Fear Of Anger

[Rizzo]

Hi, I would love to consult on something.
In my meetings with a therapist, I notice that I am not angry. I have no anger towards the people because of whom I am where I am today.
I don't really understand why.. maybe I'm afraid of anger after so many years of seeing what it can do to a person.
My father was always angry with me, always yelling things at me that I don't wish for even those I hate. He was verbally violent.
In my life I have met a lot of evil, in all kinds of forms.
But I was never angry.
Can anyone connect? I would love to hear your opinion

[Little2Nothing]

Rizzo, I feel no anger towards my abusers either. It seems all my anger is reserved for me. I think I should feel anger towards them, but it never seems to come. 

[Rizzo]

Rizzo, I feel no anger towards my abusers either. It seems all my anger is reserved for me. I think I should feel anger towards them, but it never seems to come.

thank you, i need to know i'm not alone in this..

[Papa Coco]

Rizzo,

This has been a huge problem for me.  As a child I was punished if I ever showed anger. The longer anger was not allowed, the less chance I ever had to become skilled at using it productively. Meaning, as I grew older, when anger did pop out, it felt completely out of control and people would laugh at me for how ridiculous I looked.

I am afraid of my own anger. I have been taught by my FOO, and all of the churches I used to belong to, that expressing anger is a sin, and a joke. My family was riddled with narcissists who knew how to make me ashamed of myself if I got angry.

Narcissists are good at teaching us how to lie down and take their abuse without fighting back. As children, it's easy to outshout us. No matter how angry I could get as a child, my narcissistic elders could get far angrier. They taught me to cower at anger--mine or anyone else's. They humiliate us when we get angry. In my family, if I ever got angry as a small toddler or a young child, Mom would instruct the family, "Don't anybody look at him. Just ignore him until he behaves himself." I know now that IGNORING A TODDLER AND A YOUNG CHILD IS ABUSE! ABUSE! Then when I became older, like 10 or 12, Mom convinced me that if I ever get angry, I'll die of a stroke.

I'm terrified of my own anger. My family taught me that I will hurt people if I get angry. In a narcissist's world, getting what I want means (to them) that they don't get what they want.

Every second of every day, narcissists compete for the win. It's the black and white behaviors of narcissists who consider every conversation and every interaction with anyone as a competition. They don't make concessions, they either win or lose. And they hate to lose. So, they teach their kind-hearted young children to stop getting what we want, so they can stand in the winner's circle longer. To a narcissist the world belongs to THEM and we, the good people, are just toys for them to play with, and they'll pretend to love us for as long as we don't fight back.

My FOO proved it a thousand times. Any time I got what I wanted as a child and an adult, I was either laughed at and humiliated for how stupid I looked, or I was blamed for making their lives worse for getting something I wanted. There were never win-win scenarios. They only understood getting what they want instead of me getting anything I might ever want.

Anger is there to help us get what we want. It's a self-protection mechanism meant to help us move out of difficult situations.

The reason Complex-PTSD is called Complex is because it's multilayered with more than one issue. It's complex. And my fear of anger has a complexity of different reasons:

1) If I get angry I imagine I'll explode like  grenade and hurt everyone around me (because that's what my FOO and churches taught me would happen)

2) If I get angry, I'll just open myself up to being abandoned, ignored, laughed at, humiliated.

3) If I get angry I'll die of a stroke (Again: Thanks, Mom. Way to teach your son how to be a strong man who gets what he wants in life).

4) If I get angry and win an argument, that win leads to a trap later on in the month when whomever I was angry at eventually tells me that I've ruined their life and I now need to feel crushing remorse for my anger from a while back.

Even though I understand why anger is such a problem for me, I haven't had much success in getting past it. If anything, I'm learning ways to ignore life's problems more and more. I'm learning ways to avoid situations where anger is required to get what I want. I'm still good at just giving up what I want so as to avoid conflict and anger.

Rizzo, you are not alone. This is one of my top 10 issues that I wish I could resolve, but don't know for sure whether I ever will.

[Rizzo]

Rizzo,

This has been a huge problem for me.  As a child I was punished if I ever showed anger. The longer anger was not allowed, the less chance I ever had to become skilled at using it productively. Meaning, as I grew older, when anger did pop out, it felt completely out of control and people would laugh at me for how ridiculous I looked.

I am afraid of my own anger. I have been taught by my FOO, and all of the churches I used to belong to, that expressing anger is a sin, and a joke. My family was riddled with narcissists who knew how to make me ashamed of myself if I got angry.

Narcissists are good at teaching us how to lie down and take their abuse without fighting back. As children, it's easy to outshout us. No matter how angry I could get as a child, my narcissistic elders could get far angrier. They taught me to cower at anger--mine or anyone else's. They humiliate us when we get angry. In my family, if I ever got angry as a small toddler or a young child, Mom would instruct the family, "Don't anybody look at him. Just ignore him until he behaves himself." I know now that IGNORING A TODDLER AND A YOUNG CHILD IS ABUSE! ABUSE! Then when I became older, like 10 or 12, Mom convinced me that if I ever get angry, I'll die of a stroke.

I'm terrified of my own anger. My family taught me that I will hurt people if I get angry. In a narcissist's world, getting what I want means (to them) that they don't get what they want.

Every second of every day, narcissists compete for the win. It's the black and white behaviors of narcissists who consider every conversation and every interaction with anyone as a competition. They don't make concessions, they either win or lose. And they hate to lose. So, they teach their kind-hearted young children to stop getting what we want, so they can stand in the winner's circle longer. To a narcissist the world belongs to THEM and we, the good people, are just toys for them to play with, and they'll pretend to love us for as long as we don't fight back.

