Blocks to expressing anger??!!

[Indigochild]

Hi tired,

I hope i didnt offend you or anything. I was just trying to explain how I was finally able to let some of that anger out.
I know about the parental loss. Its really hard.
I think its best if you do what is best for you.
You are right, you can not make a person change if they dont want to.
You have to do what is right for you, and if they have hurt you, its kind of like, what do they expect. Maybe they just dont understand it. They do not see.

Yes, i stop feeling it too. It was T saying to me that i am being treated badly that made me unable to not pay attention to this anger.
When the facts present themselves, i can not ignore it. Sure, the anger goes away as i  disassociate, but i am trying to express it when i can.
I wouldnt be surprised if there was just so much anger in there. Its overwhelming. Little at a time. Maybe it wont all come out in one go. that would be the anger stage over quickly wouldnt it haha.
I know its scary. Its very scary.
The first time i let anger out i disassociated. I cried after then disassociated. It was intense. And the second time i was filled with anxiety after and was physically sick. So its ok if that happens. Little steps at a time.
Having a T on my side helps tremendously. I feel i have someone and i dont feel as afraid. I have things to help me get through if it gets too much.
Now I'm not as afraid. We will see what is to come with the anger. i hope this happens some day for you too.
I have a punch bag and put on some music and scream and pound it.
It does feel out of control but when its done its done.
Yes, stress apparently can make you ill, and I'm feeling the effects of it on my body, and holding in anger is expressing itself in bodily pain.

I hope this helps, and I'm sorry you have lost your parents. For me, i saw the cracks and it was extremely painful, now i feel i have no choice as ive already seen the cracks, so the anger naturally has come. T helps too to see what was wrong and is wrong with them.

Ok I'm done talking now...sorry it was long.

[tired]

No not offended at all. It helps to have the back and forth conversation that for me is sort of a problem-solving thing.  When I was growing up I was ignored and treated like I was retarded and not able to do anything so nothing was expected of me.  That's why now I like being challenged.   I see it as a vote of confidence, as in "I am sure that with a little bit of input you can be much better than you are. " 
Anger is so hard for me to understand.  Thich Nhat Hahn wrote about it and says to treat anger like a little baby, and have compassion for it.  I've also heard a metaphor that if you hold on to it it burns you.  You have to let it go.  These seem contradictory.

When I did some reading about child development I ready about shame and rage, which makes me thing that childhood rage is something very different from adult type anger.  But I don't know.

[Bimsy]

Thank you Indigo

I just read what I wrote and wanted to be clarify that I don't want to try and tell you what your emotions are I'm just imagining how it would feel for me if I had that sensation in my body.
Just to be clear!

About the pain in the back, I don't really experience that because my psychosomatic pain usually tightens my shoulders and neck, like when we cower because someone is about to hurt us.
The neck and shoulders are vulnerable places and if someone bigger than us were to shake or attack us from above I think that our instinct would make us cringe down and raise our shoulders to protect the neck.

But if I imagine pain in the back I feel like this is an energy that is driving me forward, like a predatory sensation of wanting to rush forward and lash out, almost like a rugby player!
If you imagine that you are about to do this, do you feel that sensation in your back?

I think that this is a pretty interesting way to try and back trace why we have these kind of tensions!
My pain comes from when I was really small, there were no use in trying to attack my mum and stepfather since I were only 5yo and not that big compared to them.
But if I were to guess your age when your emotions got stuck I imagine that you were big enough to fight back physically, or maybe at least you felt the urge to fight someone as an equal.
Is this correct?

I don't really agree that All pain is healing though, for me I see a big difference in digging up old emotions so that there can be room for healing and just repeating the same old bad stuff over and over without really getting anywhere.
There is usually some sense of relief when there's healing involved, like a sensation of something new and light

I think I was about to write something more but I lost the thought I'll get back to you if I remember!

[Indigochild]

Hi tired,

Im so glad.
I am so sorry you were treated that way. 
Yes, i see why you would think that to be contradictory.
I think that by treating anger as a baby, you let it go- in time. Not at first, but in time.
And anger is a part of life. Its ok to feel it, but if you hold it in, or hold onto it for too long, it burns you.
I think thats what it means.

