I had a difficult time with anger too. In fact, I still do. Anger scares me to death because I grew up in an angry household and the man who abused me was a very angry man. For the longest time I could only get angry when I was with my therapist but lately I have felt the anger at home. And when I do feel the anger, I go with it. I feel it in it's entirety and I try to get it out by yelling and kicking and screaming. I punch a punching bag too. It all helps. Oh, I also write my angry words.

It does seem to be a normal result of abuse that we blame ourselves and become angry at ourselves before we get angry at the abuser(s). Every time I was angry at myself I would change my thinking to "I'm angry at HIM! not me". Over time I really did feel the anger towards him and less towards myself. It takes time for some of us. I hope your therapist is not saying you MUST feel angry. It's my experience that you will be angry at him eventually. In your own time, when you are ready to be angry at him.

Take care

this is what i went thru:

Chapter 11

Anger

This has been an incredible journey, full of ups and downs and many surprises. It has been eighteen months since I started in earnest working on recovery and I am still in awe of how far I have come. To feel the real changes in myself is nothing less than astounding. In so many ways I do not feel like the same person, so much of me changed or more to the point I don't carry nearly as much luggage as I once did. My progress has been a steady trend in the right direction with the expected bumps in the road. My progress has been riddled with many startling and enlightening moments of insight and growth. Many days I have felt so good, I had to wonder if this was the end of my recovery. It was in these days when I knew something very special was happening to me. I understood I was going to make it and recovery would be mine. I could feel the changes each day. I knew I had nothing to hide from anymore and the mask of shame had melted into oblivion. The weight of the guilt was no more. My sense of freedom and wholeness was heavenly and growing.

But alas the days would turn to weeks and sometimes the weeks to a month or two. Then, as with many times over the previous 18 months, a new sense of awareness would slowly begin to creep in. It usually started in my gut; it was a familiar feeling that did not reveal its meaning to easily. I could sense the healing I was experiencing from the latest plateau I scaled was taking hold. And it was during these transitions I felt the most vulnerable and threatened because these transitions signaled there was another plateau to explore. But it was Ok because with each stage of healing my confidence and skills grew and I was better prepared for the next level of recovery. Each level seemed to be more difficult than its predecessor but easier to cope with. With each plateau there was only so much healing that could take place. It was the transitions that signaled I had healed as much as I could and I was ready for the next plateau to be scaled. This was the cryptic signal broadcasting, it is time to move to the next challenge. At the beginning of each of these cycles I never had a sense of what was coming next. It was no different this time.

It is ironic, how emotional wounds heal in a very similar way as muscle does. When you exercise you work the muscles until they hurt. Then you give them time to heal and when your body is not hurting any more it is telling you it is time for the next round. Recovery is so much like this. You start by dealing with an issue, and then you work it until it hurts, so to speak. Then you give it time to heal and when your emotional mind is ready it tells you in its own way it is time for the next issue. In recovery I learned to listen to my mind and body. They are the signalman and the traffic cops. This time was no different. It is like a little bell going off in my head telling me the party is over and it is time to get back to work

I stayed in this transition state of mind for a couple of weeks, just letting my emotions and feelings do their work. In time they would let me know what was next, but it took a cognitive approach with active awareness of my feelings to make this happen. I was becoming more deeply pensive and somber.

It still never ceases to amaze me how much crap I was carrying all those years. The last two years had been mind boggling, so many wounds. And here again I found myself at the end of another plateau. I guess that is why they call it step plateaus. You climb up one side walk across the flat easy surface to the opposite end and start climbing again. Of course the first plateaus are easy and plentiful but as each is laid to rest behind you, the next is far more significant. And I sensed anger was going to be as big the shame and guilt.

But this time, I was surprised as ever. I have come to a place in my mind and heart where anger was the next demon to confront. Anger had been a steady companion throughout recovery. But for the most part it was more a sense of awareness, rather than a physical reaction or an emotion to be felt.

During the previous few weeks I wasn't sure where the next level would take me. I was trying to figure out why I was becoming so somber this time. I am sure it was partly due to the grieving process I was experiencing but there had to be more. Slowly my feeling began to crystallize. I pondered for days what I was feeling and why. It was no surprise to finally realize I have never been connected to most of the anger in my life. I have been angry for sure at times. I have yelled, been irritable, I have had infrequent fits of rage as an adult and frequent temper tantrums as a kid. I have never understood where the impulses of rage came from. I was always taken back at how I could lose control in these brief moments in time. Most of the time I held back expressing any anger at all, in most situations. And holding back was the fundamental problem. I was taught and forced to keep my anger to myself from the time I was a kid until I was out of the grips of Ernie. Once I was free of Ernie I had to be careful not to show anger because I am such an imposing figure and I always felt I was risking too much if I showed any anger. This was a very unhealthy way of managing my anger. So in all of my relationships and my marriage I felt it was risky to express any anger, even in a healthy way. Now, during these days of contemplation, I have come to see my anger as if I was looking into a volcano, ever so slowly and deliberating building pressure preparing to explode. From time to time I can see small eruptions. But as with all volcanoes it is the unseen threat which is deadly. I realized I had once again put another emotion out of reach. I could only experience the eruptions from an emotional distance, and without understanding. Boy, I wonder what Freud would say about this one?