My FOO proved it a thousand times. Any time I got what I wanted as a child and an adult, I was either laughed at and humiliated for how stupid I looked, or I was blamed for making their lives worse for getting something I wanted. There were never win-win scenarios. They only understood getting what they want instead of me getting anything I might ever want.

Anger is there to help us get what we want. It's a self-protection mechanism meant to help us move out of difficult situations.

The reason Complex-PTSD is called Complex is because it's multilayered with more than one issue. It's complex. And my fear of anger has a complexity of different reasons:

1) If I get angry I imagine I'll explode like  grenade and hurt everyone around me (because that's what my FOO and churches taught me would happen)

2) If I get angry, I'll just open myself up to being abandoned, ignored, laughed at, humiliated.

3) If I get angry I'll die of a stroke (Again: Thanks, Mom. Way to teach your son how to be a strong man who gets what he wants in life).

4) If I get angry and win an argument, that win leads to a trap later on in the month when whomever I was angry at eventually tells me that I've ruined their life and I now need to feel crushing remorse for my anger from a while back.

Even though I understand why anger is such a problem for me, I haven't had much success in getting past it. If anything, I'm learning ways to ignore life's problems more and more. I'm learning ways to avoid situations where anger is required to get what I want. I'm still good at just giving up what I want so as to avoid conflict and anger.

Rizzo, you are not alone. This is one of my top 10 issues that I wish I could resolve, but don't know for sure whether I ever will.

I understand you so much.. I feel we are in a very similar place. thank you for making me feel less alone 

[Dalloway]

I couldn´t agree more with you Papa Coco, especially the fourth one on you list, I can relate to it SO MUCH.

In general, emotions and their healthy manifestation is an unknown land for me. I never had access to them because as long as I can remember I was punished for feeling and emoting,  being angry meant that I was "bad" and causing problems to my mom so I learned that I have to be quiet in order to not to get in trouble because I am responsible for the wellbeing of my caregiver, for the wellbeing of an adult as a child. I know, it´s crazy.

So being angry for me means two things:
1. it´s something very selfish and people will eventually abandon me for that
2. anger is dangerous because in a world where dogs eat dogs (my world was always that way) people can and will seek revenge for that sooner or later

[Kizzie]

It took a very long time for me to understand what Pete walker wrote about in his book; that is, angering is necessary to re-ignite our normal and natural protective instincts that were crushed by our abusers. Since I figured that out almost always my anger response has to do with someone busting my boundaries, treating me with disrespect and/or demeaning me in some way, I am more often than not much less dysregulated when I am angry because I am in control.

That said, I was quite dysregulated recently by a conflict with someone I did not realize was a covert N doing the whole circular logic thing which my NB did to me and so I was into it and really triggered before I knew it.  Still I did not strike back at the person, but they sure did. Two very appalling emails to me by the person afterward, but I knew by then who I was dealing with, who the responsibility for not mending things belonged to, and not to take any of it personally.

That has taken a long time to learn and feel but Pete was correct IMO that we need to let ourselves be angry but to do so still with respect for the other person and not making things personal. Even if they cannot do the same in return we can take comfort in knowing we are able to manage anger with respect and grace. It feels very healthy I must say and I feel a sense of pride that I do not dysregulate as much as I used to. 

The only thing I need to keep working at is listening to my gut when it tells me there is something not quite right with a person and to back away if possible so as not to get entangled in their emotional chaos. Anger with people like that is nasty and simply can't be fixed like it can in a healthy relationship - too much N injury and rage. 

It's understandable that most of us are afraid of anger - that which is directed at us, and anger that we feel at others. It's all fraught with danger until we learn there is such a thing as clean anger. "Clean anger means finding responsible and appropriate ways to express the anger you feel. It doesn't mean that you are not feeling angry; rather, that you are behaving reasonably, rationally, and safely, and not allowing those feelings to take control."  https://www.realrelating.com/blog/cleananger

And it means if someone is directing dirty anger at us we are able to tell them to stop, that we will not be abused, demeaned, etc. 

[Papa Coco]

Hey Rizzo,

I hope you are doing well with your understanding of anger. I remember believing I had no anger at my family also. My T told me I had rage in me. I was insulted. "I'm the calmest, kindest person I know."  Years went by as I learned that my inner rage was coming out as self-deprecation, self-destruction, dissociative trances.  I learned that every time I refused to let myself be angry, I would go into a dissociative collapse. My face would pale. Mouth would dry. It took my T some work, but I finally learned that I definitely did have anger built up.

When at age 50, my family was cutting me out of the will and making me so afraid to visit or help take care of my dad, and then telling people I was not helping, (forgetting to mention that it was because they kept attacking me every time I'd come near), I finally cut myself out of their lives. I went No Contact. That's when I started to say "My FOO finally became so ugly that even I couldn't love them anymore."

That single sentence has helped me to digest that I definitely did have a problem with not feeling the anger I needed to feel for 50 years.

[Papa Coco]

To Rizzo, Kizzie, and Dalloway, and anyone else who felt they weren't allowed to be angry, I have this one last comment:

NOTHING angers a bully more than when their victims stand up to them. So our FOOs, being bullies, had us in their control from birth and intentionally taught us to never stand up to them.

Just a little something to consider as we try to figure out why we were taught to never get angry.

[Lakelynn]

we can take comfort in knowing we are able to manage anger with respect and grace.

Agree. Working on the grace part.