rage...WARNING strong trigger

rage...WARNING strong trigger
P

phoster

Registrant
Wow, I just uncapped a load I need to think over. I began writing a reply to a post, and began talking about the hate I carry. I never realized how powerful it is. Im going to talk religion and strong emotions for a second, so you dont have to read if you dont want. in fact, if you arent very strong and safe, you shouldn't continue.

I knew contentment once, complete happiness. Before I met my ex-wife, I had found my faith again after years just bopping along. I came to what I felt was a deep understanding of the Bible and God. I believed that He watched over me as a mother eagle over he chicks, and that if I took care of the things of the kingdom, all else would be taken care of.

There is great peace of mind that comes from trusting God. I was able to let go of everyday worries. I mean I didnt worry about money or work, and relied on Him to lead me where I was meant to go. I was truly happy with Brigget, my ex.

I trusted God with all I had, including her. When she left me for another, I was destroyed, and have never recovered. I realize that now. That is when I filled with anger and hate, where I lost my trust. I am ticked because I trusted Him to protect my marriage as I sought the things of the kingdom. I feel let down and robbed. I feel angry and upset.

Oh, I know Job as well as the next. I understand she had freewill, and that I was wrong about certain things. What I have learned is that I have to continually be vigilant, or I will loose what I have. My faith always allowed me to live comfortably despite the abuse, because I was forgiven and protected. In the end, I walked away with one reality, that the world sucks, that giving my love was a risky move at best. I hate what I feel. I hate pining for a woman who left me. I hate her for not being true. I just hate so much and so deeply that I dont know how to get rid of it.

There is some sicko in town shooting randomly at cars on the freeway, 20 to date I think. He doesnt know these people, doesnt have a reason to hate them, yet he killed a woman. That seems to sum up this whole world to me. A gaggle of sick mothers praying on the innocent, and I feel I am one of the innocent caught in the continuing cycle. I feel there are good people among the masses, but wouldnt give you two-cents for the entire planet.

Hate is what drives my anger and rage. I just dont know how to rid myself of it. I am starting to love myself, but I still rage and hate so much of what I see. I hate the man who cuts me off on the freeway, who is so impatient he would run another off in the ditch to get one car ahead of me. I hate the world in which women are objects and children leftovers for sexual encounters. I hate the world where men walk away, leaving single mothers to raise kids alone. I hate the world that pollutes everything, that leaves no room for animals or woods and nature. I hate the greed, the shallowness, the lacking compassion. These are what drive me to fits of anger. The kids are only a trigger. It is the hate inside me that drives me. I suddenly realized that. I have a lot to think about right now, so I think Ill go. Sorry, I dont mean to unload on you, but I needed to vent. i need to hear that life isnt all evil and worthless. i need my wife and kids to remind me not all is black. i think i will go now. i have a lot of meditating, praying and self-inflection to do. i need to put it all in perspective.
 
Not very strong, but had to answer.

I know and undestand rage and loathing. Mostly directed at myself. This world is full to the brim with evil people preying on the innocent at every turn. Good people tunr a blind eye to it, saying there's nothing they can do. It's all hopeless.

But, each and every day, I'm reminded that this is the battle of good and evil. Folks have been looking for the end of the world, when this is the battle. Now. Here. On the streets. When good people turn away, that's evil enough. But when one person saves a life, they save the entire world.

You and I, we're foot soldiers in the apocalypse, and we've gotta take sides. I use the line from the movie, "Seven," to sum up my view of the struggle. It may not be a beautiful place, but it's sure as hell worth fighting for. If for nothing else than for the innocents who'll get caught in the crossfire.

Good and evil are just sides, but the choice is important. You and I, we both decided to fight on the side of the angels, and that's gotta be worth something.

Your rage is justified. Wholly, undestandibly justified. So, what're you gonna do with it? Let it explode, or use it as a fighting tool to defeat the darkness? Rage can be all that gets you through, but so can faith. I combine the two and keep on moving. That's all we can do.

Now I'm stepping away for a while. Too much hurt, too much rage, and too much darkness. I need the light. So do you, brother.

Peace,

Scot
 
Phoster, the things you hate are things that any decent man ought to hate, be outraged over etc.

I think you hate a lot, because you love a lot. You love your former wife, you love your children. What kind of man would not feel betrayed in your circumstance.

There is no way that I can relate to a man who loses his wife and in a sense his kids--although kids will always come back to love of Dad if Dad has not been a bad person as some of our Dad's were. I have lost a friend once, a very close friend. We just really could not agree on things that were important to us. But, that is nothing to a man losing his wife.

I hope for peace for you, for good friends who are forever faithful.

Know that you are a really good person. We all have our ideas about God and His failure to protect us--but I have been such an SOB towards God that I am forever grateful that he seems to put up with my ignorant rants at him. But I still do rant at him. When he gets tired of it he can call me home to lecture me if that is what he wants. Don't put yourself down for any anger at what is so unjust in many ways.

