Having been in psychotherapy for a couple of months in an attempt to resolve feelings of anxiety / depression, the usual links back to my childhood have been made, and the general concensus seems to be that I have been suppressing emotions for the past 15 years or so.
A big thing that keeps coming up is the total absence of anger in my life. Some things happened in my childhood and in my teenage years in particular that I have every right to be angry about, but have never felt it, never expressed it. I can only remember about 3 instances in my entire life when I have felt real anger, and have expressed it.
I am sad, but not angry... I am short-tempered, but not angry... I am lonely, but not angry... I could go on...
The more I read on problems caused by unresolved feelings, the more this word keeps coming up. Many psychologists believe it to be the number 1 "problem emotion" for people. Especially in things like obsessive compulsive disorder, there is a school of thought that believes that the behaviours of OCD are purely a distraction from having to confront feelings of anger, which the sufferer has been trained in childhood to not express, because "anger is bad" or "anger is rude" or "anger is not helpful."
So how to get in touch with this? What actual practical things can be done to bring this out of myself? Just talking to my therapist isn't doing the job on this one - she makes me grateful that she's talking to me, not angry!
Any advice welcome.
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What to do with anger?
#2 Guest_Guest_Trying_*
Posted 17 June 2005 - 10:39 AM
Dear Gareth,
I think I may be able to help you here. I'm not sure whether you read the reply I left on the thread by Tony, but it was related to what you are thinking about.
Funny, the word anger has come back time and again for me recently as well, and it certainly seems to make a lot fall into place. You know how you can do all this theorizing that seems a little shakey, like you could almost convince yourself of anything, but at other times (perhaps because of less theorizing) something REALLY seems to make sense? The question of anger makes a lot of sense to me, not only because of the literature I have come across that has helped explain it, but also because of my new awareness of these feelings that has occured in conjunction with this new understanding of them.
When I started down my road to healing, I initially thought I had Social Anxiety Disorder, or Social Phobia - an irrational fear of others; the fear of being disliked/judged etc. I can't begin to tell you the agony this can cause because it affects pretty much every area of one's life. You become lonely, reclusive, depressed and all the rest of it. The real route causes behind all this become so lost in the mess of the accompanying symptoms that you get rather lost yourself. You become incapable of really telling the doctor what's the matter, becuase you don't know; you continuously get diverted by the lesser issues. In the end, you really have to work it out for yourself.
It certainly was Social Anxiety (SA), but though that is the term now used to describe the condition, it does rather end up being an attempt to bring it all together under one roof. The reality is of course much different - you cannot tame a wild animal, and if you try it just gets madder. I wonder if there is a sense in you to want to 'tame the wild animal' of your problems? You report your progress on this site frequently, which is good, but perhaps you should learn to be more patient with yourself and take your rollerskates off? That was one of the best things my therapist ever told me. She said "you have certainly grasped it all intellectually, you know what has happened and you know what to do, but now let go and let it happen." Over-intellectualizing can be another attempt to tame this wild animal. We like to create something tangible because the unpredictability of our emotions makes us scared of them. But we cannot really 'control' our emotions, we have to observe, over and above ourselves, the emotions working in us. We must be like a sturdy but flexibal beech and allow ourselves to be shaped by the wind; not a solid and stubborn oak which would be liable to break.
To cut to the chase - anger is a very useful and powerful emotion. It is there so we can weigh up what is good for us. I think that all emotional problems stem from, quite simply, our fear of ourselves - and many of us are frightened of anger -other people's as well as ourselves. As you say, if we were taught it was unacceptable at some time in our pasts, on repeated occasions, then that's all it takes. To let go would be too risky: people would be hurt, we would be disliked, all hell would break lose. So what do we do? We play it safe. We play the nice guy, or conversely, play the angry-all-the-time guy. Both are an avoidance of the real emotion. To me it became so clear that the same applies to SA. I tell you it was a Halleluiah moment when I realised that both my SA and my OCD was actually my fear of inciting anger in either myself or others. OK this realisation doesn't change anything at first, but it gives you a place to start. You get more in touch with your microscopic anger responses and act accordingly. You don't lie, deny, pretend it's not there and hope it goes away. We've all done this and we know where it leads. We get into situations we'd rather not be in, all because we said 'yes' when our anger told us 'no'. We allow people to violate our own personal boundaries, and lose touch with how WE opperate.
So this is how you get in touch with your anger, which is what you enquired about: You don't inflict it upon people (that's a result of repressed rage); you turn inward, be honest with yourself and what you feel. When you think about it, the truth about yourself is only ever what you feel right now. It is false and dishonest to churn over the positive affirmation 'I am patient', 'I am at peace' or 'I am loving' when you actually FEEL impatient, restless and unloving.
"When I decide that 'I am' anything, this exludes me from what is going on in me right now, which is the only reality of what I AM." (From 'Person to Person' by Carl Rogers & Barry Stevens. A brilliant, eye-opening book. Buy it on Amazon!)
I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but it is still good to always remind ourselves that the secret to being emotionally well is in learning to be comfortable with ALL our emotions. Be witness TO them rather than a victim OF them.
This post is a bit all over the place. I hope there are some useful things. This is my own experience rather than my theory. This is just me being honest about myself, hopefully speaking to the honest you, which is the only way a person can truly be of any use to another!
Trying
I think I may be able to help you here. I'm not sure whether you read the reply I left on the thread by Tony, but it was related to what you are thinking about.
