Aeryn

Now that my exA is safely on the sidelines of my life (we've been apart for years but remain friends - amazingly his drinking or not drinking no longer even bothers me and I'm able to keep him at a distance that way..hard to explain) my therapist and I are going to start working on anger management techniques. According to the therapist what happens with me is I bottle it all up and then explode like a soda bottle....his theory is my anger comes from my childhood verbal and emotional abuse from my NPD codependent mother (who recently passed in July to complicate matters further - my Dad was a non-abusive absent type A just to give you the background). My therapist said often when we don't work through our past hurts and when we have a parent like that we become hypervigilent (sp) and very sensitive to criticism and often shy away from people and relationships! Sometimes we bottle up anger and then it comes out like an explosion. This may be why I married my exAH in the first place because it was "easier" for me to deal with someone who was so hands off (my exA was the type that was absent (and clown-like) rather than abusive or angry if that makes sense).

Anyway I am NOT looking to be analyzed here but instead was just wondering if anyone else had similar anger "explosions" of sorts after being an ACOA or being with an A. If so did you seek therapy and techniques for it and did they work?? I'd like to be able to not bottle up the anger and have it explode in a roar of emotions which often end up in me being mean to someone close to me verbally (I have a close male friend staying with me that I tend to take things out on...he also has similar issues which complicates things...no this is NOT a relationship just a friendship...long story on the details). Anyway I see myself pushing him and other friends away especially when things with my cancer and IVF get rough so I'm hoping this new road of my therapy will help with that. Anyone go through something similar? How much is this related to having codies and alcoholics in our family and friend circles?

Again I am NOT looking to be analyzed (nor do I want "advice") but was wondering if anyone relates or has had similar issues and if therapy helped.

LifeRecovery

How you describe dealing with anger is where I have been in my recovery for the last year. I tend to bottle up all emotions but especially anger then erupt. I have a lot of anger that It was not safe to look at over the years and it is now that I am dealing with most of it.

For me therapy meditation and body work (like massage) have been the key stone for this work. Though AlAnon has been a huge support for me I struggle with some of the messages I get about anger from there. Body work was key because it put me in touch of where I hold all that anger. Sometimes I can sense it better in my body than my head.

My childhood was quite different then the one you describe. Though it was not safe to have emotions. Especially anger and sadness. Just last week I got a big A-hah about why.

The hard part for me about this work right now is that I constantly feel a simmering resentment and anger underneath. It is such a foreign feeling I am afraid I will always feel that way. I have had this experience though with other emotions I was not willing to feel that I eventually worked through that I think it will come out okay in the end.

I believe relationships help us to see the hard and hurt stuff when we are ready. Good for you for listening.

Aeryn

Well I can't say massage sounds bad at all! I'm willing to try anything.

I get what you're saying about relationships helping us see the hurt and hard stuff. While I'm not in a "relationship" with my male friend he's the first male friend I've let get super close to me after leaving my exA. And I think (unfortunately for him at times but probably good for me) this friendship has allowed me to see more of my own issues than I was able to see or deal with before...including this anger thing. I just don't want to hurt others in my discovery process of healing some of my own issues!

lostangel011

Yes I understand the anger. I grew up with a drug addicted father who abandoned us when we were young for his women and his addiction. My mom who is my rock and an amazingly strong woman did the best she could being in her 20's and alone with two young kids while her whole family was across the country. She remarried a man who lived her and thought he wanted a family but was in no wY able to handle it and instead became competitive for her attention.

I grew up insecure and unsure of myself. My brother was strong and did all the right things and found a healthy successful life for himself. I became an alcoholic and an addict for man years. When I finally got sober and gave up all the numbing agents I learned I have a ton of anger.

I had to get medicated for bipolar and worked with several therapists and psychiatrists. AA and the 12 steps helped me find some peace for the first time but just when I thought I was okay all this anger came exploding. I hated my step dad, cut off my mom (who did nothing but support me) and was mad at the world. I punished myself in the form of an eating disorder 4 years into sobriety and it was in inpatient there that I came face to face with the extent of my anger... I tonight then and for some years after that that I finally conquered it.

Well let me tell you.. This past year and a half its back in a bad way. I haven't been in therapy for a while (I have tried and tried but just can't find one I loved and connect wit like my old one. Luckily she is available by phone as a friend from time to time). I hate everyone these days.. Just look at my post about the women online and strippers. Anything sets me off. Politics on Facebook, I fight with strangers online (why??!!), I go off on stupid **** like welfare and any hot button issue in the news. I get annoyed with people who share our office suite, an associate who wanted to join our firm wasn't a good fit but I was brutal and forced her out, I yell at tech support from other countries... Geez reading this I am a terror.. Lol. Even my PIA AH tells me to stop hating everyone and being so judgy about things that don't matter (echoed by my mom and kid) so yeah when our lives get stressful we can get angry. I don't know if it's normal for Everton but it is for me.

When I was at my happiest (and I've seen you at your happiest to) it's when I was taking care of myself, resting, exercising, meditating butceven then it's there just waiting to come out again. Don't have an answer if and how to make it go away but I can totally relate and empathize because it's the same for me.

