Do I need to feel angrier and if so how do I get there?

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Old 10-05-2015, 02:42 PM
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Do I need to feel angrier and if so how do I get there?

I was talking to my therapist about how it is very hard for me to have any interaction with my parents without it stressing me out and giving me anxiety. I feel like my parents are unable to love me and I used to try so hard to win their approval or love but now I know it's just not possible but I still let them get to me too much.

It's like part of my brain goes into denial and thinks/hopes that they can be normal and be there for me the right way. But then I always see that they still have a selfish agenda and I am snapped back into reality and I don't know why I keep hurting myself by thinking that things could get better.

My therapist said that she doesn't think I've gotten angry enough at my parents. She said at times I seem to get close to anger or touch on anger but then I back away from it. And that I won't be able to progress past this until I can feel the anger.

I feel I have been really mad at my parents for a lot of things and I'm not sure how else I'm supposed to get closer to the anger. I have rarely told them how angry I am at them and tend to just want to avoid conflict and drama. But I have written down all the ways I'm angry at them and I have even tried to tell them before although it does about as much good as talking to my cat about why he shouldn't sleep on my head or randomly claw at me when we're in the middle of what I thought was a loving petting/purring session.

And sometimes the anger does come and go along with other emotions. I guess I WANT to be in a certain place that I'm not really in. Like, I want to feel okay and make peace with my past and love/"forgive" my parents even though I wish things were different. (I don't really sit here and think about forgiving them and that's not even a goal of mine I guess but I mean I just want to be able to live a good life and love them as my parents while realizing that they weren't and can't be the kind of parents I needed or deserve.) So I tend to look at things positively or feel sad or self-guilt/blame more than anger I guess. Or I get angry at kind of ridiculous things like religion or politics etc. because it's easier to be angrier at those things than directly angry at my parents and how they used those things. I want to pretend I'm in a better place emotionally than I am and then I get angry at the stupidest stuff that has nothing to do with the direct issues.

Sorry if I'm not making sense. I am not sure how to feel more anger. Does anyone have any advice?
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Old 10-05-2015, 10:21 PM
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We all navigate this differently to feel safe. I emotionally detached and never expected a thing from my parents. If I ever did yell or be angry at them I would be beat again so that didn't work. As an adult I did get into forgiving them pretty soon and just didn't care if they were good or bad anymore. It's great that you have the clarity to make this decision. Misdirected anger can really backfire.
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Old 10-06-2015, 06:04 PM
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Originally Posted by Kialua View Post
We all navigate this differently to feel safe. I emotionally detached and never expected a thing from my parents. If I ever did yell or be angry at them I would be beat again so that didn't work. As an adult I did get into forgiving them pretty soon and just didn't care if they were good or bad anymore. It's great that you have the clarity to make this decision. Misdirected anger can really backfire.
Thanks. I've read the sticky about how to emotionally detach but it's still hard for me. For some time now I've been reading about daughters of narcissistic mothers and the advice is to just talk about neutral subjects like the weather and not engage in any attempts to work me up emotionally. And with my father who is kind of a different type of narcissist than my mom there is a different strategy. I feel that Mom is usually passive aggressive/martyr-ish/pouty and making subtle digs or downright hurtful comments she tries to portray as "helpful," but you have to walk on eggshells around her or you risk a rather unpredictable mean blow-up over nothing big at all. So there are rarely safe subjects (she will even find a way to fight over a movie or even the weather) and it's more about disengaging if she blows up and trying not to take it personally.

Whereas Dad is good cop to her bad cop, Mr. Happy Go Lucky and naive to the point of playing purposefully dumb, Mr. Social wanting everyone to like him and at least acting like we could have a good relationship, such as wanting to be the fun young party guy type of dad or sometimes being interested in what's going on in our lives if only to turn around and moan about mom for the next hour or talk about all the marathons he's running or whatever. But if he is afraid of being in Mom's path then he will not hesitate to use his children as his human shields and push us under the bus. And he has a volatile temper-tantrum control-freak side where he can be really demanding and outrageous about what he wants and if we say no then he goes bezerk.

