I'm angry and it hurts

[Larmoyant]

Something happened today that made me feel ill. It triggered memories of feeling disrespected, undermined and objectified and worse seeming acceptance by some, by many, that this is no big deal. Only it is a very big deal.  It's terrible and it hurts. Right this minute I feel immense dislike for my ex and what he said and what he did. Anger, has finally shown up, but at the same time a horrible feeling of powerlessness. If I was still talking to him I'd blast him! I don't like this feeling and I'm trying to escape it. How do I stop this and how do I take my power back?

[bestintentions]

My recommendation is to feel it, not fight it.  As uncomfortable as it is... .I feel it too and it's helping bring more perspective.

bi

[Herodias]

I know what you mean... .it seems like it takes awhile for that to show up... .as do allot of other emotions. I read with these types of relationships our emotions are all over the place and back and forth. I saw a picture where they normally show a circle of grieving and in this situation it's squiggly lines up and down, side to side and all over the place... .if that makes sense. I can't believe I am still angry and sad after a year and 11 months since I found him in my bed with someone else on Xmas... .then again, that's pretty traumatic! Some people think I am not moving on, but I am sorry... .they didn't go through what I did. It takes the time it takes and I don't think there is a whole lot we can do about it. We can try and quit thinking about it and talking about it, but then we are holding it in. I think we just have to talk it into a slow death. I just don't know what it is going to take for me... .Such betrayal on so many levels. I feel for you. 

[Larmoyant]

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel as if I'm crazy too. I've spent a long time in  confusion and pain trying to make sense of his behaviour. I get it now and for the most part I felt compassion for him, but it's turned to such anger. Wasn't anger supposed to come first? I feel like writing to him outlining, with evidence, all the abuse, the photos of my bruises, the abusive emails and texts, the people who witnessed his abuse and offered to be my witness if I went to the police, the taxi driver who drove me home, free of charge, telling me never, ever to go back again. I'm angry with myself too. How could I have tolerated it all. Let myself and others down for this horrible, horrible person. I thought I'd reached a place of acceptance, but I haven't. It's as if all the pain has come out and has manifested as anger. Herodias, that is horrible betrayal and bestintentions I know what you've been through too. Bpd or not it is abuse, pure abuse. I thought I'd moved away from all this. Where on earth has this anger been hiding!

[Dontknow88]

 

I know exactly how you feel love.
I've been there.

At first I accepted what I couldn't understand and did my best not to stress. I was doing retry good with that (our child was my motivation to be happy thorough the confusion) after being sad.

At the time my thought process was "he's sick and no matter what confusion I'm going threw he's more confused than me, he's hurting more than me, wow must suck to think it's normal to want to die everyday"

I was healing and living life then not even 4 months after the breakup I seen that he moved on with one of his friends. Naturally I felt anger . And that's when my eyes opened up even more. That's when I realized he works in cycles. That's when I took the time to think about ME and MY FEELINGS, I noticed he was very emotionally abusive, that's when I realized it's time to put ME first. Yes anger! As the healthy people we are anger will naturally help us to put the last piece to the puzzle, take that fog off. You said why anger last? Love that's shows that you are the bigger person and not the selfish one. That showed that you are selfless and anger comes when the fog is gone! A great step to healing and taking care of YOU!

I will say some people go back and forth to selfless and anger and that's normal. Take care of you, continue to put you first and you won't go back and forth and hopefully you will move on to true acceptance the the healthy life you deserve to be in!

Oh I feel you please believe that. HUGS. Trust me when I say it's normal and big of you to have feelings for YOU!

[Mutt]

Hi Larmoyant,

I will say some people go back and forth to selfless and anger and that's normal.

The kubbler ross model of 5 stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance and we can go through any of these stages in any order and go through the same stage more than once and everyone heals differently.

The Five Stages of Grieving a Relationship Loss

It triggered memories of feeling disrespected, undermined and objectified and worse seeming acceptance by some, by many, that this is no big deal

Who is that? It's important to validate these angry feelings. I can see how it would feel invalidating when someone says that it's not a big deal or we should get over it.

I'm angry with myself too. How could I have tolerated it all. Let myself and others down for this horrible, horrible person. I thought I'd reached a place of acceptance, but I haven't.