It has made me angry to realize I have suppressed so much anger and never released it. How could doing this not be a major impact on a person's emotional health? Emotions are meant to be felt and experienced and I have never done this with my core anger. Once again recovery has revealed another plateau. I found it hard to believe at this stage of my recovery, there could be much more beyond the anger. Again I feel I am going into a, "Once more unto the breach" moment in time. Once more I would need to take the bull by the horns and accept what ever this next step will bring. Now I would have to learn to tap into my anger and learn ways to release it, once and for all. It was very scary but I felt very confident I would do as I have for so many months now, simply get it done.

Since the day in the cemetery, I have noticed tendencies toward anger and more so since I started recovery, especially during the last year when my recovery was in full throttle mode. I had been wondering about anger for months. The more I thought about it, the more apparent it became anger was again something I knew little about, beyond how to isolate myself from it. It was just like the shame and guilt. I had full awareness of the symptoms of each but I had never connected to them and did my best to numb myself from them. It was apparent my anger was equally disconnected, so I knew this was going to be big.

As the days past I was becoming more unsettled, another familiar state of mind at the beginning of working through an issue. I was realizing how conditioned my mind had been to be able to suppress this anger. My parents are great parents and I love them very much but they were very strict when it came to some things. Showing anger was not encouraged, and rightly so, we were a tribe of 13. So, on the one hand there were always kid squabbles going-on and on the other consequences for being angry. You never talked back to Mom or Dad or showed any disrespect of any kind to an adult. And we had that Catholic thing going. The fires of Hell will consume you if you do or think any bad deeds. Then came the abusers and I was taught again to not express angry, they used fear also, followed by shame and guilt that made me feel I had no right to be angry. And of course being a shy kid sure didnt help.

Damn, between everybody waiting for the nuclear bombs to fly and running to duck and cover training in elementary school. Throw in the sex, drugs and rock and roll, the sexual revolution, presidents, world leaders, senators and preachers being assassinated and watching our guys and gals dying every night in the news, made it a tough time for a kid to grow up. Looking back I guess it would hard for a kid not to be scared and angry. Then we were taught to hold it in. This was my training ground for dealing with anger. I guess this is why I always hate yelling and I hate myself every time I yell. Here again, I didnt recognize all the suppressed anger. I guess it was inevitable I would not be able to suppress my anger every time I was mad. The problem was, some times my anger reactions were more than they should have been and I would yell instead of learning to talk through the issue in a healthy way. And if anger needed to be expressed I needed to learn more sensitive ways of expressing anger, I had no training for any of this. And anger levels are very difficult to regulate when you are already holding back so much. Anger is always trying to find ways to express itself and if you give it the tiniest opportunity it will show itself and not in a healthy way.

I had been having tendencies toward anger since my recovery started. These moments of anger felt very different than my anger of the past. I could feel this anger very deep inside me; I was making a minimal personal connection to it. These moments of anger may have been brief in nature but they were leaving a very lasting impression. So by default I was already getting in touch with some anger at a very minimal level, just enough to know something different was happening

As the days past I was becoming more unsettled. Slowly things were starting to come to mind. Not least of which every time I would try and break through the emotional barrier it would trigger a PTSD episode. It was apparent I had discovered a source of the PTSD. During recovery I had only a few episodes and now I was in a continuous state of PTSD. It was very difficult to manage but I decided to stick with it no mater what. I reminded myself I had nothing to lose and this is what recovery is all about, staying committed, and learning to feel again.

Eventually the episodes would pass so it was not wasted time. During this time I had been remembering the actual abuse incidents, seeing them in my mind. I noticed I was not feeling one flicker of anger. I knew it was there, but I was dumb-founded that I could suppress it so well. I could see in my mind this happening to me and I was not feeling a thing? It showed me where my work needed to be done. Since all this I have been starting to react angrily, but I was not feeling the anger, like I did with my break-through with shame and guilt. What the hell had I done to myself? No wonder so many victims dont make it. What the hell, was I a robot all my life or some sort of freak that doesn't have a right to be angry when you're being raped! What the hell had they done to me? What the hell had I done to myself? This was a very disturbing time for me.

So far this was the roughest start to an issue. I spent a couple of weeks trying to learn how to get in touch with my anger. I was befuddled to think this stuff was so intense and complicated. I had to find ways not to over stimulate myself when doing my work; I had to keep it simple.