My mom subtly pushes boundaries and just says and does the craziest things that most people know are completely inappropriate, but she'll never outright say what she wants/needs but will get all victimy and in fact will blame us for not somehow anticipating/knowing what she wanted even when she says the exact opposite. And if we confront her on her behavior she acts like she has no idea why we would think that or she portrays herself as someone completely different with completely different motives than she obviously must have. So for her it's like "Poor me, no one cares" and nothing is ever good enough so why try. Whereas for my dad he is a huge boundary stopper who will demand what he wants and then push push push to the point where he will either blow up mad or pout and blubber like a little kid if he doesn't get his way. So for him I have to repeat short simple questions like he's a toddler, "No Dad, I won't be doing that" and then "as I've said I won't be doing that," and not get caught up in JADEing or saying anything that would let him think he can wiggle in somehow and demand reasons or excuses or changing my mind.

I guess my point of all of this is that I've learned how to rationally/practically detach from them and usually work works best to disengage but I often wonder what the point is. If I didn't have siblings I would like to think I wouldn't bother talking to my parents or trying at all because they are just so difficult and I don't see the point of a "relationship" like that. But in terms of emotionally actually detaching from them... I guess it still hurts. I guess I feel anxiety and guilt every time I talk to them because things are bound to go south. And it's probably more comfortable for me to feel those feelings than anger. I am not sure how to not feel anxiety but I am also not sure how to go to feeling anger so that maybe I can get stronger emotionally. I guess every time they try to wiggle their way back in I should try to start saying to myself, "How dare they? This makes me angry" instead of "OMG what are they going to say/do next and how can I get out of this as unscathed as possible?" etc. etc. etc.
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Old 10-06-2015, 06:30 PM
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Well someone has to start to get healthy. Might as well be you. Have you looked for alanon or Acoa meetings? There is no way to out think the parents and you can't keep walking on egg shells the rest of your life. Maybe you can set an example for you siblings and a bread crumb trail for them to find their way out as well.
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Old 10-07-2015, 07:36 AM
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Interesting question how much anger is enough anger, or how much anger we should have.

I have some anger at my parents (as noted in your other post, AF and personality disordered mother, like yours). But I think what helps me most is:

1. My counselor's words long ago when this really hit the fan, that I should simply regard them as foreigners, aliens, They are what they are. I keep my distance, and simply accept that I don't have a family.

I suppose it's like living with any handicap. I adjust as needed. For instance, I make little or no attempt to be friends with anyone in their circle of influence, because I know my mother is a vicious gossip who has bad mouthed me to anyone she's ever met--including my own friends, including my mother in law the night before I got married. Some of these people, their behavior toward me changes, some tell me what she said and roll their eyes and can't believe she'd say such things. So I simply stay out of their world as much as possible. But I find that I invariably get along well with, and am generally liked and even respected, professionally and personally, by those not listening to her.

2. The constant reminders from a few friends that the truth always comes out, to simply keep taking the high road over and over and over. There may be a few people who never realize I am not what my mother says I am. There may be people who know it's not true but remain friends with her and never reach out to me. But in the end, many people will see how I live, rather than what she says. And in the end, *I* know I have lived above board.

3. Do something good for someone else. If I have put a smile on someone's face today, if I have done anything to make the world a better place, then my life matters, and that alone negates everything my mother has to say.

4. I pursue my passions and take care of business. I play and write music, do photography, and write creative fiction and poetry. I value prayer time. I take care of my home, my yard, my kids. I have a writers group with close friends I see every week. In short--I rarely have time to be angry with them, because I'm generally happy with my life.

I'm NOT saying this is a cure all. You can see from some of my previous posts that I come back sometimes and ask, "Are we EVER really healed?" I have bad days. But doing the above also has given me many, many good days.
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Old 10-08-2015, 06:12 PM
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As Kialui said, we all do this differently. And it takes time, sometimes a lot of time. I had horrible anger in me, but I was so blocked from my feelings that not even my therapist of 10 years saw it. Maybe ask your therapist for help to guide you when she sees you "getting there."