Funny, the word anger has come back time and again for me recently as well, and it certainly seems to make a lot fall into place. You know how you can do all this theorizing that seems a little shakey, like you could almost convince yourself of anything, but at other times (perhaps because of less theorizing) something REALLY seems to make sense? The question of anger makes a lot of sense to me, not only because of the literature I have come across that has helped explain it, but also because of my new awareness of these feelings that has occured in conjunction with this new understanding of them.
When I started down my road to healing, I initially thought I had Social Anxiety Disorder, or Social Phobia - an irrational fear of others; the fear of being disliked/judged etc. I can't begin to tell you the agony this can cause because it affects pretty much every area of one's life. You become lonely, reclusive, depressed and all the rest of it. The real route causes behind all this become so lost in the mess of the accompanying symptoms that you get rather lost yourself. You become incapable of really telling the doctor what's the matter, becuase you don't know; you continuously get diverted by the lesser issues. In the end, you really have to work it out for yourself.
It certainly was Social Anxiety (SA), but though that is the term now used to describe the condition, it does rather end up being an attempt to bring it all together under one roof. The reality is of course much different - you cannot tame a wild animal, and if you try it just gets madder. I wonder if there is a sense in you to want to 'tame the wild animal' of your problems? You report your progress on this site frequently, which is good, but perhaps you should learn to be more patient with yourself and take your rollerskates off? That was one of the best things my therapist ever told me. She said "you have certainly grasped it all intellectually, you know what has happened and you know what to do, but now let go and let it happen." Over-intellectualizing can be another attempt to tame this wild animal. We like to create something tangible because the unpredictability of our emotions makes us scared of them. But we cannot really 'control' our emotions, we have to observe, over and above ourselves, the emotions working in us. We must be like a sturdy but flexibal beech and allow ourselves to be shaped by the wind; not a solid and stubborn oak which would be liable to break.
To cut to the chase - anger is a very useful and powerful emotion. It is there so we can weigh up what is good for us. I think that all emotional problems stem from, quite simply, our fear of ourselves - and many of us are frightened of anger -other people's as well as ourselves. As you say, if we were taught it was unacceptable at some time in our pasts, on repeated occasions, then that's all it takes. To let go would be too risky: people would be hurt, we would be disliked, all hell would break lose. So what do we do? We play it safe. We play the nice guy, or conversely, play the angry-all-the-time guy. Both are an avoidance of the real emotion. To me it became so clear that the same applies to SA. I tell you it was a Halleluiah moment when I realised that both my SA and my OCD was actually my fear of inciting anger in either myself or others. OK this realisation doesn't change anything at first, but it gives you a place to start. You get more in touch with your microscopic anger responses and act accordingly. You don't lie, deny, pretend it's not there and hope it goes away. We've all done this and we know where it leads. We get into situations we'd rather not be in, all because we said 'yes' when our anger told us 'no'. We allow people to violate our own personal boundaries, and lose touch with how WE opperate.
So this is how you get in touch with your anger, which is what you enquired about: You don't inflict it upon people (that's a result of repressed rage); you turn inward, be honest with yourself and what you feel. When you think about it, the truth about yourself is only ever what you feel right now. It is false and dishonest to churn over the positive affirmation 'I am patient', 'I am at peace' or 'I am loving' when you actually FEEL impatient, restless and unloving.
"When I decide that 'I am' anything, this exludes me from what is going on in me right now, which is the only reality of what I AM." (From 'Person to Person' by Carl Rogers & Barry Stevens. A brilliant, eye-opening book. Buy it on Amazon!)
I'm sure I don't need to tell you this, but it is still good to always remind ourselves that the secret to being emotionally well is in learning to be comfortable with ALL our emotions. Be witness TO them rather than a victim OF them.
This post is a bit all over the place. I hope there are some useful things. This is my own experience rather than my theory. This is just me being honest about myself, hopefully speaking to the honest you, which is the only way a person can truly be of any use to another!
Trying
#3
Gareth 
- Advanced Member
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 64
- Joined: 13-April 05
Posted 17 June 2005 - 11:17 AM
Trying,
Thanks very much for the reply, it was actually very useful. It sounds like you have faced / are facing similar problems to myself.
Instead of the label of Social Anxiety, my label is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (self-diagnosed). I feel a constant level of worry / anxiety / tension for no easily-identifiable reason, which develops into depression at my most despairing moments. I have always worked on the assumption that it has to be coming from somewhere, if I find out where I can look it in the face.
Anxiety feels disingenuous to me, and it is constantly frustrating that emotions cannot show their face for what they are rather than hiding behind a veil of an uncomfortable sensation. But if you believe in the systems of trauma, you can also understand why this happens.
The intellectualising and the theorising are embedded habits in me now, partly a protection I think from having to go through the emotion, and partly a useful exercise in learning about myself and this whole mental health area. Knowledge is power.
But you are right - letting go is paramount and not something I am managing to do as yet. I have found my symptoms so distressing that I think I have fought them, and have not been able to find the patience or courage to just sit and let them be. I have also not yet found a method for releasing emotion. I see my psychotherapist and I sit and I talk, and I do FEEL while I am there, but if trauma is being released then it is certainly being release very, very, very slowly. She asks what it might be like for me to break down in front of her. I cannot imagine doing so. Perhaps that in itself leaves me stuck.
Patience. Yes indeed, I mention it above and I see you mention it in your response to me. I don't have it and I can't find it, while being very aware that right now it is exactly what I need. Benjamin's words are something like "your mind/body system is doing its thing, don't get in its way..." - having trust in the inherent knowledge of my mind and body to resolve these things for me and have my best interests at heart is very difficult.
