I've suppressed my anger practically my whole life. Just recently, I'm allowing myself to feel it. But it FEELS violent and processing it takes hours and also takes a huge toll on me.

I told T today that it feels violent and he told me that he knew. And then I asked him why and he took a deep breath in and hesitated. I got scared and told him that he was scaring me so then all he said was that it was because my emotions are strong.

I'm wondering if anyone else experiences anger this way and/or if anyone could venture a guess as to why it FEELS that way to me. I'm NOT a violent person. But the anger feels violent. Although, I do have to say that I was a violent person when I was younger, in early childhood. I used to get so mad at my sister but get tongue-tied and then beat the crap out of her. She used to beat the crap out of me before I realized I was stronger than she was.

Thanks for any thoughts,

Liese

I am wondering if maybe your anger feels so violent because you never learned to regulate it and because you have such a backlog of anger that was never felt or expressed? This was the case with me, definitely. I suppressed my anger for so long, that this past summer when I finally began to allow myself to feel it, it felt totally out of control at first. After a few months though, it started to feel more manageable. So maybe if you can just allow yourself to feel it while breathing through it, or do something with the energy like exercising, it will start to calm down and feel less violent after a while.

Liese,
I had a huge problem with anger because of misunderstanding of violence and anger. My father was a violent man, whose anger was most often acted out, hurting the things and people around him. One of my few consciousl childhood memories is coming downstairs in the morning to find my father looking very dishelveled (he had spent the night in jail, because one of my sisters called the cops because he was beating my mom who was trying to stop him from going to beat us kids because we were f---ing leeches, I was told years later by my sister who is older and remembers it better) and multiple holes in the paneling of our living room (my father picked up mother up a number of time and threw her so hard into the wall that her elbows, feet and hands punched holes in the paneling. Dad spent the day frantically reparing it before my grandparents' showed up for dinner.)

So anger held a strange attraction and terror for me. The attraction was that my father used his anger and violence to control everyone, so anger was deeply associated with power. However, it was very dangerous to get angry with my dad, so anger was something I deeply feared. And because he so often hurt things or people when he was angry, I became scared of being angry because I held a deep belief that if I got angry then I would automatically hurt someone.

When my T and I started exploring my anger, I was resistant to say the least. But we had a session where I was really upset about how I was feeling and in describing it talked about the fear of hurting someone or something. and that's when my T told me something very important which is that anger and violence are two different things. That when we are angry we want to do violent things (I had told him about wanting to smash him in the head with a statue on his table ) but it is only if we act on those impulses and do the act does it become violence.

I had honestly not recognized a difference before. Oddly enough, as I learned to recognize that anger was a legitimate feeling that I could have without needing to push it back down or act on it, that feeling that it would spill over into violence really diminished. I can stil struggle with anger but am trying to see it as just another emotion, one that can flow through me, inform me about myself but I can decide what I want to do about it. It really helped that my T has always welcomed and accepted my anger, even when it was misplaced or undeserved, making it clear that anger can be expressed without hurting anyone in a loving, committed relationship.

Which is my really long winded way of saying that yeah, I've had to battle some violent thoughts.

AG

Alpaca,

I definitely never learned to regulate it. I'm so glad to hear that it only took a couple of months for it to become manageable. Breathing exercises might help. I'll have to try them. The problem for me is that it feels like I'm being overtaken by an alien. Do you remember that movie with Sigourney Weaver? I think it was called Alien. Do you remember how they writhed in pain when the alien took them over? That's how it feels to me.

((((AG)))) It broke my heart to hear about your Dad. I'm not sure what hurt me more: the violence or the fact that he called you guys f---ing leeches.

I know what you mean when you say you associate anger with power. I do too. Or I did. I don't know why but I found it a little endearing that you wanted to smash your T in the head with a statue. That sounds kind of twisted. Maybe it was because you were able to tell him? Did you mean it when you said it at the time? Or was it after the fact when you weren't angry anymore? I think I'm imagining you saying it after the fact with a little bit of a twinkle in your eye.

I'm wondering, though, why it FEELS violent. Just experiencing it is pure torture. It's brutal. And I don't know why.

I got angry at my T twice before Christmas and I felt absolutely twisted. I had to let it go over the holidays and felt as though I came out on the other side of my anger. When I did come out on the other side of my anger, I was able to see that T wasn't evil for saying or doing what he did. Either I misunderstood what he was saying or he misunderstood me. But in either case, I have the POWER to go back to him and ask for clarification and/or ask him to listen to me more.

I decided to ask him today if we should discuss it even though I resolved it all on my own. And his response to me was, "You don't have to do this all alone."

