That's not just venting. You explained something to us.

My view is that anger is normal and justified. The mean nasty rage is over the edge. I have had rage and it's hard to control, but that's the thing. not to stuff it back down or get rid of the anger, but to acknowledge it while keeping it 'constructive' and not destructive.

Some trauma victims channel their anger energies by forming needed legislation, or a support group, or making a kind of charity group that helps somebody.

It is good to say "THAT WAS WRONG!!" and to get adrenalin for fighting the wrong.. Just channel that so it does some good.

Well take this for what it's worth, because I am not a rager , I'm a fusser....

In psych there is a concept called "displacement" where we transfer our emotion about one situation that carries too much risk and act it out in other situations, and on people not originally involved. Some people displace on themselves, some people displace on others. Some don't displace.

Displacement is an outlet, but it is always unfair to the person who is being targeted (be it ourselves or someone else). Sometimes when we understand that displacement is at work it can help us be more gentle with ourselves and others. It can help us locate the actual source of our anger.

I am sorry you are going through this right now and wish you the best.

yes, 'displacement' happens sometimes when we start out feeling a 'freefloating' emotion, like anger.. We feel angry and we need an object for the anger, and sometimes that object is a displacement of the anger. It's easier to rant and vent our anger on some focus than to have it just freefloating. The old example of the guy who has a hard day at work and comes home and kicks the dog is the classic example of displaced anger, making the dog the punching bag to relieve pent up frustrations.
I used to just go around angry all day, mad at the world, God, myself, everybody. And then a friend of mine called me on it in a way. He told me of someone who had tried to just be nice and say hello to me a few days prior, and the person felt like I snapped at him in a way that hurt the guy. oops

20 or so years ago someone told me that co workers were sometimes afraid to approach me because they never knew if it was going to be nice me or angry me. I worked very hard and learned that it was not ok to take out my anger on other people. The past few weeks have been rough. The only explanation I have is that I have started back in therapy. At the same time work has been extra stressful. I really think it is displaced anger. I have talked about my abuse many times but only recently am I experiencing the feelings I had while it was happening. All the other times I told my story it was like it was someone else's story. My whole sense of emotional organization has flown out the window.

I have complex PTSD from sexual molestation as a kid, relentless violent abuse in the home by religious fanatics, and 6 years of combat. I did not emerge into the adult world, then, placid.

I have been in therapy since age 27, and I'm 55 now. A lot of that therapy has focused on the practical issue of how to live with those extreme real experiences that deserve a response of outrage. But then how to go to work in the morning with coworkers who know nothing about that and be a colleague. Not to mention how to be intimate with a partner, how to be a friend, how to (if I should so choose) go to church and be a parishioner next to others in the pew.

It's not easy. x is, in my opinion, right to say that anger is normal and justified. We with PTSD are not angry for no reason; we were traumatized, often by people who intended our destruction. If anger is not justified as a response to the brutalization of the defenseless, like children, then when would it be?

However, it's the context of our anger. When all those facts have been laid out before them, others might understand our rage and even learn from it. But those facts cannot be laid out in every work day, every church visit (should we choose to participate in religion), in every intimate moment. We come off looking crazy.

And then there's when we not only look crazy and hurt our own reputations, but when because we were hurt, we hurt others. My abusers justified trying to ruin my life because someone had ruined theirs. My parents justified abusing me with the stories of how they both had been abused by their parents.

If I justify my rage that way, then I'm no better than they are. The chances of my being no better than them were unacceptable to me that. In my case (and I do not report this to suggest this for others), I actually worked through it to a decision with my therapist. I chose surgery for sterilization so I couldn't be a parent myself and continue the cycle of abuse, the family curse.

That radical physical choice was a final safeguard against abusing a child of my own with my rage as generations in my family system had done before me. It was an extreme response to extreme cPTSD from 3 sources of trauma over years. But it also was a firm physical commitment to going on to work on myself psychologically as to when and how my anger was valid and well-directed and when it wasn't.

That's been a learning process. I sometimes felt guilty for my anger and allowed partners in intimacy to use that to manipulate me for their own gain. In those cases I was the innocent party. On the other hand, sometimes I made mistakes and lashed out in anger at the innocent.

I'm proud to report that, though I was married for 16 years and also went through a divorce, never did I ever strike my spouse once. My own parents hit each other weekly as they also hit us kids regularly in anger (much more than spankings) so that was a great achievement for me. To reach the final disagreement in marriage--divorce--without violence was exemplary in the end, even for someone without PTSD. Of that I'm very proud.

So I have struggled mightily with my anger, and still do. I took advantage of every measure available, including surgery, to avoid ever hitting my own child. But I've learned we are justified to be angry, and no one has the right to take that away from us, given what happened to us. By the same token, if this violence is ever going to end or at least become less, it begins with us, too.

It's a big responsibility. I don't kid around with my reservoir of rage inside me. It's righteous when expressed appropriately, and on those occasions I demand that it be respected. By the same token, I don't cheapen it by using it to get petty things I want in everyday life. It's too sacred for that.

I meditate a lot, I read a lot about others who have had to live with anger after suffering great injustice, I spend quality time alone with myself, I take my therapy seriously, I make sure friends are up to date about how I'm doing with it so I have support for it, I come here. I get enough sleep, I exercise, I get recreation, I make sure to get a lot of laughs. It takes a village to balance out the rage of a trauma survivor. Like the village here at DS PTSD.

Thanks for naming our rage here and bringing this up.

Great replies....

Yes you are angry with reason...When we start feeling angry is when it means we're starting to recover...we're starting to feel again the appropriate emotions to the events that led to them.

Its important to acknowledge it and direct it to where it belongs recognize where its coming from so not to displace it or get angry at those who did not cause it or deserve it.

