believe you when you say that you cannot get through to your mother with logic, caring or any other approach.  The letter your T suggests is going to be very painful to write but also very cathartic.  It will give you a place to start healing those wounds.  And start giving yourself that validation.  That's where I'm at.  It's hard.  My T's great and I'm really thankful for her.  Take good care of yourself, you deserve it!

[vortex of confusion]

"I would empathise with my abusers rather than address my own feelings. And this is where I have an issue around anger."

I've been thinking a lot about this.  Something I read recently is that gratitude can be a coping mechanism also.

I want to follow this thread as anger is something that I struggle with as well.

I was hit with a wave of something (not sure what) when I read the statement about empathizing with the abuser. Any time anybody does anything that I don't like, I immediately go into this mode where I think of how hard things must be for them. After all, everybody has a story and has their own struggles. I sometimes feel like being angry at those people is akin to me judging them and I don't like being judgmental. It's a bit twisted but I know that I have talked myself out of anger more times than I care to admit.

And gratitude as a coping mechanism. . .I had never really thought about that but it is something that I am going to have to ponder a bit. There have been so many times that I have coped with the actions of my husband or FOO by saying, "I am grateful that things aren't worse." I look for all the things to be grateful for and happy about so that it completely invalidates and offsets any and all anger that I may have been feeling.

[Ripped Heart]

After all, everybody has a story and has their own struggles. I sometimes feel like being angry at those people is akin to me judging them and I don't like being judgmental. It's a bit twisted but I know that I have talked myself out of anger more times than I care to admit.

That's exactly my attitude to it also. I was brought up to believe that when you think you have problems, there is always someone out there far worse off than you. When someone acts out and then blames it on their condition, crisis or drama, I immediately switch to that frame of mind. That this person must be one of those who has had it worse than me so who am I to judge someone else, even if I've walked in their shoes.

Nobody likes to be judged and that's another irony because I've been judged on my words and actions more times that I care to admit. I'm now starting to find out that my words and actions were often valid responses.

[patientandclear]

 

This is good, brave work. You are seeing a lot.

You deserve to be cared for.

I also have spent a lot of my life empathizing with my abuser(s). And I thought I was so strong that I didn't really have any needs others needed to help me with. I could give and never get. In fact I was proud that was my role in the world. Sound familiar?

I also got used to earning love through performance. I was very very "good." That's why I deserved love.

I'm mad at your mom. She has this amazing son and takes him (you) for granted.  I want your adult life to bring you caring and cherishing. You deserve to experience it.