So anger - you feel that the best way to find it and therefore release it for what it is, is to turn inward and be honest with yourself. Have you actually done this in practice? Have you seen any results? Is it about examining how you really feel, at any one moment of the day? You may notice that I am at a point where I am asking the very fundamental question - how do I experience feelings? How does the system actually work in practice? Scary that I should be so detached from my emotions really that I don't even know where or how to find them.
Much of what has been happening to me seems to come back to a fear of confrontation. I have never wanted to "rock the boat" with people, or upset them. I don't like people to shout, or to get angry, and I very rarely get angry with people if they have done something to me. My method of coping if anyone was to trespass on my feelings would be to cut them off emotionally. I am perhaps seeing the pay-off for this now. It just doesn't work, not for any of the parties involved. The theory it leaves me with is that my anxiety is a way of these repressed feelings seeping out of the subconscious into the conscious mind.
"In the end, you really have to work it out for yourself." Never a truer word spoken. But sharing like this always helps, I think.
Thanks very much for the reply, it was actually very useful. It sounds like you have faced / are facing similar problems to myself.
Instead of the label of Social Anxiety, my label is Generalised Anxiety Disorder (self-diagnosed). I feel a constant level of worry / anxiety / tension for no easily-identifiable reason, which develops into depression at my most despairing moments. I have always worked on the assumption that it has to be coming from somewhere, if I find out where I can look it in the face.
Anxiety feels disingenuous to me, and it is constantly frustrating that emotions cannot show their face for what they are rather than hiding behind a veil of an uncomfortable sensation. But if you believe in the systems of trauma, you can also understand why this happens.
The intellectualising and the theorising are embedded habits in me now, partly a protection I think from having to go through the emotion, and partly a useful exercise in learning about myself and this whole mental health area. Knowledge is power.
But you are right - letting go is paramount and not something I am managing to do as yet. I have found my symptoms so distressing that I think I have fought them, and have not been able to find the patience or courage to just sit and let them be. I have also not yet found a method for releasing emotion. I see my psychotherapist and I sit and I talk, and I do FEEL while I am there, but if trauma is being released then it is certainly being release very, very, very slowly. She asks what it might be like for me to break down in front of her. I cannot imagine doing so. Perhaps that in itself leaves me stuck.
Patience. Yes indeed, I mention it above and I see you mention it in your response to me. I don't have it and I can't find it, while being very aware that right now it is exactly what I need. Benjamin's words are something like "your mind/body system is doing its thing, don't get in its way..." - having trust in the inherent knowledge of my mind and body to resolve these things for me and have my best interests at heart is very difficult.
So anger - you feel that the best way to find it and therefore release it for what it is, is to turn inward and be honest with yourself. Have you actually done this in practice? Have you seen any results? Is it about examining how you really feel, at any one moment of the day? You may notice that I am at a point where I am asking the very fundamental question - how do I experience feelings? How does the system actually work in practice? Scary that I should be so detached from my emotions really that I don't even know where or how to find them.
Much of what has been happening to me seems to come back to a fear of confrontation. I have never wanted to "rock the boat" with people, or upset them. I don't like people to shout, or to get angry, and I very rarely get angry with people if they have done something to me. My method of coping if anyone was to trespass on my feelings would be to cut them off emotionally. I am perhaps seeing the pay-off for this now. It just doesn't work, not for any of the parties involved. The theory it leaves me with is that my anxiety is a way of these repressed feelings seeping out of the subconscious into the conscious mind.
"In the end, you really have to work it out for yourself." Never a truer word spoken. But sharing like this always helps, I think.
#4 Guest_Guest_Trying_*
Posted 17 June 2005 - 01:41 PM
You know, out of all the users on this site you're the one who has me going "my God, he's exactly like me!"
I wish I could say ''you release emotion like this'', but alas, I haven't figured it out myself yet. I don't think there is anything more for us to grasp about the proccess of emotional healing, but we have to get better at letting it happen, which is the part we seem baffled by.
Well, something that helped me which will help you too: progress often doesn't feel like progress! It can feel like the opposite, but what is actually important I think is that you are engaging with your emotions, whatever form that may take. You have already got the ball rolling; you are hungry to be free, hungry for the truth and hungry for that unmistakable feeling that 'now I know I am finally alright'. You will unconsciously and naturally drift to the next neccessary step. If you aren't where you'd like to be, you know you are in the right place because there is more emotional work to be done.
Yes, I do have experience of being more honest about anger. It can take a long time to recognise it, but it gets easier. When you feel trapped or afraid of someone or something, there is an anger there which is there to help you get out. But when we have a mistrust of these feelings, and always think we're in the wrong? Bingo. There is the repression. To be honest requires a bit of courage, and that's scary.
A recent example in my own life from just the other day: I have of late delved into mystical writings and spirituality, and am developing an understanding of the nature of 'God', however you wish to interpret that. I feel the fire is lit, and I am growing outward from within. Who knows where and how long this may take me. Perhaps a life time, perhaps I'll lose interest later on. But... as soon as I started talking about this with a (very devoted) Christian friend of mine, she became over-excited, telling me how wonderful it was that I had seen the light. I was saved in her eyes and she's since sent me loads of books on Christianity and keeps phoning me up to talk about my new discoveries, probably hoping that one day after having explored all religions I'll have a Christian conversion because it's the only correct religion and I won't go to hell blah blah blah.