But I think those who feel their rage are very healthy....no other emotion fits the bill..and like reply 1 said..It can be used as fuel for taking pro-active action to do something useful, creative, art , writing....

Anger is always a "blind" for pain. The more deep the emotional hurt, the more repressed, then the more aggressive the anger. You must be doing something "right" in therapy! You might need some short term medication (even a low dose of a beta blocker to truncate adrenaline), for this you will need a P Doctor.

When in my 20s I went into Gestalt therapy. OY! what an experience that was. One day, my therapist put up one of those standing blowup things you can punch around and asked us, one by one, to get up and beat up on it. I thought this was ridiculous until it was MY turn. OMG all my jewelry flew off, I scared everyone in that room and really surprised myself, too!

So what I did at the time was: I found a closet in my (then) apartment and bought a butcher block thing, then I bought some large nails and a good hammer, and every time I started to feel the rage I would go into that closet (LOL) and hammer those stinking nails into that stinking butcher block! It was a healthy release and it really helped, short term of course. I know you can't do this at work, so that's why I suggest you may benefit from some short term benign medication that won't affect the learning process (avoid benzodiazepams and the like since they do affect learning).

I'm shocked at the amazing replies in here....you guy rock!...

Some therapists should take notes.

Sometimes it takes me days to calm down from a therapy session in which a lot of 'stuff' has come up. And since I've been here in DS a lot of 'stuff' has come to my consciousness, and things I didn't realize.

I watched a vid about DID which was about a woman who, under hypnosis, relived some trauma, and that triggered me very much, bringing up memories and thoughts and feelings of long long ago, like when I was 4. It really shook me up and I was out of sorts for around 3 days while my brain sorted things out. then I watched the same vid a few days ago, and the part where she shows her deep rage triggered me again. I experienced quite an inner battle for a few days after that, while my brain sorted things out.

It's one of the symptoms of PTSD that we experience 'intrusive' thoughts and feelings related to the trauma at inappropriate times. One thing that helps is to realize that that's what it is. Ground myself by saying to myself.. okay,, my feelings are of anger and I feel really bitchy, so I have to control that and not take it out on people here. Also we have to balance our lives. I believe in taking some 'mental health' days off occasionally to take care of my self.

Sometimes I go on retreat,, and sometimes to a crisis center.

Balance between dealing with your internal stuff, and the external stuff.

Yes...Its ok to feel rage and anger with reason but not act out like a automatic gun going off in all directions...

I think because anger and rage are so judged by people and then shame is added to the mix people do not know how to act when they feel it and it turns lethal for some...

Adding shame to anger and rage is a dangerous mix.

In therapy, sometimes you have to take a few steps back to leap forward. I think that's where you are.

You pulled off the bandage and are raw. It's okay. If you know that's where you are right now, you can at least try to acknowledge it to others and if you notice you're in an angry mood to someone, before you rip them a new one, you can say to "please excuse me because I'm going through some personal issues at the moment and am really not in a very good space right now..."

Then, when you are feeling better, you could approach them and say, "last time we were talking, but I wasn't able to be there for you, but I can be now- would you like to pick up from where we left off?"

I don't know if that sounds like I good idea or not, but maybe it could help?

Unoumas's
"I think because anger and rage are so judged by people and then shame is added to the mix people do not know how to act when they feel it and it turns lethal for some... "

I, being a victim of rage I find myself forever fighting , not to do the same as was given so expertly to me.
But I do fall into a 6 year old reaction, of sticking my tongue out at different posts and comments, at the screen. Giggle after, thanking god I don't have a 2 way camera on me.(I think? Hope not.)

Thanks for all the amazing replies. This has been a tough subject for me to deal with. The things that are making me angry for the most part are things that would make most people angry. I just end up going beyond the normal anger into a rage. I have not let that beast out of it's cage because I know if I do I will end up being fired and /or arrested. What happens is that the fuse gets lit and I feel like a mushroom cloud is welling up in me. I push that cloud back down and then I go off somewhere and cry quietly and sometimes I pinch myself or in other ways cause just enough physical pain to make me feel better. I have recently taken some positive steps to ease my stress levels.

I finally told my boss that I was feeling overwhelmed. I had done 5 enrollments in my program in 3 weeks as well as having 2 clients that are in crisis. That coupled with quarterly reports, reports on the quarterly reports, setting up a new demographics report, updating databases and trying to prep a powerpoint presentation had left me behind and I needed extra time.

I will finally be getting a sleep study done. My sleep is so messed up that I will fall asleep any time my mind and body are not activated. I am just exhausted all the time. Being tired makes me so much more emotional and I don't cope as well..

It has helped to hear how others have dealt with the rage. It helps to know that it is justified so I need to acknowledge it but not let it have control.
I had a doc appointment last week and my blood pressure was so high she almost sent me to the ED. She did an EKG and luckily my heart rhythm was normal. It scared the crap out of me though. I am just so tense these days.

Thanks to all of you for being here!

Good luck with the sleep study. I did one of those, too. Stabilizing sleep turned out to be key to stabilizing rage and any other symptom of PTSD for me. Good sleep doesn't cure it, no, but it sure does make the management piece a lot, lot more possible. Hope it's that way for you.

i was told anger is a healthy emoiion,, where as rage is helplessness and shame mostly shame,, I know as muj said I am very angry about my abuse,, especially rape no justice, but ,, it can get me with depression and or the kind loving teacher has another side , back in the day ,, I turned it inward and it manifests as depression it is another of these emotions we have to learn to manage I think there is a good room on DS dealing with anger management for me I have to rechannel it all the time,, but have learned to diffuse it comes out with those I am closest to of course,, and rage does do damage i lost some folks in my life but I recognize it now