Anger was a real bone of contention within my therapy!! Understanding my anger was also a block to some of the other feelings I could not face - predominantly fear.

My therapist could not accept in me that I was not angry as I often declared and as always he was right!!! but his approach almost felt like in order for him to let it go I was to throw cushions around the room to show I was angry at my rapist - I didn't because what he didn't get was that I was angry at me for being raped.

Not long after those sessions he received some straight talking angry Deb e mails about his failure to understand me or why I was in therapy and why the focus was on the guy raped rather than me in the aftermath. He challenged my "would you make me" statement and from that I could identify the fear that lay behind it.!! (I also wonder if being angry with my therapist was a safe place to start addressing it).

However all I really needed to do was accept that I'd turned the anger inwards once I could identify with it I could let it go, forgive myself give it back (metaphorically)to the guy who raped me.

I'm not confident in showing anger when I feel it now but doesn't frighten me like it used to and often find myself searching beneath to see why its there. Anger defended me from the outside world but at the same time kept me chained to it. I no longer view it as a bad emotion more of warning sign that I feel undervalued. I hope at some stage my thought process will catch up so I can respond at the time as I find I am left with it and often nowhere to vent it. however its there its real and its not holding me back!

Thanks for that good question
Deb

Anger was never anything that was brought up in my therapy, and I wish that it had been. I had SO much anger, but I couldn't express it towards the people who raped me so I instead lashed out at family, friends, and myself (physically and emotionally). I really believe that, even though I never worked through it in therapy, my self injury all stemmed from the anger that I held in. I only had myself to take that anger out on so I did it by cutting.

I lost so many good friends in the aftermath of my attack because I became such an angry person, and I couldn't blame them for not wanting to be around me. The energy I was giving off was toxic, and I hardly wanted to spend time with myself! I still have terrible anger issues...I bottle it all up until I explode. But at least now my anger is directed at the people who raped me, and if I knew who they were I would be able to express that. But not knowing who they are makes my anger even more intense. Its a vicious cycle, but my anger isn't ruling my life anymore because I don't let it.

I will give you my therapist's professional assesment of that question as it pertains to me.

It Helped and it Hindered.....hmmmm...she's can throw some interesting twists into my therapy with her. In a journaling assignment I wrote that "any expression of intense anger terrifies me....whether it's from someone else or myself."

I was asked what I do when I am faced with angry people....my answer was: to walk away....next question was: what if you can't walk away? My answer...I can always walk away. Her question: so why didn't you walk away when he made you angry at the onset of the rape...my answer: because he wouldn't let me.
My anger at the onset...I believe provoked the escalation of violence that I experienced with my rape, by getting angry first. Do I know that for sure...no, but that's what I felt. So that's a hinderance I still face.

How it's helped.....that I haven't figured out yet....but apparently she see's in me how it has...but she stopped there and is making me find the answer myself. I haven't been able to come up with ONE way that my anger has helped....mainly because I don't feel much anger towards them yet.

I've tried different journaling that I hoped would ignite some anger but when I was finished with them...I had to journal a seperate piece if I felt any anger. I did feel anger...but both times it was me that was named as the recipient of that anger....not what either of us hoped for.

I'm told anger is good if it 'spurs you into action'.... I know that I need that kind of anger, but I haven't figured out a way to find it. My attempts thusfar have come up empty.

On page 255 (I think), here in RAR, I journaled about my history with anger - how I was allowed/disallowed to express it. I re-read that post, plus the one I journaled about "Today I Screamed, and it was good". It reminded me of the way it felt to get that first bit of anger out of me.

But, if you mis-label a can, does that change the contents inside of the can? By this, I mean, I considered how I felt for many years as "hurt", not anger. As I was able to access the depth of the emotion bottled up inside me, I found that I could see the difference in the two. Anger toward the female rapist was a pivotal point for me in therapy. I was confused about her, about what she had done - the things she had said and how I had interpreted them. Once I was assured that an expression of anger was appropriate and that I was actually welsome to display the emotion, I worked for weeks here in my posts and journaling trying to find a hint at how to "find the anger". I didn't believe it was possible to express it, without it changing the person I am. I was wrong. Once I dug down deeply enough and found the hurt -- the absolute despair over how I had been treated, then I was able to slowly leak out the anger. Every time I would hesistate, somehow it found it's way to the surface, and boiled out of me in sorrowful wails, in massive amounts of tears, and ultimately, in a sense of peace. It did NOT dictate who I would be as I had feared, it freed me to be who I am. Anger, the righteous display of it, freed me from a deep-seated pain I have carried for so many years.

I am currently working on finding anger for another aspect of my rape, a thing I consider severely damaging to me today. I hide shame deep within, and anger holds it in place. I need to un-seat that anger --again. I need to release the anguish I feel over a segment of my history here on this earth, and I need anger in order to do that.