So we talked about it. But I'm still not sure why it FEELS so bad.

xoxoxo

Liese

I never saw the movie Alien, thank goodness. I hate scary movies. But I can definitely identify with that image as a way of describing what anger feels like.

The truth to me is that anger *is* a violent emotion. It doesn't usually feel good (unless there's a thrill of power along with it) and it tends to make us want to do violent things, like AG pointed out. That's just the nature of anger. But, happily yes, it possible to learn to regulate it better, and to feel more safe about being able to feel or express it in a nonviolent way.

One of my spiritual teachers says that we need to take care of our anger as though it were an upset child. I think that's a good way of looking at it, because it gives us a bit of distance from the feeling at the same time as activating our compassion, which will tend to calm the anger some. The exercise that goes with this is something like:

"Breathing in, I am aware of my anger."
"Breathing out, I embrace my anger."

Embrace might not be a good word for you to use if it makes it sound like you are trying to heighten the anger somehow. It's supposed to be meant as a gentle, calming embrace. But you could substitute "accept" or even "calm" and I think it would be about the same.

quote:

However, it was very dangerous to get angry with my dad, so anger was something I deeply feared

AG I'm so sorry to hear about what you went through with your Dad. I completely resonate with not being able to be angry.

I guess its what Alpaca says. Treating the anger like a small child. Not labelling it as an evil or wrong presence. Understanding the logic within it all. Understanding the human needs we have and what happens if we are denied feeling what we feel, therefore it is a legitimate and a totally understandable reason why we are scared of it but neither should we be. It is to do with acceptance. I guess that takes time because its another vulnerability of ours that needs to be exposed and compassionately understood.

My Dad used to be violent at times when I challenged him about his unfairness. There was one time where he had a gun. He put it in my hand to feel the weight, took it back and then chased me up the stairs with it. I ran into the bathroom, attempted to lock the door from him but he got through. Pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. There was nothing in the barrel but not knowing this at aged 14 is very scary. He laughed. I got angry at him and he got angry at me for getting angry at him and left me sitting there, a nervous wreck.

I'm not used to expressing anger. Though my anger comes out in different ways. For instance with technology, if my computer runs slow or stops working, I get extremely angry sometimes. The amount of computers I've broken. I've thrown phones against the wall. Broken games consoles. Stereo systems.

I sometimes get angry at myself, though its not as often as it used to be. If I could not find keys or something I needed or could not do something right, I would start hitting myself, pulling my own hair, slapping my head. And its not gone away, I just know where things are now..

I worry about the violent part of it too. I worry how much I suppress my anger. I keep myself in seclusion most of the time.

I told my T of one time when I was 15, I decided to run away from home with our pet dog. But before I would do that, I proceeded to set the house on fire. I wanted to get rid of it once and for all. I started the fire up in the hallway and I would have done it had my Dad not pulled up on the driveway just at that moment. My T said that it was rage that made me do it. I still cannot connect to the rage. She says that we need to work on getting my anger out but I cannot fathom where it is which worries me.

When I'm alone in the house, I let myself go. And I get wound up and very irritable very easily. But because people are in the house, I keep it locked in.

Liese, good luck ) You are doing really well.

((((ALPACA)))

Thanks for sharing your views on anger with me. It helps to know that others view it as a strong emotion. I don't know if I want to heighten it but just experience it and get to the other side of it. And to make the experience less intense, maybe. So, maybe embrace is a good way of putting it. I wonder if it partly feels so awful because of the side of me that is trying to hold it down and suppress it?

((((FMN))))

back to you. I worry too because I don't know where my anger is either. But I guess it's getting stored in there somewhere. T told me that you can't get at emotions directly, as in, alling forth your anger. That you get at them indirectly. Your Dad sounds like a scary person. I'm sorry you had to grow up like that.

xoxoxoxo

Liese

quote:

I wonder if it partly feels so awful because of the side of me that is trying to hold it down and suppress it?

That could very easily be true, in my opinion.

I was shocked to learn that even Marshall Rosenberg, the guy who invented Nonviolent Communication, says he lets himself enjoy violent fantasies (like imagining ripping someone's head off) when he is angry...he just doesn't act on them. I imagine allowing the fantasy helps to get past the feeling faster. So really we all experience this the same way in sense, even people who might *seem* very "evolved."

I dont wanna take away from what other people said here that is helpful because my answer isnt very helpful. sorry. just going to write here that anger Always Always feels violent to me. and when i feel anger i feel like bad person because of the violent thoughts tied to it. and when its strong i dont know how to feel anger without having violent thoughts. hardly ever act on them. but just that i want to be violent in my heart or mind seems to make me bad person. remember when T called cops after i slammed the door so hard that it made the fire extinguisher fall off the wall? that means i was bad. and if you dont have violent thoughts then what do you do with all that anger just so much pressure inside so uncomfortable yucky. Who wants to feel that way and not be able to get rid of it somehow? seems like there is nothing good at all about feeling anger. maybe is better to squash it.

