I have felt myself becoming really angry when talking to my father lately. I moved away years ago and our relationship is no longer the toxic parent/child I endured during childhood and young adulthood. I am able to establish boundaries with him and I push back whenever I feel like he is not talking with me respectfully or I disagree with him.
But since I've started therapy, I've felt myself feeling really angry at him even when he's not exhibiting any toxic behavior. I am pretty sure my dad is not a narcissist and that his parenting of me was because he himself was a traumatized child and was parenting me the same way he had been parented. Growing up I believed my dad was all powerful and all knowing but now I see that show of strength was false. He is actually very insecure and fearful. I understand why the abuse happened but I still feel so angry at him at time for what I endured and all that I lost and the long struggle I am facing to recover from it.
I remember reading a post or sticky on this site somewhere discussing the concept of "angering" at your abuser. I skimmed it quickly, but I recall reading about an idea that an integral part of recovering from C-PTSD is to be able to get angry at your abuser--but not at the actual person but at the abuse itself?? I remember that the point of getting angry at the abuse rather than the person is that if you try to direct it at the person, feelings of pity and/or love may get in the way of the anger.
Does anyone know where I could find this post, or otherwise have any thoughts on this topic???
Just found the post! I was having some problems searching today for some reason.
I'd still like to hear others' thoughts and experiences dealing with anger toward an abuser.
Is this the same one you just found? http://cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=381.0
Yes, that's the one!