Anger therfore, has certainly helped me. Recognizing that anger is an emotion, NOT capable of any power I don't afford it - that was key in my letting the emotion out in my therapist's office. That was key in getting the pain from deep inside me, and dumping it in a flood of tears onto the floor of my therapist's office. We flushed a picture of the female rapist down the toilet - kind of a tiny ceremony for my declaration of anger. I was freed to a great extent by righteous anger. I will seek it out again, and I will expunge so much with the display of it. I will harm no one with my anger - that is paramount. I will only release it in a safe environment, with the help of a great therapist, and I will hopefully find the exhilaration I felt when first I found my anger.

Growing up anger was only allowed to be expressed by my mother. She could yell and she could curse and she could hit me and that was "ok"...but if I yelled, if I talked back, if I got angry I was treated like some abomination of a child.
And when my daddy began to rape me and call it a punishment a large part of me exclaimed that I must have been an evil child for him to want to do this. So I blamed my anger (in addition with other things) I wasn't a angry child at all, I was a normal 8 year old girl, I never hurt anyone...but that didn't stop people from hurting me. Anger has always made me feel like a lesser being. Like someone undeserving of love or anything! This is how it has hindered me...of course it was more my misunderstanding of my anger and why I was angry that hindered me I guess.

And as of now, it hasn't helped me because I still haven't found out how to express it in a healthy manner. I either explode or release no anger at all. And I always release my anger on the undeserving (My therapist, family, friends) as opposed to where it belongs, on my Rapist.

Kardy, that's a good answer to the question in RAR, "In your family growing up, who was allowed to show anger, and who wasnâ??t? When anger was shown by others, how did you feel?"

I wish I knew more about how to help someone bring out their righteous anger, especially since so many people talk about taking it out on the undeserving instead. One thing that has worked in the past, though, is a very specific, potent journal I have asked some women to do. In it, you are to imagine that you are NOT the victim. Instead, you are a bystander who comes on the scene of an 8-year-old girl named Kardy while her abuse is happening. You describe what you see, and how you address the perpetrator at that moment.

Beware, this is a POWERFUL method, but it works. It also helps you fire the anger at him in a way that doesn't see yourself as a victim, though, so there is less tendency toward things like cutting or drinking after this activity, in my observation.

Imagine I am a bystander?...that would be scary..to watch some man taking advantage of a young girl. So how exactly is it to be written? Just as an account of seeing something? Like I would write I saw him on this little girl? That sounds like a very...intriguing method..

Someone else here did this, but I can't remember who. Leitha or Kaye, I think?

Anyway, it's something I invented for women who have a hard time connecting emotion to their abuse or rape, especially women who tend to feel for everyone else but themselves. By re-imagining the scene as one in which you come across the abuse (rather than identifying as the victim), the writer is able to imagine--visually--what she would have seen. She can form empathy for herself as the child, then, by describing what she sees: the little girl, the look of fear and shock on her face, the way the abuser/perpetrator is controlling the situation. It's gruesome, and it works really well to open the valve of stuffed emotions.

Only you don't just describe a tragic scene, because stopping there could reinforce the same feelings of powerlessness and "being stuck" you already have. So instead, you write about intervening. Today, you are not the 8-year-old girl. Today, you are Kardy--a spitfire with power and rage and courage. So what would Kardy do for that girl that the girl wouldn't be able to do for herself, in her youth and shock? What words does Kardy need to say to the abuser(s) she sees? Imagine that the crime has happened and it's not a "prevention fantasy," but what would you LIKE to say to them, in the presence of that girl, so that they are confronted and challenged, and the girl hears herself being defended and valued? Let 'em have it, and maybe even imagine a crowd gathers to watch and cheer you on when you are done.

Boy, it feels good.

So we intervene....wow. I will definitely think about attempting this journal, maybe I should talk to George about it and see how he feels about it.

The warnning that this is a 'powerful method"....what does that mean exactly?

Anger has hindered me as a year after I was attacked I lost one job and walked out of another with in the space of a week. This was part of the reason that i went back to counselling. I have angry dreams sometimes where I am screaming and furious with someone that i trust (my mum, best friend etc). This always makes me think that I have some anger that i am repressing.
As for helping me I guess the difficulty is that i usually end up expressing my anger as rage or sulking and being manipulative which really don't help me much. I find it really hard work to express my anger in a healthy way. I have been accussed of being aggressive which in some forms I don't think is such a bad thing as this is really just a force that propells us forwards and stops us giving up. It is also a way of mantaining our boundaries which I think can be a really important thing for survivors. But again maybe I'm too aggressive sometimes! Really need to find the middle ground here!