Well, what were my feelings? They went from feeling excited, curious and happy (surely the best way to grow) to feeling overwhelmed, pressurized and resentful... that is, angry! There is nothing more likely to kill a person's natural curiousity than outside pressure. So I phoned her up and thanked her for her support, but that I wanted to go at my own pace. That is an example of good, well felt anger put to good use. The fear of this anger, her slamming the phone down on me, losing a good friend (none of which happened of course) would mean I wouldn't have confronted her and she'd still be phoning up and I'd feel trapped and more angry, especially with myself.
Your impatience and tendancy to self-analyse may naturally ease as you start to feel more of these feelings. That is the way it works. I believe this is often why changing bad habits or trying to be more good and positive often leads no-where. I ask the question why do we feel the need to develop these patterns in the first place? There is a reason for them and merely quitting the habit doesn't confront this source. The emotional need or 'stroke' you are looking for will surface elsewhere.
At the moment, like me, it appears you enjoy thinking, writing about your thoughts and so on - it is a form of self-stroking. The point is you have needs, and introspective thought is a form of self-comfort just as thumb-sucking is, and people who have experienced prolonged pain in their past are more likely to retreat into this introspective land because they find comfort again. It makes sense to me anyway: we know that being happy means the absence of fear and self-consciousness. So surely the presence of self-absorption means we have known more fear...? Think of how a hurt 5 year old or a bullied 10 year old reacts: "I don't like this feeling - I don't understand - I wonder what's wrong with me - hmmmm, let me meditate on this for the rest of my life."
The alternative (feeling our pain) is too dreadful to contemplate. I speculate that, again similar to me, this is the point you find difficult to move beyond in therapy. At first maybe feelings need to be forced a little - you are after all getting used to a new way of working. It's so silly, I now realise this but I still can't do it! I now sit there in therapy trying to cry, trying to let go, trying to emote, but the feelings that were so ripe and real the day before are simply not there. Lots of people I know who also have experience of therapy are amazed that I've never cried. It shows my dilemma - people think I'm OK cause I'm not emotional. Very interesting to me this is!
So get practising! Watch a weepy movie (Bambi!) , mourn a past love, confess difficult feelings to someone. Even excercise gets the emotions going. I once cried after jogging, wierd though you probably think I am!
Regards,
Trying
I wish I could say ''you release emotion like this'', but alas, I haven't figured it out myself yet. I don't think there is anything more for us to grasp about the proccess of emotional healing, but we have to get better at letting it happen, which is the part we seem baffled by.
Well, something that helped me which will help you too: progress often doesn't feel like progress! It can feel like the opposite, but what is actually important I think is that you are engaging with your emotions, whatever form that may take. You have already got the ball rolling; you are hungry to be free, hungry for the truth and hungry for that unmistakable feeling that 'now I know I am finally alright'. You will unconsciously and naturally drift to the next neccessary step. If you aren't where you'd like to be, you know you are in the right place because there is more emotional work to be done.
Yes, I do have experience of being more honest about anger. It can take a long time to recognise it, but it gets easier. When you feel trapped or afraid of someone or something, there is an anger there which is there to help you get out. But when we have a mistrust of these feelings, and always think we're in the wrong? Bingo. There is the repression. To be honest requires a bit of courage, and that's scary.
A recent example in my own life from just the other day: I have of late delved into mystical writings and spirituality, and am developing an understanding of the nature of 'God', however you wish to interpret that. I feel the fire is lit, and I am growing outward from within. Who knows where and how long this may take me. Perhaps a life time, perhaps I'll lose interest later on. But... as soon as I started talking about this with a (very devoted) Christian friend of mine, she became over-excited, telling me how wonderful it was that I had seen the light. I was saved in her eyes and she's since sent me loads of books on Christianity and keeps phoning me up to talk about my new discoveries, probably hoping that one day after having explored all religions I'll have a Christian conversion because it's the only correct religion and I won't go to hell blah blah blah.
Well, what were my feelings? They went from feeling excited, curious and happy (surely the best way to grow) to feeling overwhelmed, pressurized and resentful... that is, angry! There is nothing more likely to kill a person's natural curiousity than outside pressure. So I phoned her up and thanked her for her support, but that I wanted to go at my own pace. That is an example of good, well felt anger put to good use. The fear of this anger, her slamming the phone down on me, losing a good friend (none of which happened of course) would mean I wouldn't have confronted her and she'd still be phoning up and I'd feel trapped and more angry, especially with myself.
Your impatience and tendancy to self-analyse may naturally ease as you start to feel more of these feelings. That is the way it works. I believe this is often why changing bad habits or trying to be more good and positive often leads no-where. I ask the question why do we feel the need to develop these patterns in the first place? There is a reason for them and merely quitting the habit doesn't confront this source. The emotional need or 'stroke' you are looking for will surface elsewhere.
At the moment, like me, it appears you enjoy thinking, writing about your thoughts and so on - it is a form of self-stroking. The point is you have needs, and introspective thought is a form of self-comfort just as thumb-sucking is, and people who have experienced prolonged pain in their past are more likely to retreat into this introspective land because they find comfort again. It makes sense to me anyway: we know that being happy means the absence of fear and self-consciousness. So surely the presence of self-absorption means we have known more fear...? Think of how a hurt 5 year old or a bullied 10 year old reacts: "I don't like this feeling - I don't understand - I wonder what's wrong with me - hmmmm, let me meditate on this for the rest of my life."