I know therapists don't like to do this: I've asked mine to push sometimes but he really wants me to get there on my own speed. If I could only drive my mind as fast as I drive a car... :-)
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Old 10-12-2015, 05:41 AM
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My anger came in weird patches, and because of who I am it was most often pointed at myself. It did some weird things to me as I processed through it, and there's still more there than I wish but I work on that every day. I don't think there's a right amount of anger, I would only caution as someone who let it take over once, that the only amount of anger that is wrong can be too much of it.
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Old 10-19-2015, 12:34 PM
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I too, have/had trouble getting to angry. Perhaps I never did, at least with regard to my parents.

I felt like I was in shock before I was angry. My parents were/are alcoholics and living with untreated mental illnesses. It seems bizarre to think that the behavior of your parents, people you have known all your life, could shock you into not feeling anything, or disconnecting from your feelings, but that is what is was like, well into my 20's.

Starting in my late teens, I started having a violent physical "syndrome" 4-8 times a year involving sharp stomach pains, vomiting, followed by long, intense sleeps. My doctor could find nothing wrong. Eventually I realized that seeing or even speaking with my parents triggered these incidents. I decided to not visit them anymore, and the episodes became almost non-existent.

I guess you could say I directed my anger at myself. In some ways I am thankful that my body was able to steer me right, even when my brain couldn't.

I still don't feel a lot of anger towards them, I just have a lot of sadness.

I'm in my forties now, so it's easier. It was harder in my 20's and 30's to detach from my parents, when friends were getting married, having their own families and parents who supported them. I wanted to have parents, but in the end I didn't really. I did in only the loosest of terms.
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Old 10-19-2015, 06:05 PM
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carolineno that's very insightful. Sure, if you turn it inwards you will suffer physically. I'm glad you figured it out.
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Old 11-02-2015, 12:56 PM
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Puddle,

My heart goes out to you in trying to reconnect with yourself. Much like you, I spent years burying my emotions. It was like I took my emotional self, put some cement shoes on him, wrapped chains all around him and dumped him in the river. All that was left was a muffled gargle from him waaaayyyyyy beneath me.

I am now working to seek my true self.

I remember expressing discomfort about seeing my FOO at my mother's "family" dinner. My counselor asked about "what could go wrong?" and I expressed how I could just blow up at all of them and express those things I had felt angry about but just stuffed down (like the emotional self was getting close to the surface and I was trying to push him back down). I was actually AFRAID of my anger. STrange. What if my anger was justified? What if I am angry? and I just contort myself inside out to hide, remove, bury, ignore what's real? That my body says, "I'm pissed!"

I remember standing in a door-way just stuck....nothing. My wife says to me, "how are you feeling?" and I said, "I don't know" -- what a sinking feeling. to be so disconnected with myself that I can't tell you what I'm feeling. I couldn't tell you.

It's still a struggle to connect with myself and listen. TO learn those little cues, those big clues as to what emotion I'm experiencing. I have felt like a child trying to learn it. Heck, I even found one of those emotions posters for children with all of the faces on it and tried to think thoroughly about -- Do I know what these feel like? Can I identify when I'm feeling one of these?

For me personally, the 12-step work required me to do some DEEP, DEEP personal investigation. Like blowing dust off of the books in my heart. In step four I was to do an fearless moral inventory of myself which included defining characteristics of myself that I thought was good. My sponsor suggested that I write my personal life story. 220 pages later and I had my life written down. The dust was clearing. Knowing what I'm feeling has gotten much easier than before.

However, I still struggle. When was the last time I shed tears? I can feel sorrow, but why no tears? Why do I tear up without much effort when watching movies, but I won't have tears in my experiences in my own life.

My little buddy inside - my inner child is still stifled. It may take me an enormous amount of time to UNRAVEL the chains I placed around him.

For you, it might be the same. IT might take time. What you want to do, in my opinion, is to CONNECT WITH YOU. Do you fully understand who you are? Do you fully love you unconditionally?

