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Old 08-24-2016, 03:32 PM
  # 92 (permalink)  
Yours Truly
Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Posts: 94
It might seem kind of unbelievable that I haven't expressed any anger or hostility toward my Dad or my stepmom, not directly or even indirectly, but it's this way - my Dad has always been in denial, has always been violent toward me, and I have always had to walk on eggshells with him. All of the thoughts about him that I have shared here are not things I have said to him.

My angry outbursts are usually very short-lived. Like a flash in the pan, and I'm over it. But not in my Dad's case. It's been brewing for a long time. After the way he has treated me, things will never be the same. I think I have made my boundaries clear in my rather detached, recent email responses and I'm glad. But I know he's recalculating, because he's probably misconstruing my motives. . . .he'll probably come back with something like: "You don't care about us!!!!"

I'm not angry with SR - not really. I took a lot of good things away. I'm still addiction free, and my gripes are petty. I know when I'm being pessimistic. At least in hindsight. That's not to say I don't cling to my core beliefs, but. . . .whatever. There are a variety of forums here. As rationality seeps back in, I think that admin has probably done the best they can by creating those. I realize that this is a place where people are trying to seek equilibrium and that it's a really tough challenge to confront the issues that I mentioned without creating pandemonium, at least initially. Thread bannage might work if things got out of control, but I really don't want to go off into that subject again.

Anger management group is tonight. Our group leader/therapist/psychologist is really brilliant and knows her stuff. It is fast-paced though, and it is difficult to remember a lot of what she says. Then, too, there are sometimes a dozen or so people who show up so I don't get a chance to squeeze in a whole lot of questions. My question of the day is: "Is anger a useless emotion?" I remember reading that in one of Wayne Dyer's books a long time ago, and at the time it made a whole lot of rational sense to me. But right now, I think my anger is serving a purpose in that it is keeping me at arm's length from my Dad. Strange, when anger usually creates the opposite reaction (or rather, the angry person allows his or her self to act on the emotion).

My short-term memory is sometimes pretty poor. I take a drug called Topamax for migraines and due to the fast pace of the group sessions it makes it that much easier to forget the information that's being exchanged. Last week I took a picture of something she wrote on the dry-erase board that I thought was really eye-opening that I didn't want to forget (and which I did until today). She said that anger. . . .


. . . .stems from fear and hurt. I thought that was interesting and thought I'd share it.
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