The alternative (feeling our pain) is too dreadful to contemplate. I speculate that, again similar to me, this is the point you find difficult to move beyond in therapy. At first maybe feelings need to be forced a little - you are after all getting used to a new way of working. It's so silly, I now realise this but I still can't do it! I now sit there in therapy trying to cry, trying to let go, trying to emote, but the feelings that were so ripe and real the day before are simply not there. Lots of people I know who also have experience of therapy are amazed that I've never cried. It shows my dilemma - people think I'm OK cause I'm not emotional. Very interesting to me this is!
So get practising! Watch a weepy movie (Bambi!) , mourn a past love, confess difficult feelings to someone. Even excercise gets the emotions going. I once cried after jogging, wierd though you probably think I am!
Regards,
Trying
#5
Gareth
- Advanced Member
-
- Group: Members
- Posts: 64
- Joined: 13-April 05
Posted 28 June 2005 - 01:03 PM
Trying,
Just a quickie for you as I just read this and thought of this debate we've been having... it's from Edmund Bourne's "Anxiety and Phobia Workbook".
"Going through the physical motions associated with aggression will usually bring anger to the surface. The target of these motions should be an inanimate object. All of the following have been very helpful to many people in ventilating angry feelings;
- Hitting a large pillow with both fists
- Screaming into a pillow
- Hitting a punching bag
- Throwing eggs against a wall
- Yelling within the confines of a car
- Chopping wood
- Hitting a life-size inflatable doll
- Hitting an old tennis racket or plastic bat against a bed
- Having a vigorous physical workout
I do not recommend that you engage in any of the above on a daily basis. There is evidence, reported by Carol Tavris in her book Anger: The Misunderstood emotion, that excessive ventilation of anger only tends to produce more anger. The popular term "rageaholic" describes the kind of person who has become addicted to anger through excessive expression. On the other hand, many phobic and anxiety-prone people have a tendency to withhold or deny angry feelings under any circumstances.
Of all the different emotions that can give rise to anxiety, anger is the most common and pervasive one. Anger comprises a continuum of emotions ranging from rage at one extreme to impatience and irritation at the other. Frustration is perhaps the most common form of anger that most of us experience.
A proneness to phobias and obsessive-compulsive behaviour is often associated with withheld anger. Your preoccupations increase during those times when you're feeling most frustrated, thwarted, and otherwise angry with your situation in life. Frequently, however, you are entirely unaware of these angry or frustrated feelings."
It goes on to quite a lengthy section about anger which is very useful. Anger keeps coming up, and out of blue yesterday my therapist said to me "where is your anger?" and this has quite a profound effect on me. It is starting, slowly, to come. Can't see myself ever being a "rageaholic" though!
Just thought this passage might be interesting to you. Hope you're doing well,
Gareth
Just a quickie for you as I just read this and thought of this debate we've been having... it's from Edmund Bourne's "Anxiety and Phobia Workbook".
"Going through the physical motions associated with aggression will usually bring anger to the surface. The target of these motions should be an inanimate object. All of the following have been very helpful to many people in ventilating angry feelings;
- Hitting a large pillow with both fists
- Screaming into a pillow
- Hitting a punching bag
- Throwing eggs against a wall
- Yelling within the confines of a car
- Chopping wood
- Hitting a life-size inflatable doll
- Hitting an old tennis racket or plastic bat against a bed
- Having a vigorous physical workout
I do not recommend that you engage in any of the above on a daily basis. There is evidence, reported by Carol Tavris in her book Anger: The Misunderstood emotion, that excessive ventilation of anger only tends to produce more anger. The popular term "rageaholic" describes the kind of person who has become addicted to anger through excessive expression. On the other hand, many phobic and anxiety-prone people have a tendency to withhold or deny angry feelings under any circumstances.
Of all the different emotions that can give rise to anxiety, anger is the most common and pervasive one. Anger comprises a continuum of emotions ranging from rage at one extreme to impatience and irritation at the other. Frustration is perhaps the most common form of anger that most of us experience.
A proneness to phobias and obsessive-compulsive behaviour is often associated with withheld anger. Your preoccupations increase during those times when you're feeling most frustrated, thwarted, and otherwise angry with your situation in life. Frequently, however, you are entirely unaware of these angry or frustrated feelings."
It goes on to quite a lengthy section about anger which is very useful. Anger keeps coming up, and out of blue yesterday my therapist said to me "where is your anger?" and this has quite a profound effect on me. It is starting, slowly, to come. Can't see myself ever being a "rageaholic" though!
Just thought this passage might be interesting to you. Hope you're doing well,
Gareth
#6 Guest_Guest_Trying_*
Posted 03 July 2005 - 10:43 PM
Thanks very much, Gareth. Even with the time elapsing between my daily visits to this site, the role anger has played and continues to play in my life becomes more apparent. Perhaps I am getting somewhere.
I was involved in something emotionally intense recently - 3 days away from home with strangers and all my anxiety feelings were as potent as ever. The frustration that all the councilling has lead nowhere (so I thought) was too much too bare. What good are all my friendly chats with my therapist when, in the situations that overwhelm me, her words are simply miles from my head? This was, infact, always my issue with CBT too - how can you remember all those great techniques... when your mind is drowning in fear? I could never take control of my so called automatic fear responses, and whenever I did I was away that I was merely repressing them - which is exactly what the deeper therapies try to get you to stop doing!!!