Im not sure if childhood rage is different from adult anger. Maybe.
As a child doesnt understand like an adult does when abuse etc is happening.  The rage a child takes upon itself instead of blaming the parents might be different from a healthy adult who feels rage at the people who hurt them.
Childhood rage is often suppressed, so it is so huge.
Maybe an adult who repressed years worth of rage would be as angry as we are...I dont know.
But the betrayal that the parents caused us, is rage worthy. So the rage would be very intense i think.

Maybe with adult type anger, adults can (hopefully) anger and let it go.
We have a harder time with this because we feel so much of it, and for years we have had to suppress it for a multitude of reasons.

[Indigochild]

Hey Bimsy,

No worries- and I didnt feel that you were telling me what my feelings were at all.
Thanks anyway for saying that. 

I underrstand, neck and shoulder pain are common. Sometimes i have that too. Mostly shoulder pain.
I think that anger is stored in the stomach, chest and tops of the arms. There are diagrams i found on google images that stated this.

Um makes sense about wanting to rush forward. I had imaginings for hurting the people who hurt me for most of my life. It was the only way i could be angry in my own head, and i supressed it. Then one of them went into hospital and i felt so guity- they had an operation nothing to do with me- as i didnt hurt them, but i thought god or some force was punishing me for imagining such things happening to this person, so i stopped thinking things like that about them.
Now i dont feel guilty for thinking the things i thought as i realise now that it is a normal reaction to abuse.

I think i feel that sensation in my back when i image doing this.
Thanks for that.
I think pain is caused by not being able to do anything yes, and by suppressing emotions.

I dont remember much of childhood, so i dont remember when this rage started inside of me.
I think the trauma began in very early childhood, i dont meme er feeling angry when i think of one situation ie. doing a puzzle and trying to read a book and my mum getting really angry with me because i struggled and she was quite emotionally abusive about it. That was before i started school. I dont think i was angry at her, just felt shameful of myself, but maybe i suppressed any anger i felt.

yes sure. I believe the mistakes we make ie. could be attracting similar people to our abusers into our lives...are to learn from. If we keep doing it over and over even if we are conscious of this, and we constantly relive old pain, then there is no healing.
I guess getting emotions out of you feel good, but making yourself hurt every day is probably not healing.
Have you remembered what you wanted to say? 

[Bimsy]

Ok, good ^^

I am curious about the diagrams you found, are they about psychosomatic pain?
These things interest me a lot these days since I feel that it could be part of solving a lot of the emotional stuff if we could find the right way to get it out of our bodies as well!

Recently I became aware of that my diaphragm is very fixed (because of stress, I suppose) and if I try and massage it a lot of EF's come over me and it's super hard to deal with so it goes back to feeling tense once more.
But if we would have to try and produce EF's for therapeutic reasons I think that simply massaging the stiff diaphragm or shoulders could be a good start.
When I tried this yesterday I felt a sort of pain in my arms, probably because my stepfather used to grab my upper arms a lot when he was about to hit me.

Here is a simple video on how to self release the diaphragm (watch out for really loud noises in the beginning of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSGSmCMcZQQ

I can totally relate to your guilt about your anger, it is typical for abusers to guilt induce someone when they stand up for themselves so that we are taught never to set boundaries against them in the future.
For me I used to imagine them being pierced by swords and knives for some reason, I often drew pictures of how they died a really horrible death's
It felt better afterwards as it was some sort of revenge I guess!

I too have blurry memories at times but I think it might be possible to back trace memories with the sensations in the body and emotions that is stuck.

So sorry to hear that your mother was abusive when you were about to learn to read!
My mother was also abusive during my learning process.
I don't have many memories to confirm this except for a few where she would stress me when I was struggling, just like your mother did, or tease me for not knowing some things already.
She never really said it outright but her tone of voice let me know that she thought less of me because I didn't learn fast enough and started to struggle more and more in school.
In some ways I actually suspect that she was sabotaging me since her behaviour discouraged me from trying to learn things and take my time.
Like some sort of "reversed psychology" game.

You wrote that you only felt shame at first, I think it was like that for me too when I was really young.
I suppose it could have something to do with how emotionally dependent we are at such young ages, I remember being really touchy about letting my mother down.
Anger probably comes with independence, when you start to realise that other parents don't act that way and that their behaviour is unfair.

And no I never caught that thought that escaped me my thoughts are like nervous birds that fly away as soon as I try to catch them! lol!