The Language of anger

The Language of anger
M

Morning Star

Registrant
It happened again, I got angry again today.

But this time I noticed it was a situation where I was feeling powerless, belittled...So my responsed with anger. Earlier it would have been despair. But as I became aware of it I became assertive and said that this is not acceptable to me.

Earlier anger would have freezed me, but now I am beginning to retain apart of my mind while its surging.

Today I read a very revealing thought on anger:
"Anger is the path of least resistance. Rage, emotional withdrawal, seething resentment, compulsive criticism, and the hunger for revenge all mask a pain so intense that it is unapproachable."
- GARY ZUKAV, the author of The Seat of the Soul.
www.zukav.com

I want to Unlearn this language of powerlessness and anger.
 
I find that interesting, that quote. I had to re-read it a couple times to make sure I got it right in my head. For me, it seemed that anger was the path of most resistence. It was only in the last year or such that I have experienced anger toward them at all. The anger I felt, or didn't think I felt but still had, was always directed at myself in some form of self-destructive behavior. Now I am finally able to feel it toward the appropriate persons, and most of the time even be able to express it maturely.

Something I have learned in this time of working on all this. All emotions are valid and worthy of being felt. Because there are some things, if we choose to not feel them, they will be given again to us. It is like if we do not learn a lesson, it will be repeated somehow.

leosha
 
It took me a long time to understand the difference between anger and rage. It's the one topic that the therapists I've seen have actually helped.

Anger is good. If someone does something that is worthy of anger, it deserves to be communicated in an appropriate manner. Let the punishment fit the crime. Anger can cause physical reactions such as adrenaline that are beneficial in confrontations. Anger lasts as long the situation that causes it, and dissipates quickly after.

Rage is something to watch out for. My rage was sneaking out when I should have only felt anger. My rage amplified the anger to inappropriate levels. Rage made me hurt people. I now view my rage as a pool. It's not toxic, it's not negative, but it does build up and needs to be drained. I do this with physical activity. Wood chopping, Digging, hauling.

I stand with an axe in hand, nobody else around, in front of the chopping block. A log sits there, waiting to become firewood. I concentrate on my rage, I feel it like a chill up my spine. It's powerful and dark, and I've learned to like releasing it. It powers my arms, back and legs. The axe swings, the log splinters with a very satisfying sound.

I stand in front of the mountainside. I live in the mountains, and we need some landscaping in front of the house. It's ALOT of dirt to move. I have a shovel, a wheelbarrow and my rage. I begin to dig. I feel the tingle, the surge of adrenaline, and the digging gets faster. The rage is powering my digging, and is radiated as heat from my muscles and sweat fromn my body. It leaves me after helping me do something constructive.

The exercise dissipates the pool of rage. The rage exists because of what happened to me. I'm going to keep using that rage constructively. Bottling it up or being afraid the rage is allowing what happened to me to rule me once again. Owning the rage and using it where and when I choose makes me stronger, it helps me to rise above what happened. The rage is my reaction to something horrific. I can own that, it doesn't own me.

Then, once the rage has been disspelled, and I can hardly lift my arms I think of my wife and sons. I think of friends, I look at the beauty around me. I feel the power of my life, the good things I've done, the beauty in my world that it's so easy to overlook. I feel hope and again, I start to feel powerful. My energy returns, only now it's not dark like the rage - It's light, it's bright, it's positive. I start to work again, this time powered by love for my family and hope for the future.

When I finish my muscles are sore, alot of work has been done, and my spirit is light. I know I have a long way to go, but the steps I've taken deserve my recognition.

I've named this process exhaustive therapy :D
 
Perhaps I was judging my anger. A valid emotion.

I fear my own anger so I clamp it. I thought anger as a bad thing. I feared my parents anger.

O, o.. makes sense.. at times when I feel I am over-reacting, I just might be being assertive, at least beginning to.

My parents were both oppresive so I feared speaking up my anger lest I would annoy them or provoke them. So I repressed my anger, which later turned self-destructive. And gradually I moved to the lowest rung - despair.

Now I am coming back up and am past the rage state and am entering the anger zone! Soon I will be able to express it maturely as you put it. Amen.

Come to think of it my anger and my ego are helping me speak up and stand up for myself.