Anyway, endless tiny moments that triggered anger toward myself just drove me over the edge. I basically broke down yesterday, and have felt totally shaken to my foundations since. Like my skin has been removed. But I hope this is what Benjamin Fry writes about as good. I hope it is the release of trauma, but I feel worse not better. I feel like I've pushed myself to a new capacity for anxiety where my nervous system has collapsed completely. I was sick a couple of hours ago, there were tears in my eyes and I don't know what's happening.
The light at the end of the tunnel though is that I felt my despair and sadness very strongly during the crisis point; a profoudly different experience to the ego-driven self-rage that tends to occur when I feel awful. I have read about this and understand that the ego-rage is the fear of the painful feelings, whereas the emotional crisis, which I believe I had, is the actual feeling itself. I have been wanting for this I suppose, but it is rather scary when it comes. The experience of your raw feeling brings you face to face with how vulnerable you are, so perhaps we like self-help because of the hope we might somehow get better without feeling this vulnerability. Well, that is just not going to happen! As I wept, there was a sort of resignation and realisation of how little I knew, how dillusional I can be, and how far from the actual feelings I am when I simply read about them and think I'm getting somewhere. Of course, at the same time, this is deeply humbling and refreshing. T
I was involved in something emotionally intense recently - 3 days away from home with strangers and all my anxiety feelings were as potent as ever. The frustration that all the councilling has lead nowhere (so I thought) was too much too bare. What good are all my friendly chats with my therapist when, in the situations that overwhelm me, her words are simply miles from my head? This was, infact, always my issue with CBT too - how can you remember all those great techniques... when your mind is drowning in fear? I could never take control of my so called automatic fear responses, and whenever I did I was away that I was merely repressing them - which is exactly what the deeper therapies try to get you to stop doing!!!
Anyway, endless tiny moments that triggered anger toward myself just drove me over the edge. I basically broke down yesterday, and have felt totally shaken to my foundations since. Like my skin has been removed. But I hope this is what Benjamin Fry writes about as good. I hope it is the release of trauma, but I feel worse not better. I feel like I've pushed myself to a new capacity for anxiety where my nervous system has collapsed completely. I was sick a couple of hours ago, there were tears in my eyes and I don't know what's happening.
The light at the end of the tunnel though is that I felt my despair and sadness very strongly during the crisis point; a profoudly different experience to the ego-driven self-rage that tends to occur when I feel awful. I have read about this and understand that the ego-rage is the fear of the painful feelings, whereas the emotional crisis, which I believe I had, is the actual feeling itself. I have been wanting for this I suppose, but it is rather scary when it comes. The experience of your raw feeling brings you face to face with how vulnerable you are, so perhaps we like self-help because of the hope we might somehow get better without feeling this vulnerability. Well, that is just not going to happen! As I wept, there was a sort of resignation and realisation of how little I knew, how dillusional I can be, and how far from the actual feelings I am when I simply read about them and think I'm getting somewhere. Of course, at the same time, this is deeply humbling and refreshing. T
#7
Gareth
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Posted 05 July 2005 - 11:26 AM
I could have written this myself... If you read my summary of my past couple of months then you would see that I am familiar with the "breakdown" that you describe. I have had two instances like this - times when it has felt like everything in myself is black, broken and ruined, and that there is no future other than one of total constant mental anguish. You are right - it is vulnerability in its starkest and most hideous form. It is the bottomless pit, the glimpse into everything that you have been through, and everything that you yet need to go through. It is really hard to see them as breakthroughs, but after they happen, there is certainly a period of peace and reflection. They are clearly the release of something.
One question continues to haunt me - how many times do I have to breakdown, how many more days will I continue to have to suffer before real relief is experienced? It is very hard to continue to see the process as edifying when every day is a struggle. My psychotherapist tells me that she thinks that 'things have begun to move' since I began to see her. Then why do I still feel so awful? Why has my insomnia randomly come back to me after weeks of being able to sleep OK? Why did I believe I had beaten my physical symptoms of anxiety, only for them to come back this week? These questions, unfortunately, do not have any answers. The only answer that seems to come for every question is "Just keep going."
Chinks of light do indeed get through, and things happen that give you momentary
elief in the process. It is almost as if some higher power (the subconscious mind, perhaps?) sometimes shows us what is really going on. A memory will connect to an emotion, or a day will look brighter, people seem kind and good, food tastes better, air smells sweeter. It is all a matter of perception, after all. The world around us doesn't change, but the feelings inside of us do, and these feelings
ictate absolutely everything - your attitudes, your beliefs, your interactions with other people. If they are black, then your world is black.
As well as my anxiety developing recently into quite a heavy depression, the odd thing that I have experienced is what I call "emotion rushes". These can be, say for example, standing in the supermarket looking at tins of beans and suddenly feeling a great heavy wave of dark misery fall on me, so that I am physically stopped, rooted to the spot, and then, days later, walking through a busy city centre, thinking of nothing in particular, and suddenly being struck with an enormous chord of joy, so strong and so deep that it makes you stop in your step, and clutch your hands to your chest to try to keep it inside before it escapes.
Are these the releases that I need to be experiencing? Does it matter particularly if they feel good or they feel bad, or is it simply the experiencing of emotion that I must go through? Benjamin told me, in his first reply to me many months ago, that it may take many years for me to find the perspective on my trauma that I need to move on. There is not a chance that I could live like this for many more weeks, let alone many more years. But if the darkness of the things that happened to me in my childhood is really coming to me, and I have to relive it to move on, then I will have a lot more to go through yet.