I might be wrong, but I found it interesting that your posts were laden with lots of detail about your mother and father, but little about you. What do you like? What do you not like? What do YOU think about you?

That's my suggestion - get connected with you and I think maybe some of that anger will start coming back up again. Maybe similar to me, you have a little self chained up and restrained and it will take time to free the little one.

Just my two cents. Thanks for the topic! I was just thinking about feeling disconnected with my emotions. I've still got more work to do - and more progress to find.

Keep at it!
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Old 11-03-2015, 05:53 PM
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Puddle-

I usually post on the F&F of alcoholic side of things. I was looking for another post on this side and stumbled across your post.

I grew up in an immediate family without the disease of alcohol, but I believe both my parents grew up in alcoholic homes, and untreated codependency was rampant.

As a result I struggled to be in touch with any of my emotions. For me this contributed to my eating disorder, and while working my recovery from this I met, loved and married a problem drinker.

As I work my "Life" recovery my process has always been that I feel an emotion, touch it, run from it, and slowly come back to it. I tend to then go for extended periods in one emotion as I learn to feel them all. Anger has been the most recent (and last big emotion) I think I need to be in touch with. I have finally had a stewing underlying anger over the last 6-18mths.....but it is 38 years of stuffed down yuck that I did not allow myself to feel for a long time. I am getting the opportunity to explore it in all its forms. It fermented stuffed for so long and thus now appears bigger then it would have been if I could have addressed it earlier.

Let me be clear I don't yell, scream and wave my arms (or hurt anyone). Part of my fear about anger was I knew how my dad and brother did anger and I wanted no part of that dysfunction. Part of my learning to be in touch with anger is realising that my anger does not look like theirs.

Part of my learning is that anger helps me to move forward. Anger also means that for me a boundary of some kind has been crossed. Anger allows me to learn about taking care of myself. Anger allows me to speak up and helps me to get my needs met. Anger allows me to not shut down and be stuck in the victum role.

When I was able to really be in touch with my anger for the first time, my therapist applauded. I stopped being angry AT things as I have been able to be with my anger and am just angry right now. I don't need to change it, try to make it okay or force it. I just need to accept that that is where I am right now.

I did not know I could be in this spot until I was in it. It is okay in my heart, soul, mind and body. I am angry and it is okay.

How my therapist helped me to be supported and safe to getting here?

I do a type of therapy that is somatic (body) in nature instead of just talk. Because i was so disconnected from my feelings I could "talk" them out but stunk at feeling them out. Part of what therapy in this realm has been for me is my therapist observing me in mindfullness of what is happening to my body. For example I carry a lot of anger in a tight jaw sensation and my hips (oh lord do they carry a lot of anger). She helped me to sit with what my body was feeling and explore it layer by layer....and make sure support was in place first so I was safe. When I just tried to "talk" it out it was my old coping mechanisms on standby....I would approach the feeling, touch it and run away. I also took a MBSR class (mindfullness based stress reducation) class which helped this to be safe for me to do alone. Finally I do a type of massage which helped me to be in touch with my body more and allowed me to "feel" what was coming up from my body instead of my mind.

This helped me to see that my recovery is like an artichoke. I may keep circling around to the same "incident" or feeling, but typically it is at a deeper level....eventually as I peel away the layers I get to the heart of me. My anger has been like this. I also have faith now in the organicity of my recovery....what is meant to come out in that moment will (and it is all okay). Even if I feel cruddy about something it is a release and will help me in the longterm.

Thanks for writing what you did. Sorry I wrote a novel, but this has been so helpful for me. Keep up the good work.

I purchased 7 years ago, but just read in the last six months The Dance With Anger by .....crude I cannot remember. It was really helpful also. A quote that helped too was "Depression is anger turned inward, and anger is depression turned outward." I was really familiar with the first part of that statement and have been pleasently surprised that anger for me when done appropriately is not depression but self care.

Finally when you are in touch with anger know that I and this board will support you and clap outloud for you.
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