Thank you
:)
 
Morning Star,

I would just add what I've found to be true for me. Anger is a warning that there is a real or perceived boundary violation (translation: threat to my wellbeing, mental, emotional, or physical). Like all threats, it's meant to be dealt with as soon as practical. Sometimes there is only an imagined threat, sometimes there is a situation that I really have to deal with. In short, for me anger has become a very useful tool.

On the other hand, rage, bitterness, resentment, and other emotions are what I feel when I don't deal with the anger. Please don't think I have mastered the art of dealing with anger. Far, very far from it. :o But I have made some progress.

Take what you like and leave the rest.

Tom
 
dmcdd

It took me a long time to understand the difference between anger and rage.
Click to expand...
And your explanation is spot on!
There is a huge difference, and it's one we as Survivors MUST acknowledge.

We have a right to be angry, but we have no right to express our rage at others.
Take it to the mountain and move rocks until it's gone, chop wood, run, go to the gym. That's the place for our rage.

Dave
 
Wow! Did I have some serious anger issues? My mother wouldnt allow me to express any negative emotion and my step-father was a raging lunatic. The way she dealt with him was to become even more enraged and even faster. Rage has been probably the single most crippling aspect of my psychic makeup. I use to get angry and either freeze or destroy. I still have a very deep fear of going over the line.

My ex-wife always wanted to discuss our disagreements right away, :mad: in the emotion of the moment. But I always insisted that she give me a day or three to think thru the situation so I could say what I meant instead of what I felt. She didnt like that approach very much and eventually forced me to respond on her schedule. Like I said, my EX-wife...

For me, the difference between anger and rage is taking the time to think about how I really feel and figuring out how to accurately communicate that feeling, instead of reacting to the immediate threat.

Harnessing that ability can create an extremely powerful tool for personal and social change. :cool: Losing it uncontrolled is just pain and destruction. :(

Aden
 
This is a very enlightening discussion for me.

One other caution in regard to unexpressed anger which can turn into rage.

Rage and raging seem to be very addictive. The adrenaline, the rush, the flow of power that seems to come with rage leave many craving more, more more.

Just like the drug addict it soon takes more and more rage just to feel normal. Soon it can get to where it is in rage that some can find any relief, albeit temporary, from the desperate emptiness that so many addicts describe.

Rage can be addictive because it changes the way we feel about ourselves and our situations. Some say that all serial killers are possessed of tremendous rage.

When I first began releasing my rage--expressing it in anger with my therapist; draining off that excess of pain, humiliation, sadness, grief and anger, I became aware that almost always under the anger was another more vulnerable emotion.

Many times anger was the one emotion fits all feeling to be expressed because it was a defensive emotion, one that did not leave me feeling exposed and vulnerable.

With help and practice, I have slowly learned to look underneath the initial angry feeling to see that much of the time what I am really feeling is sadness, grief, revisited despair.

And the anger can be a diversionary tactic to prevent others and myself from seeing that more tender, more vulnerable state of sadness.

Slowly that habit of reacting with anger has begun to be replaced with an attitude of curiosity; waiting and looking to see what lurks underneath the anger.

When I am angry, it is almost never for the reason I think I am. Anger keeps people away, scares those who would seek to love and help me.

Accessing anger is an important stage in my emotional recovery from sexual abuse. Continued growth and spiritual development that allow me to go beneath and beyond the anger are even more vital for me.

I honestly believe that today I cannot live with anger. I must feel it, express it and then move on. Otherwise it quickly ceases being a valuable signal of a perceived threat and becomes a threat itself to my emotional/physical/spiritual health.

God save me from angry people! I don't like to be around them. And now I can imagine that others may have felt the same about me when I was stuck in anger and raged uncontrollably.

What a great discussion for me today. Thanks guys for reminding me of how much I have learned on this pathway out of the isolation of the victim of sexual abuse.

Regards,
 
Danny your recovery is inspiring and so are your insights into anger dynamics.

My problem is when it goes downwards and becomes destructive and that too very fast.

Usually I had to break something if not my head to release it. Now I am getting wiser. a simple breath would do the job...

But I must add that I am now understanding why anger is given to all if not most survivors. As a tool to propell ourselves out of it and stand up for ourself. Otherwise despair would have taken its toll on me.

Sometimes my anger is too much to not say what I am feeling. And so when I am not able to speak up it spills on me. SO I am learning to respect my anger, myself.