I'm glad you are going to therapy to manage it. The right therapy can do that. Massage is always nice. I know my life is a mess right now but I'm here for you, alwYs will be. I'm only an hour away if you need some girl time for movies or shopping like we used to 😌

Bekindalways

Yep Aeryn, lots of bottled up anger and also depression here. I'm almost 53 and have struggled with depression since I was young but the rages started hitting around 30. Yuck.

I actually don't come from an alcoholic family. My mom was just one of the least maternal women I have ever met. Strangely we get along way better now that she has Alzheimers.

DesertEyes

Sounds like pretty standard ACoA "stuff", almost all the ACoA's I know have dealt with that sort of "bottling".

_Not_ exactly the same as you describe. What I did was stuff _all_ emotions, not just anger. I became over-self-controlled so when feelings started "bubbling" I was able to push them down, get away from people and let it explode away from other humans.

Yup. Worked really well. My therapist took a global aproach to working on _all_ feelings, because if you stuff one feeling chances are you stuffed a lot more than just that one.

In my situation I had a very hard time identifying the _differences_ between feelings. So we started by looking at what I thought was the same feeling in different situations, then exploring the names for those different feelings. I had no idea there were so many feelings.

Then we worked on separating feelings that arose in events in the present from those that were "inflamed" by stuff from my ACoA past. For me anger, and similar action-directed feelings, were _skills_ I developed in order to survive as a child. Because they are action feelings the only way to deal with them is to do something physical. i.e.: writing and journaling won't help with anger, but a kick-boxing class will. At one point I put a dart board in my garage and put my parents names on it.

Never got any good at darts, but it sure made me feel better

What made the biggest difference was learning how to protect myself from emotionally abusive people. Developing that adult skill made the child-skill of anger less and less necesary.

It's been forever since I last felt that huge anger welling up in me. Today I feel a very different kind of anger, a much softer, quieter feeling, and only in situations that justify it. I also experience all those other feelings I had bottled up and am no longer the super-self-controlled ACoA I used to be.

'course, could use some of that neurotic-obsesive-compulsive insane self-control to get me to the gym more often ....

Mike

Aeryn

yes yes yes I'm hoping to learn this skill!

And haha about the darts....I'm fairly decent at darts, I may look into getting a board myself. It's interesting you say anger is an action related emotion....so that makes sense why it's so hard for me to let it go...I try to resolve it in my head rather than physically.

LifeRecovery

Aeryn-

I do a type of body work called Rolfing (deep tissue/fascia stuff). Overall it is great.....but it really forced me to be in my body which can be deeply uncomfortable for me (and makes me look at what I am holding). I think I have shared this before but good golly do I hold a lot of tightness and anger in my hips. I call it my pelvic rage. I had to have some of that loosen up before I could begin to feel it.

I am with Desert Eyes I had a lot of problems separating out what emotion was what. I do body centered/somatic therapy instead of just talk (because I tend to overthink things). That helped.

Finally when I said relationships I should have been clearer. I am NOT in an intimate relationship right now because I don't think I could handle it. I am finding I am reworking a lot of relationships of any sort right now.....a big part of it is this work I am doing.

NYCDoglvr

As a recovering alcoholic it took years to get my anger under control. My sponsor pointed out that at the root of anger is fear. When negative feelings come up I ask myself: "what am I afraid of?"; it reduces angry outbursts.

AnvilheadII

acknowledging the anger is a great first step......you have identified an issue, and even tho it seems to just explode out of nowhere, with time and your awareness you can begin to sense the build up sooner. sort of like the seismic activity before the volcano blows....it's not MUCH advance warning, but it is SOME warning.

then comes the hard work, digging into the past, writing it out - in my ES&H that would be Step Work, but there are many other types of methods as well. writing out the story of how we got HERE, what happened, at what age, what "they" did but also and very important (thank you Sponsor Bob) what WE did, how WE reacted, how WE responded. this is not to assign BLAME to anyone else OR ourselves....think of it more as watching some closed circuit TV footage with the sound off and describing what you see.

so yeah, i was the child of an alcoholic, in a family of alcoholics, an only child of a single/divorced mom and that made for some very lonely times. LOTS of time on my own, not pure neglect, not like i was left alone at the age of 8 to fend for myself for days on end, but i wasn't exactly cocooned in a blanket of LOVE and happiness either.

i made a lot of assumptions about life, about why my dad left, and i acted out a lot trying to get my "busy" absent mother's attention. and i made a series of really bad choices........

but i had to get all the way back to when i first MADE those choices and the mindset i was in when i made them, the MYTHS that were facts in my life, the LIES that were truths, the RULES that didn't always apply to the adults who made them......only then could i begin to untangle the mess, bring light and reality to the shadowy past.

and oh i wish i could state today that i am so zen i float and i never get angry and i am always at peace. alas, not quite so!!!!

Aeryn

Well I started my therapy work on this today so we will see how it goes.

My first plan of action is going to start recognizing that when the anger does hit since it's a physical emotion I'm going to try something like running or maybe get a boxing thing in the garage (or a dart board!).

Next we will start the hard work similar to what LifeRecovery and DesertEyes have described.

The therapist said this is very NORMAL for some of the bottled up stuff to start rising after safely out of the crisis relationship.

LifeRecovery

How was hearing that? I found just hearing that my stuff around anger was NORMAL was so validating.

I kind of feel crazy every time I have an emotion so that has been a big part of things for me.

Truly this is the hardest work and the most rewarding payback I have ever received. Congrats on all of it.