Perhaps I am getting somewhere. Perhaps you are indeed getting somewhere. All we can say to ourselves is that we are feeling emotions, and that all the evidence points to the fact that we have got to this point in our lives because we haven't felt emotions properly before. The discomfort is the problem. No matter how hard I try, I find it terribly difficult to "let go" and "accept" the feelings and the anxiety that wash over me. They are too much of an affront to the joy that I know I should be feeling in my life, the contendedness that I have worked so hard to build up, but that is now as elusive as the sun.
Can you explain ego-rage a little for me? Not a concept I have heard of. I had always thought that the anxiety itself was the opposite of the true emotions, that it was the equivalent of trying to keep a lid on a boiling pot - the lid will
shake and rattle until some of the steam and water is let out. Anxiety is the shaking and rattling, it is the face of your feelings, but the not the feelings themselves. It cannot be trusted, and therefore the way to deal with it is the same way you would deal with anything untrustworthy - don't give it any credence, don't believe the things it is telling you. What I don't know is whether we should be saying the same thing about depression.
all the best
Gareth
One question continues to haunt me - how many times do I have to breakdown, how many more days will I continue to have to suffer before real relief is experienced? It is very hard to continue to see the process as edifying when every day is a struggle. My psychotherapist tells me that she thinks that 'things have begun to move' since I began to see her. Then why do I still feel so awful? Why has my insomnia randomly come back to me after weeks of being able to sleep OK? Why did I believe I had beaten my physical symptoms of anxiety, only for them to come back this week? These questions, unfortunately, do not have any answers. The only answer that seems to come for every question is "Just keep going."
Chinks of light do indeed get through, and things happen that give you momentary
elief in the process. It is almost as if some higher power (the subconscious mind, perhaps?) sometimes shows us what is really going on. A memory will connect to an emotion, or a day will look brighter, people seem kind and good, food tastes better, air smells sweeter. It is all a matter of perception, after all. The world around us doesn't change, but the feelings inside of us do, and these feelings
ictate absolutely everything - your attitudes, your beliefs, your interactions with other people. If they are black, then your world is black.
As well as my anxiety developing recently into quite a heavy depression, the odd thing that I have experienced is what I call "emotion rushes". These can be, say for example, standing in the supermarket looking at tins of beans and suddenly feeling a great heavy wave of dark misery fall on me, so that I am physically stopped, rooted to the spot, and then, days later, walking through a busy city centre, thinking of nothing in particular, and suddenly being struck with an enormous chord of joy, so strong and so deep that it makes you stop in your step, and clutch your hands to your chest to try to keep it inside before it escapes.
Are these the releases that I need to be experiencing? Does it matter particularly if they feel good or they feel bad, or is it simply the experiencing of emotion that I must go through? Benjamin told me, in his first reply to me many months ago, that it may take many years for me to find the perspective on my trauma that I need to move on. There is not a chance that I could live like this for many more weeks, let alone many more years. But if the darkness of the things that happened to me in my childhood is really coming to me, and I have to relive it to move on, then I will have a lot more to go through yet.
Perhaps I am getting somewhere. Perhaps you are indeed getting somewhere. All we can say to ourselves is that we are feeling emotions, and that all the evidence points to the fact that we have got to this point in our lives because we haven't felt emotions properly before. The discomfort is the problem. No matter how hard I try, I find it terribly difficult to "let go" and "accept" the feelings and the anxiety that wash over me. They are too much of an affront to the joy that I know I should be feeling in my life, the contendedness that I have worked so hard to build up, but that is now as elusive as the sun.
Can you explain ego-rage a little for me? Not a concept I have heard of. I had always thought that the anxiety itself was the opposite of the true emotions, that it was the equivalent of trying to keep a lid on a boiling pot - the lid will
shake and rattle until some of the steam and water is let out. Anxiety is the shaking and rattling, it is the face of your feelings, but the not the feelings themselves. It cannot be trusted, and therefore the way to deal with it is the same way you would deal with anything untrustworthy - don't give it any credence, don't believe the things it is telling you. What I don't know is whether we should be saying the same thing about depression.
all the best
Gareth
#8
Trying
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Posted 21 July 2005 - 02:59 PM
Hi Gareth - hope you're doing OK.
To respond to your question about ego-rage:
Just in case you think it's a term used by psychologists. It isn't - think I made it up(!), but I'm using it to describe when the fear of our feelings is still present, but the mechanisms we use to keep ourselves down (which we learnt) are so strong that it is only our will doing the work rather than our emotions themselves. Imagine a bad actor in a dodgy TV drama trying to emote anger - it's unconvincing because it's all trying to be said with the face. We do a similar thing when we've lost touch with our rage as a real, personal feeling, and instead use this sort of actor's anger to control how others respond to us.
The real emotional rage is the point where your feelings overpower your ego. Not an experience many of us are familiar with because we repress just about everything our emotional brains generate, because we fear the consequences. Also I think, as human adults we identify so profoundly with our intellects that we tend to take our emotions completely for granted. As if they are a added nuisance. The sensation of emotions overpowering the ego 'you' is frightening because it would challenge our sense of reality; in other words, make us think we were going crazy. But psychologists know that schizophrenia, narcissism, hysteria and other 'crazy' mental disturbances occur as a result of intellectual resistance and interferance. So, true 'craziness' is actually the intellectual repression of our deeper, sometimes powerful, feelings.