Bob
 
Phoster,

I understand your rage. I've never been very religious but I do feel like I'm a spiritual person. In the last 2 years I've been through hell. All that I could think about was "Why". Why did I get cancer? Why did I crash my 'bike, why did my dad die, why did I have a TIA, why did I get another cancer, why did I have to endure the radiation treatments, why did my wife die and leave me all alone and why didn't I die instead.

I was stuck wanting definitive answers and I couldn't move forward. I've recently decided that there are no acceptable answers to those questions. I'll never know the whys and I'll have to accept that. Sometimes I'm envious of people who have strong religious beliefs who can just say that it's gods will and let it be. I can't.

Steve
 
hello phoster,

I had a lot of rage years ago until I hurt someone I love very much. Then I bottled it up inside of me. There it stayed neatly in the bottle. Until the love of my life, the woman my life revolved around, my (now ex-) wife had an affair and left me.

Now I severely doubt trust. Don't know if it'll come back, I hope so. The anger and betrayal gave to me doesn't fit in that bottle. It feels like the bottle is going to burst. Most of the time I am fine, ok at least, I feel it inside but can't seem to get to it to let it out. Then when someone does something to my son, mistreats him in the slightest, it comes rushing out. A raving lunatic.

I don't know the answer, I don't know what to say, but I am trying to find it, to let the anger and rage out. To do it without the bottle bursting. Soon, hopefully soon.

Best wishes,
Bill
 
I have never realized before just how angry I feel inside. I guess I was raised to be forgiving and compassionate, and anger and hate dont set well. It has been there as far back as I can remember, but I guess I wouldnt allow myself to feel it. I always had to be about love and forgiveness. My faith demands it, and I tried to give it, but all I was doing was repressing it.

As I started responding to a friend yesterday, I found myself ranting. When I read what I had wrote, it suddenly hit me just how much I had pushed down inside. It was always easier to blame myself before, to hate myself for so many things. Then as I began to love myself, I was no longer there to take the blame for things. For the first time in my life, I have had to face all the anger and hate I had always directed inward. I have never had to place those things on others before, and it is very hard for me. I dont want to hate and be angry, but I find I have to do something with it.

I am angry at my ex-wife. I am angry that instead of talking to me about being unhappy, that she confided in a stranger, and fell in love with him. I am angry that he would allow it, knowing that she was married. I am angry that she slept with him, and brought home sloppy seconds to me. I am angry that she couldnt love me the way I loved her.

I am angry with God, because He promised to protect and take care of me if I took care of His kingdom. I am angry because I trusted in him, and I was hurt anyway.

I am angry with myself, because being angry with God doesnt fit my beliefs. I am angry because I cant seem to move past something that happened seven years ago. I am angry because I didnt deal with all of this before dragging my wife into the middle of it. I am angry that I had a child before I dealt with this, and now he must share in my struggles.

I am angry with my parents for not paying me enough attention, for driving me to seek it through my abuser and the acting out that followed. I am angry with my abuser for introducing me to sex before I was ready. I am angry with myself for not telling, and for running into sex to escape instead of standing up and facing it.

One thing I am finding as I work through this is that at least I am staring my demons in the face now. I am feeling all of this because I finally love myself enough. I finally need to place blame and anger on those that deserve it. I am left to deal it out, to dispense it about the world. Perhaps when I am done, I will finally be rid of it, will finally know how to deal with it correctly instead of turning it all inward.

I want to thank everyone for all the compassion and kindness you have shown in your replies. I really feel the love you all have inside. I am still very confused right now, but I am also growing and learning. Damn this recovery stuff hurts sometimes.

Jeff
 
Yeah, it certainly does hurt but hurts more I've found to not be engaged in healing.

Feeling anger is not a bad thing. This was one of hardest things for me to learn. I spent a whole year in therapy just on that. I don't think it should have to take that long for everybody. (Guess I'm just a slow learner.) We as men are taught to hold in our feelings, not show them, not acknowlege them. We have to re-learn the truth about feelings that we were born with but which was twisted by our experiences and the pressures of the culture and society we live in.

I experienced physical and emotional abuse, combined with sexual abuse and have found myself horribly confused about anger. Its all mixed up with that stuff and often still seems about how bad I am which sparks my self-loathing.

Anger towards your wife is natural. She betrayed you. If betrayal doesn't naturally result in anger from the one betrayed then I don't know what does.

The guy she did it with betrayed you. Your parents betrayed you. Your abuser betrayed you. You feel that God betrayed you. All these things are true and require no apology from you.

Of all these, certainly God can take the anger you aim towards Him. Doesn't he send it back as love? Isn't He a forgiving God, the entity that teaches us forgiveness, that loving ourselves is the first step towards loving others, and how to nurture compassion in our hearts?

I am with you friend. Hang in there. Remember, as bad as it sometimes seems, we do in fact have a bright spark of love and compassion deep in our hearts. It is part of our original nature, unchangeable. It has survived everything.
 
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