I actually think it might have been Mtnmama that the exercise was suggested to, but I could be wrong. I remember reading it and thinking it might help me to try it. I am in a rather dark place right now. I know my depression is trumping many of my wise-mind thoughts. I am struggling in my marriage...a bump perhaps. I want to find anger..I want to feel something...right now, I am rather void, and tired. Anger was a good feeling to me because I was with a trusted person. I don't trust myself, not to try to be angry alone. I think I have misrepresented my husband here on DS. I have said he is supportive - he isn't supportive of my recovery - he tolerates me and my quest for recovery. So, perhaps that other thread talking about our mates....maybe it stirred something in me. I don't know, I am just depressed, which comes too easily. If anger could be accessed just by wishing it, I'd be THERE. It isn't like that at all for me. Oh God, why can't this be Tuesday? I need Dr. Chandler. He is the only one who listens to me in real time, face-to-face communication, and I think he is supportive. I don't think he is just tolerant too.

To finalytime,

I liked what you said about anger "spurring in to action" and hadn't recognised that as a pattern that I often follow. I guess I'd seen it as a negative but actually when i feel insecure after a citicsm or when I doubt myself in a conflict of opinion,I stew on it for a while and then burst into action either by steaming through the house work or by readdressing the situation with the person involved either way I'm no longer ruminating on it. I have spent hours mulling things over to no avail.

Thanks!

Leitha, I replied to your journal entry.

I saw in your writing references about your husband and your journal much of what my husband was like. You also mentioned that your husband didn't like the idea of therapy. Misrepresented him?....not really. To me it's more like he doesn't know, hasn't learned, isn't capable of being for you the kind of support you feel here or at your therapist. I know I can't expect my husband, even now, to give me the kind of support my therapist gives me.....the kind of support I get here for that matter.

I CAN expect.....and we have discussed this at length, that I be given the time and space AND HELP that I need from him while I work through this process. The help that I NEED from my husband, at the moment is TOLERANCE of the time that I spend on the computer, ACCEPTANCE that I am suffering and still affected my my rape, SUPPORT in my need to withdraw from him and the kids for a time here and there to privately manage feelings. LOVE..non-sexual in the form of a hug and kiss, rub on the back. PATIENCE..that this process exceeds his perceived expectations ...actually to forgo any expectations at all, except the BELIEF in me that I am doing what I need to be doing for ME.

Ultimately this will benefit him, because I do love him,tolerate him, support him, believe in him and most of all accept him....and his limitations, his wants, his needs. But NEVER anymore to the exclusion of my own wants and needs. This was a process of work we started in our marriage a few years ago....Without it...I wouldn't have felt like I could take this journey now.

When he was presented with the sobbing me...telling him I needed to get help with this, he was afraid, and worried and his knee-jerk response was "but it's not healthy to live in the past". He didn't say that with malice or to hurt me.....he said it out of ignorance of rape trauma. Having him learn about what it was I was dealing with...helped immensely.

What I need from him right now is time to work the details of my rape out with my therapist....at the very minimum...expose and disclose them all to myself before I can include him.. I am too much of a "comforter" I could not get to the most painful parts with him by my side, because I don't want to see him hurt..to cry..to grieve with me. Not yet.....I believe that will come.

I won't shelter him forever....just as long as it takes for ME to be comfortable with all of it. He deserves to know all of it..and he will someday.

I just want to add...after much work with my husband and recognizing the differences in our personalities....Sometimes the way a person shows support of their spouse is by tolerating.. Your husband Tolerates your quest for recovery...that is his way...his ability to show support. If you need something more from him...want something more from him....he needs help from you to learn it. Not all men can figure it out. Not all men were given the tools as children or husbands to be nurturers, supporters....but ALL of them can learn....if the WILL is there to learn; to the best of their emotional ability. If his support isn't like your therapist or fello survivor...its because he's not those things and that doesn't reflect badly on him, you or what you mean to him.

I don't know what your husband is willing or even capable of learning about it about....but take a chance by asking him to learn (outside of therapy....one on one...just the two of you...Leitha..you are the best teacher on this for him)

I have to be honest...at the start of this for me....I wanted to exclude my husband completely...I was happy with where our marriage was at before the onset of issues for me..we worked our butts off to get there. I've realized how unfair that was to him...he has to be given a chance; without it we aren't the couple I see and want for us.

I'm sorry if I misinterpreted any of your journaling. My response though stands... its all true...word for word.

Deb...that 'spur into action' reference...came after a comment of mine that I feared displays of intense anger from anyone...even (especially) myself..I can't walk away from myself. My memories, my history. I need to find an anger that will spur me into action to place blame where it needs to go...and not just intellectually....but emotionally. I convinced myself..that I was there..there is no self-blame anymore...not true apparently by my journaling. I'm honest in my journaling, I know the right answer...but if I journaled without the self-blaming words...I would be cheating. Myself. I've cheated myself for long enough....I just need to find an method of 'finding' the anger.

I read Matt's reference a few posts up to a journaling assignment where we are witness to our own rape...what we do for that girl. What would we say or do to the perpetrators to help and show her, her value. He also said it was a "powerful method"......what does that mean exactly?