Cipher,

Anger always felt violent for me, I think because I had real reasons to be so angry but that holding it in for so long had built up a LOT of pressure that was screaming for release and it felt like the only way to release it was to do an act of violence. My T once told me that what got me into trouble wasn't expressing or acknowledging my feelings, it was the ones I couldn't own that got me into trouble. Feelings will come out one way or another; if we can not acknowledge and speak them, then we act them out. In other words, squashing down our anger and not being able to recognize it makes us MORE likely to commit an act of violence.

Getting angry does NOT make us bad people. Anger is an emotion that is meant to alert us to when we feel we are being wronged so that we can take care of ourselves. Anger, properly channeled can be used to correct situations that need to be corrected. (Because of my faith beliefs, I take great solace that even Christ, who was perfect, became angry at the moneychangers in the temple to the point of overturning some furniture). The problem people like us run into is that anger being properly expressed was not modeled for us so we never learned to regulate it. So when we start to express it we can run into volume problems.

I think your T overreacted by calling the police when the fire extinguisher came off the wall. I know for me that would have reinforced my feelings of being a bad person. OTOH, I remember discussing with my T once how much my anger scared me and he reassured me that he would keep both of us safe, up to and including calling the authorities, but it wouldn't be because my being angry was wrong, just that how I choose to express it might be inappropriate.

Last but not least, I would venture the opinion that continuing to squash is what leads to depression. Depression is anger turned inwards, if we can not direct our anger outward to its source, we turn it inward upon ourselves.

All that said, I do not want you to think I am heedless of just how very scary and threatening this can feel and why you would want it to just be gone. NOTHING makes me more uncomfortable than my anger. I'd rather be discussing sex with my therapist than anger. I don't think I ever make him work harder than in getting me to express my anger.

AG

Hey Cipher, I don't think the answer is to squash it either. I'm sorry you had that experience with your T. She probably needs to help you work through it more instead of being afraid of it.

I don't have violent thoughts when I'm angry. I have vicious thoughts. Like the person is incompetent, etc., and I try to think of the most harmful, hurtful thing I can say to them to hurt them. Of course, I've done this in real life and it never turns out too good. But the anger that feels violent feels like it's being "done" to me, which I think means that the violence feels like it's being done to me. I'm not having violent thoughts at the time when I'm experiencing it. Does that make sense?

Do you mean it feels like the anger itself is violent towards you, hurting you, even though it's your own anger?

Yes, Alpaca, that's exactly what I mean. Like, in the movie Alien. Well, it's been a long time since I've seen it. But from what I remember, the alien would get inside of their bodies without their knowledge or permission and take them over, they would be helpless and had no control over what was happening to them and they would writhe in pain. It was something that was being done to them that they just had to experience.

This is all sounding very grim to me.

Liese,

I once used the Alien analogy with my T to describe how I felt while anxiety and fear built inside me. It is like I'm doing all the techniques I can, deep breathing, meditation, distraction, and it is still growing and I'm afraid it is going to pop out of my chest in a horrible mess and leave my dead lifeless body behind.

I struggle with controlling my anger as well but usually it is when I feel powerless. I remember shaking with rage when my first daughter was a baby because I couldn't figure out how to comfort her when she was crying and everything I did didn't work. I wasn't ever close to hurting her with my anger but I had to strap her into her swing and walk away. I find I can manage my anger when I can express it and I've gotten a lot better at modulating the expression so I can describe it in a non-hurtful way since I started therapy. I think it is because I have so much compassion for other people's feelings that usually even though I'm angry I'm still aware of the other person's feelings.

I should say I grew up in a house where only the adults got to be angry and act out anger with yelling and hitting. First it was my parents and then it was my older siblings. I swallowed a lot of anger as a child and sometimes I shook and cried with the effort of controlling it. I noticed when I had children my anger which I thought I had gotten rid of came back and I realized in part it was because I was the parent and I thought I should get to act out and express my anger. I usually only express anger to my kids and husband. Outside my family I still swallow it.

It is a work in progress. I hope yours gets more manageable soon.

Maybe part of the reason you experience anger as something hostile and threatening is that you haven't connected to the purpose of it? Like you don't understand how it is really there to protect you from something? Like if you had a dog and it started barking and freaking out and you thought the dog wanted to hurt YOU, but actually it was trying to alert you to the burglar who was trying to break in through the window?