"Little Things Upset Me, Yet I Feel No Anger About
My Trauma. How Come?"
"A lot of bad things happened to me. Shouldn't
I be feeling more angry about it?"
The dictionary defines anger as a strong feeling of displeasure
and belligerence aroused by a real or supposed wrong. Often
times in PTSD, in spite of an extensive history of real and
imagined wrongs, we don't feel much anger. A person develops
PTSD as a result of having a difficult childhood. The person
has either been abused in one or more ways, or suffered some
sort of traumatic rejection or neglect. When such things happen
to a person, it seems perfectly natural for that person to
feel angry. Yet often times we don't feel angry or can only
get in touch with our angry feelings through much effort.
When bad things happen to us as children, what sort of emotional
responses do we have? Did we feel anger then? Do we feel angry
about it now? What did we do with our anger? What do we do
with our anger now?
In spite of the fact that trauma is potentially a great source
of anger, we often don't feel much, if any, anger. Partly
this lack of angry feelings is the result of programming.
We were taught that getting angry was bad, unwelcome or even
dangerous. We also learned, or thought that we learned, the
same lesson by observation, if we lived with one or more angry
persons. Their anger seemed really wrong, bad, we didn't welcome
it and in some cases it seemed extremely dangerous. We may
also have observed the perpetrator or another victim in denial
about their anger. And, so in turn we learned to deny our
own anger. And maybe we even decided to buy into their denial
of their anger.
As one client pointed out during a group discussion of this
topic, "Anger has a righteousness about it. You have
to have a knowledge of right and wrong to feel righteous."
When we have grown up with so much chaos and confusion, we
may not have a very clear sense of right and wrong. We often
don't feel very righteous about anything and consequently
we aren't able to get up much of a head of steam about anything
either.
Then there is the issue of overwhelming affect. In cases of
severe abuse, neglect or rejection, the emotions and accompanying
bodily sensations can be so unpleasant and overwhelming to
us that we have to find a way to shut them off. And, of-course,
our anger gets shut off along with the rest of our emotions.
We may have no outlet for our anger, no way to express it
and no one to express it to. When this is the situation, then
it adds to how overwhelming and how powerless our anger feels.
In these situations, there is usually no one who is helping
us learn how to express our anger appropriately. I have seen
many clients with histories of trauma who see the appropriate
expression of anger as an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms.
To them, anger feels like it is never appropriate. They feel
like they are a bad person whenever they have some anger that
breaks through their defenses against it. No one has taught
them that anger is okay, that anger is a normal human emotion.
No one has taught them how to express their anger constructively.
They think constructive expression of anger is another oxymoron.
I am no advocate of expressing anger willy-nilly. I think
that too often this sort of behavior very rapidly becomes
counterproductive. What I do strongly advocate, however, is
allowing yourself to be aware of your anger. Sometimes we
confuse anger with power. It seems that angry people have
a lot more power than people who are not angry. And, we ourselves
feel more powerful when we get up a good head of steam. It's
not actually steam. It is brain chemicals and adrenaline,
and to this extent, at least, there is a sense of power. But
this is not true power, this is just bluster. Real power comes
when we have harnessed our anger and when we have conscious
rational control over our behavior, i.e., when we are making
good choices to bring about all the things that we want. What
we really want, if we are honest with ourselves, includes
the various outcomes that we seek and the good will of those
from whom we seek them. This cannot be obtained with bluster.
Anger also comes out in a variety of forms that are not so
much destructive to relationships or to those around us as
to ourselves. We act it out in a variety of ways that are
at the very least counter-productive and at worst self-destructive.
I believe that probably all addictions have a fairly large
component of anger. I have never met an addict that wasn't
struggling with a lot of anger.
It also needs to be said that anger is a normal and natural
part of grief. Of course if we are honest we must recognize
that we have a lot of this grief over what happened to us.
We may not feel very attached to our perpetrators. We may
not feel attached at all now. But at one time we wanted to
feel a sense of attachment to them. The loss of that wished
for attachment is an occasion for grief. And of course a part
of that grief is anger.
The challenge is to get in touch with our anger, past and
present. We need to allow ourselves to feel it and to express
it appropriately, at least to ourselves and ideally also to
a trusted close confidant. Next we need to assess what our
wants and needs are. Then we can set about figuring out how
best to get them met. This is what I mean by the constructive
use of anger.
Desired Outcome: To help facilitate our healing process by
reconnecting with the anger that we necessarily must have
had due to the difficulties we suffered as children, and then,
to learn to use our present-day anger constructively.
Discussion Starters:
How in touch are you with your anger about your trauma history?
What things have you done to try to get in touch with your
anger? What hesitation have you felt about trying to get in
touch with that anger? What things have worked? How do you
feel about anger in general? How do you feel about angry people?
Are you able to see, or at least allow, that anger might actually
be a good thing, a positive force? Can you see that anger,
directed constructively, can be the impetus for creating positive
results? Do you need time to practice using anger appropriately
and constructively? How might you go about practicing this?
Try This:
If you don't feel much anger, or you don't feel your anger
about your trauma history very often, think about how you
would feel if similar things were being done today to a child
that you care about. Now recognize that you are that child.
Can you make the transition from outrage on behalf of another
to outrage on your own behalf?
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
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