Who did you let down? It can time to reach acceptance, it's not a race and healing is different from one person to the next. Maybe we all stayed in it for different reasons, I fell in love with the person that was present to me, I also presented my best side at the onset, but slowly the cracks started to appear and I kept hoping that things would eventually get better, I was waiting for the person that I had met to re-appear, I didn't understand the complexities of being in a r/s with a pwBPD until after the r/s was over.

"Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward." - Vernon Law

I think that life is about failing and failing often, that's how we learn. One lesson that my ex taught me is self compassion and boundaries, I didn't boundaries and didn't understand them, I was expecting others to understand what I need, I trusted them to not harm me but I can't expect others to know what I need. I'm just speaking for myself and from I learned from my experience. I agree with you, put yourself first with self compassion, be nice to yourself don't beat yourself up.

[Larmoyant]

. Trust me when I say it's normal and big of you to have feelings for YOU!

.

Dontknow88, thank you for your post and for saying this. 

I'm lost really among my feelings. It's as if the pendulum has swung from understanding/compassion straight to fury/powerlessness/immense dislike. It's confusing. I'm struggling with accepting responsibility for my own mistakes and blaming him for all of it. I mean, this person really HURT me.

Mutt, thank you for the information about the Kubler Ross grieving process. It helped to see that I'm not crazy but still grieving. What you said about boundaries rang true because mine were terrible. I mean I tried to set some, tried to uphold them, but it was very difficult. I did trust him not to harm me, yet I also 'did' tell him what I needed. I told him right from the beginning and he went on to use those very things to hurt me with. And now I'm angry and there's a lot of hurt beneath it.

I'm still deeply hurt and traumatised so much so that I still cannot move. It's not normal doing what I'm doing. Hiding from the world because it's too scary and now I'm angry instead of compassionate, yet I don't recognise this so much in myself. I don't tend to be a bitter person, don't tend to carry hurts around with me, but this is different. He tried to annihilate me and almost succeeded.I do not believe, not for one minute, that he didn't know what he was doing. He did. He knew he was hurting me.

He violated me in every way. I don't want to, and won't try to do anything to harm him, but I want him to feel what he did to me. I mean does he at any level know the pain he caused me? It seems not. I'm not seeking revenge, at least I don't think so, because I have stuff on him, but would never, not even tempted, to use it, but still, how does he get to carry on his life with no changes to it? After destroying me, taking away my pride, my place in the world. I'm here, stuck in my house, surviving, not living, too scared to try again. I'm safe here, he doesn't know where I am, and I'm too scared to leave this safety. Now I'm crying because I don't want to stay here forever and just die. Am I being a victim, a persecutor?

 

[Dontknow88]

. Trust me when I say it's normal and big of you to have feelings for YOU!

.

Dontknow88, thank you for your post and for saying this. 

I'm lost really among my feelings. It's as if the pendulum has swung from understanding/compassion straight to fury/powerlessness/immense dislike. It's confusing. I'm struggling with accepting responsibility for my own mistakes and blaming him for all of it. I mean, this person really HURT me.

I'm so sorry you feel this way, I Feel for you I really do.
It takes time. Takes time to feel everything and to let go of trying to understand (most of the time they don't understand their actions them self )

Personally I figured out my anger was me finally putting my feelings first and also realizing I need to forgive myself for looking over sings during the relationship and after (when I was being selfless)

What do you do as venting besides This great site? Pro?

 I'm reading a book called "stop walking on eggshells". It helping me a lot with understanding and gives great advice on what do go to get your mind of things during hard times,

[lovenature]

Hi L

I know how you feel about not being able to get back into living life, I have spent many hours over the last 2+ years trying to figure out what I need to do to heal and move on from my BPD relationship. It hasn't been linear; I remember feeling so much better 2 years ago when I started learning about BPD, I was finally able to make sense of things and understand why the relationship went the way that it did. I was NC for 5 months at that time on my end when I got tired of the pain and allowed NC to be broken. Since Jan. 2016 I have been NC on my end.

We go through the process of grieving the loss of the relationship, also the effects on us from being in a relationship with a mentally ill person. I feel we have to allow ourselves to think and feel what ever comes up in order to fully process and go all the way through it. Take it one day at a time, remember that only someone who has lived what you have can ever fathom it. Try to look forward to the little things in life; a walk in nature (I have walked many miles during my recovery), favourite meal, T.V. show, hobby, what ever you like.

Focus on you and accept any thoughts and feelings you have, just let them come and go.