Another example from my own recent life: I was driving somewhere the other day and got lost. Time ticked away and I was becoming increasingly lost and increasingly late for my appointment. This often happens to me, no matter how much I plan, something goes wrong. Well, as the pressure built up inside me I experienced the ego-rage - self hatred at being so useless - which finally gave way to what it really was: I had what, honest to God, can only be described as a tantrum, the likes of which I probably haven't experienced since I was an infant. This is what Benjamin Fry has talked about as "the emotions of a baby coming through in an intellectually structured adult."
Perhaps this is exactly what's meant to be happening to me at the moment! It's a very unsettling thing for an adult to experience because you feel so 'out of control'. T
To respond to your question about ego-rage:
Just in case you think it's a term used by psychologists. It isn't - think I made it up(!), but I'm using it to describe when the fear of our feelings is still present, but the mechanisms we use to keep ourselves down (which we learnt) are so strong that it is only our will doing the work rather than our emotions themselves. Imagine a bad actor in a dodgy TV drama trying to emote anger - it's unconvincing because it's all trying to be said with the face. We do a similar thing when we've lost touch with our rage as a real, personal feeling, and instead use this sort of actor's anger to control how others respond to us.
The real emotional rage is the point where your feelings overpower your ego. Not an experience many of us are familiar with because we repress just about everything our emotional brains generate, because we fear the consequences. Also I think, as human adults we identify so profoundly with our intellects that we tend to take our emotions completely for granted. As if they are a added nuisance. The sensation of emotions overpowering the ego 'you' is frightening because it would challenge our sense of reality; in other words, make us think we were going crazy. But psychologists know that schizophrenia, narcissism, hysteria and other 'crazy' mental disturbances occur as a result of intellectual resistance and interferance. So, true 'craziness' is actually the intellectual repression of our deeper, sometimes powerful, feelings.
Another example from my own recent life: I was driving somewhere the other day and got lost. Time ticked away and I was becoming increasingly lost and increasingly late for my appointment. This often happens to me, no matter how much I plan, something goes wrong. Well, as the pressure built up inside me I experienced the ego-rage - self hatred at being so useless - which finally gave way to what it really was: I had what, honest to God, can only be described as a tantrum, the likes of which I probably haven't experienced since I was an infant. This is what Benjamin Fry has talked about as "the emotions of a baby coming through in an intellectually structured adult."
Perhaps this is exactly what's meant to be happening to me at the moment! It's a very unsettling thing for an adult to experience because you feel so 'out of control'. T
#9
Gareth
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Posted 25 July 2005 - 10:03 AM
For people suffering in the ways that you and I seem to be, I think that perhaps "out of control" is exactly what we need. At least it is a true expression of feeling - and comes from a real place, not from what we think we "should" be showing to the world. It is useful for these expressions to come when you are alone, I think, as one will be more likely to express the truth about themselves with no judging onlookers.
I have not been able to get past my continuing anxiety and depression and I think I am trying to "settle in" to it, to not expect anything to change and to see if this is a life I can live, feeling this way all the time. It certainly seems that I am in for the long haul with this thing, as it has been 4 and a half months now and new emotional complications come up all the time, and I still go through the really bad lows. So what else to do but sit and let it happen? The only question that I still have to answer is whether to take anti-depressants. I have always avoided them for various reasons. Do you have any experience with them that you would be able to share?
Anyway, I can totally understand what you are saying about ego-rage now. Particularly your description of when real emotion came out of you in your car journey. It is in moments of frustration that I think I see my real emotions, and the scary thing about them is that they are the emotions of a child. "Tantrum" is a good word. I have had experiences similar to the one you describe recently with my lawn strimmer. It is the most frustratingly bad piece of design I have ever come across and I find myself experiencing the frustration it causes in me very, very personally. After the event, looking back on how badly I have been emotionally hurt by a disappointment, or a frustration, makes me realise that these strong emotions must be coming from somewhere deep. I mean, getting lost and being late is not the end of the world, but the emotions you felt were very real. They have been bottled up as a result of something else that has happened to you. They will always find a way out. Anxiety and depression I think are the body's expression that these emotions are very raw and very close to the surface. Being in control all the time is a wearing and exhausting experience.
"Let go". The one piece of advice that has always rung true with me as something I need to do to help myself. Also the one thing I have no idea how to do.
I have not been able to get past my continuing anxiety and depression and I think I am trying to "settle in" to it, to not expect anything to change and to see if this is a life I can live, feeling this way all the time. It certainly seems that I am in for the long haul with this thing, as it has been 4 and a half months now and new emotional complications come up all the time, and I still go through the really bad lows. So what else to do but sit and let it happen? The only question that I still have to answer is whether to take anti-depressants. I have always avoided them for various reasons. Do you have any experience with them that you would be able to share?
Anyway, I can totally understand what you are saying about ego-rage now. Particularly your description of when real emotion came out of you in your car journey. It is in moments of frustration that I think I see my real emotions, and the scary thing about them is that they are the emotions of a child. "Tantrum" is a good word. I have had experiences similar to the one you describe recently with my lawn strimmer. It is the most frustratingly bad piece of design I have ever come across and I find myself experiencing the frustration it causes in me very, very personally. After the event, looking back on how badly I have been emotionally hurt by a disappointment, or a frustration, makes me realise that these strong emotions must be coming from somewhere deep. I mean, getting lost and being late is not the end of the world, but the emotions you felt were very real. They have been bottled up as a result of something else that has happened to you. They will always find a way out. Anxiety and depression I think are the body's expression that these emotions are very raw and very close to the surface. Being in control all the time is a wearing and exhausting experience.
"Let go". The one piece of advice that has always rung true with me as something I need to do to help myself. Also the one thing I have no idea how to do.
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