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Spryte, thank you for your posts on this subject.  Honestly, you described it so well, you could have been talking directly to and about me!!

Hey guys and thanks for your replies.

I am trying to feel the physical feeling of anger for my health.  I believe the 61 years of anger locked up in my body is causing many of my health problems. 

I remember when I was in my 20's I did explode in a rage once.  Afterward I felt so incredibly good and light and well almost orgasmic...it was frightening to me as I had never felt that way before and I didn't understand it. 

I think the psych community wants to keep a lid on what goes on in the nuclear family and what happens to many children.  I mean for every one of us who recovers memories of abuse there are probably a hundred who have no memory and no clue as to why they are so miserable.  Just think how hard the shrinks would have to work if cptsd was common knowledge...actually talking to people about painful issues and not just giving out ridiculous labels and prescriptions for dangerous drugs..

Hi Rain and S cat and thanks for your replies.

I was hitting the bed yesterday with a cardboard tube and it was like my body was angry but I just couldn't feel it, you know?  I was hyperventilating and afterward I realized I had worn away some of the skin on my hands from gripping the cardboard so hard.  So....jeez I am not sure WHAT THE * I'm trying to say. 

Since my PTSD the only emotion I can say for sure I am having is anxiety.   When I say "what am I feeling" most of the time the answer is "frozen". 

My mother never allowed any of her children to show emotions.  Consequently, I went through life never crying or getting angry.  I was a total people pleaser, always watching others to see how I should act.  Even now I cannot cry though I've gone through the looking glass and realized what was done to me. 

I feel that if I could just get angry I could probably get in touch with my feelings.  I have tried beating pillows, screaming into a pillow, hitting things....it is very hard and scary for me to do that and it has not worked.  Does anyone have any advise about releasing anger? 

Hey Rain, thank you for your kind words.  I don't know somatic experiencing but will look it up.  I was seeing a bioenergetic therapist, which is body based therapy.  I tried CBT but no words could express what I was feeling.  The bioenergetic did work but it became so painful I had to take a break from it for a while.  I have read both of Pete Walker's books, Peter Levine and many others in my desperate search to understand these awful feelings.  The one that impressed me the most was "Betrayal of the Body" by Alexander Lowen which TOTALLY described my physical feelings of imploding, flying off the earth and collapsing.  Have you read that one?  Hugs, whitecat

I read about this website in Pete Walker's very informative book.

I am a 61 yo woman.  I lead a relatively normal life until my mother died several years ago.  After she died I turned around and married a very abusive man.  I have come to realize through therapy that I found an exact copy of my mother to marry and this was what triggered my severe PTSD.  Well, I finally left the abuser but unfortunately the damage was done and all sorts of horrible memories that I had previously totally repressed started coming up....sexual abuse that was allowed by my mother, etc. 

I have been in freeze mode for several years now, pretty much housebound, avoiding people, with multiple physical problems which I believe are caused by muscles that are frozen in terror. 

I am joining this forum in the hopes of connecting with others who are going through the same thing.