As Aden said, the pattern of suppresion learned as a child is hard to get by. I was told to muffle my cries or I would be beaten more. So I learned it well and sobbed to sleep. I still find it difficult to cry whole heartedly. Live whole heartedly.

but I am getting there. :)
 
You are getting there and you are doing GREAT!

You will continue to get better at all of these things--accessing your anger, overcoming the fear of anger, allowing yourself to cry and feel sadness--like so many other things I did not get to learn as a child, I now get a chance to learn as an adult.

And all of these things take practice. If possible, remember that you are learning today.

You are learning a tremendous amount and it takes so much courage to do this.

You inspire me, and I need that today.

What happens to me is that when I am unable to access my emotions they seem to coalesce inside me into a cold, heavy weight of depression.

Right now I am going through some changes which for me are very difficult. I still have a hard time accessing the anger, the sadness, the feelings of loss.

I don't want to hijack your thread to list my difficulties, which are intense.

I just wanted to say, thank you, for the reminder that this is a growth process--and that I too am growing.

Today it just feels really hard.

Regards,
 
Hey Danny! Thanks for your encouragement,
you sure do that well.

You are right about things getting to intense, sometimes after a heavy day at night when it gets too much I just sleep with all those unresolved issues and emotions. As I cant deal with it..Sure enough I wake up next morning with them. It is like carrying forward unlearned lessons to next life.

Now I am ok even with that, because a human lifetime is blink in Gods eye. It all happens in God's time. I get insights into m y trauma and they dissolve into nothingness in front of Gods love.
 
Tom and danny!
Thank you guys for introducing the concept of Threat to perceived boundaries to me...I would love to know more about it.

I have been observing the boundaries issue lately and today I observed that sometimes in trying to be assertive, I become rigid.

Haven't been able to fix clear boundaries yet...!
:)
 
Someone asked about this topic,
"The Language of Anger", so I bumped it up.

Hello Morning Star! Sending you best thoughts and wishes.

Regards,
 
Thanks all of you for sharing.

Morning Star you provided me a window to myself that as yet I had not been able to see through.

And thanks the rest of you for helping him see more clearly for in helping him you helped me also.

I cried several times during this discussion. I'll take the tears anytime over the rage that was running rampant at times in my live over 25+ years.

Love you all.
 
greetings all
I have been in therapy for about 15 years (on & off) skirting around the big issues

have finally had the guts, balls, whatever to get to the nitty gritty in the last month and am feeling lighter, more willing to reach out

my therapist has always asked me "where is your rage?"

my emotional repertoire is pretty limited in scope
only 3 or 4 I can identify, but I'm working on it :{>

anger & rage are connected to synaptic snapshots of ma & pa
& the futility/harm/drama I witnessed & swore never to be a part of from the earliest I can remember (about 2 years old)

I accept that I wasn't the brightest lightbulb :{> when I made that decision 45 years ago

also, not owning up to/admitting to having/feeling those emotions gave/give me some feeling of comfort/superiority

all in all, what really helps me is to try to judge as little as possible
and to remember that being gentle with myself is not a sign of weakness

I really find that exercise helps channel the energy that anger is
& yoga has really helped me loosen that energy up

keep on keepin on, everybody!
 
Brothers,

Someone raised the issue of rage today, so I thought I would refloat this very insightful discussion of anger v. rage.

This started more than a year ago and was brought up again in September, which is when I first saw it. It taught me a lot and I have tried to remember these things. It's interesting how some discussions just STAY relevant and need to be looked at again and again.

Much love,
Larry
 
Thanks, Larry, for moving this up.

I am working on not feeling controlled by the fear that rage can come - can everyone follow that crazy syntax? I feel helpless, and my amygdala is hijacked when several things load up on me at once.

Hmmm..the passive voice in the last sentence("is hijacked") means (to me) that I am trying to distance myself from responsibility. I can choose not to let anger and helplessness express themselves as rage. I can choose to solve the problems with other means.

Hey DWF, where did that poem in your tag come from? It is really awesome.

Peace,
James
 
Surprising for find this discussion to come up after a year, as just this morning I expressed my disleasure over a situation through anger, and without supressing it or feeling guilty, I had no retribution fear to clamp me down, I felt free as for the first time I respected what I was feeling and allowed its expression, freely.

I felt I am worthy of expressing my disleasure. This also stopped it from becoming rage later.
 
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