Way Reactive

[Lookin 2 B Free]

In recent months and years I've been coming Out of the FOG about family and partners.   I limit ongoing contact and am NC in one case. 

The dam has broken.  The countless (maybe hundreds of thousands?) times of abuse and gaslighting that I used to justify for them and "forgive"  (boy was I fooling myself!) come flooding back into my head on a fairly regular basis.  Along with utter rage. 

Something will remind me, maybe hearing something about one of them, or being around someone who kind of reminds me of them, and I flip inside.  The triggering even can be somewhat mild, maybe rating as an annoyance,  But combined with the ton of baggage which my mind connects with it, I get white hot inside.  This from someone who used to almost never feel anger.   My only saving grace is I've been able not to direct it out and just be with it in myself, in as kind and accepting a way as possible, and not hurt anyone else.

I don't recognize myself.  I've never been like this.  I feel like I've become a hateful person.  My trauma T thinks it's good - an opening to healing and not to be shut down.  I guess I'm just trusting her.  I hope I get through the worst of this soon.

[Andeza]

Anger is healthy. Those of us raised in a pd home frequently get the rage beaten down inside us (sometimes quite literally) until we can't feel it anymore. Anger gives you the power to protect yourself, to slam those boundaries in place and say clearly and strongly "NO," with the feelings of disordered individuals cast aside in your own favor. You're not hateful. Your inner rage monster finally woke up and said "It's time! I'm going to start protecting Lookin 2 B Free the way I should have been doing all along! No more crap from others!" Throw in some nice Hulk smash sounds and you've got the picture.

The truth is, the anger, the potential for rage, lives in all of us. Some embrace it, others shun it, some silence it entirely, still others think it's a problem to be fixed... But in reality, you have to make your own peace with it whatever that ends up looking like. My anger is my friend. It waits until it is needed, and then it is the strength I need to slam those healthy boundaries into place and hold the line. I would agree with your T here, so long as at the end of the day, you're still the one in control.

[1footouttadefog]

I went through a time where I felt quite angry.  It bothered me as I am not normally an angry person and do t anger easily.

I felt it at strange time and over strange remembrances and triggering stimuli as you described.

At some point I realized that anger is a phase of the grieving that I was going through.   This was a good realization as I then knew it meant an end would come and healing as taking place.

Another realization that helped me during the anger period was that I was griefing myself, my own life and those parts of my and the opportunities and years and de adds that I had sacrificed or given up to pdness.

Bei g on the other side means freedom to seek my best life from here forward.

[Lookin 2 B Free]

Thanks for the supportive comments.  It helps to hear others have experienced the same thing and were able to move through it.

I guess I do need the anger to set boundaries.  It's the "F" in FOG.  After so many years with pwPDs, I half expect anyone I set a boundary with to respond with some jaw-dropping, abusive, possibly illegal, punishment to make me so sorry I did it that I will never set another boundary again.  Enough anger can blow through that fear and allow me to go ahead.  Still, it's tiring to walk around like a raw nerve with hair trigger reactivity.

I'd better do more praying.  This stuff is hard!

[notrightinthehead]

If it was at all possible, I worked my anger out physically. There were months when it hit me at 2 in the morning. I woke up raging. Then I had to just feel it. Like you, I prayed for the anger to go away and eventually it did.  But not for a long time.