Keeping it simple this time was proving to be a challenge in and of it-self. There were days where I was overwhelmed. So I decided to work with my support people on this. Something I should have recognized the need to do earlier. After a couple of conversations with my counselor, I was able to step out of the PTSD and let my mind calm down. He wasnt much help teaching me how to get in touch with my anger. No fault of his, I think this stuff is too complicated to have black and white answers or solutions. I think each of us must learn to be flexible in our approaches to recovery and some things we have to figure out for ourselves. If something is working stay with it, if it isn't then find something that will work.

I was learning quickly, anger is the poison of the soul, mind and body. It is a cancer. The inner conflict it creates is the monster chasing us in our dreams. And how often do we victims try to minimize our anger or how often have we heard, just get over it. I had a sense; this was the last big plateau I had to scale. I had no sound reason to believe this, it was just a feeling. But it was a motivating feeling because if this truly turns out to be the last big one then it means I have come a long way and the end may be in sight.

Journal entry:

The last plateau, am I finally there? And I am paralyzed with fear. It feels like I am hanging on a shear rock face a couple thousand feet above a valley. I am hanging at the base of a huge inclined overhang. Beyond it is my goal. I have no safety robes and it is not a good place to be for someone who is deathly afraid of open falls. There is no going back, no safety rope, just me against fear. And I dont know how to scale this final obstacle. At times it is a paralyzing fear.

End journal:

I was still trying to figure ways to connect to my anger when I remember the incident with the punching bag I had hanging in the hallway. My sister had recommended it to use for working on anger. I bought it several months earlier and had it hanging there unused. I wasn't ready for it and I knew it. I just wanted it there for when I was. I remember walking by it one day and I wasn't thinking of anything in particular. I just gave the bag a love tap on the way by and a thought and image jumped into my head. ''Where were you, Mom?" and an image of my mother and me feeling angry and abandoned by her. I was in shock, so much so, it gave me a shot of adrenalin. This really bothered me because it was not a thought I would ever allow myself to believe or conceived of. Under no circumstances would I, or could I blame anyone for what happened to me other than the perpetrators, and especially not my mother!

Remembering this incident with the punching bag started me thinking, I decided I was going to try something. For several days, when I walked by the bag I would give it one punch and keep walking. What ever anger issue I was working on I would simple think about it as punched the bag. For me it was damn near a stroke of brilliance. It took me to some very interesting places. My first issue would be, "Mom, where were you? I hated the thought of this and it was tearing me apart. It was obviously an important issue for me. One I could not conceive of, but none the less it had to be dealt with.

Anger, what a trip; It took over a year of recovery before I realized I had suppressed anger. It was a type of anger I have never known. This anger felt different than simply being angry about something, yelling about something or any outward expression of every day anger. This was much different. This anger was the cement binding the many emotional wounds and holes in my soul together.

I was convinced early on in my recovery that anger would be the least of the wounds I had to deal with. I was convinced I had very little anger about the abuse. I was so naive. But the mind and heart are very clever. They are sneaky little bastards sometimes. My heart and subconscious mind knew they would only give me what I could handle at any one time. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined working on anger would turn out to be so astonishing, difficult, revealing, enlightening and freeing. I wondered early on, after understanding more of the scope of my anger, if I was facing my Waterloo. I was becoming a little discouraged. How the hell much more of recovery would there be before I would have no more surprises. Recovery was draining. But I would get through.

It was apparent I was so out of touch with my anger, that the word anger was simply that, a word. I had no emotional connections to it. I had to wonder if it was even possible for anyone to suppress real anger. I reviewed my feelings constantly trying to understand the real depth of my anger. Sure I had hung a punching bag up to pound on when the need arouse. But the punching bag was only a symbol or at best a tool. Being aware of anger and connecting to it was a totally different thing. In reality anger was the footings of my emotional foundation, offset only by the love in my heart. Anger was the foundation which carried me because there was no other material to build with at the time. It is strange, what really did happen; the first eight years of my life, my emotional footings were strong and developed in a very normal manner. Beyond those wonderful and full years the foundation of my life was being poured over on the footings, making those first 8 years the base for the larger foundation. Anger became the foundation covering the good footings. My foundation of anger was never strong enough to destroy my good footings but they sure tested them to their limits. No anger only put the good footing at a distance and out of sight. You never see the footing of a foundation. You only know they are there holding up everything else. My emotional footing waited patiently for forty years for a new foundation to be built or the old one to be repaired. So where did this leave me? Having been a licensed contractor, I understood what it meant to rebuild. I would keep all that was good and replace the parts that were not worthy of a new life. Even my poorly built home had a great many good things worth saving. They call this recovery? Even now, as I write these words I am in awe of how much anger I have, what it turned into and what it revealed. It was a life changing event; it was time to take its life controlling power away.

I consider my day in the cemetery the first day of my recovery. It took time to sort things out and stabilize my life to a point where I could begin recovery in earnest. In fact I took close to a year before I could attack it. This is not to say I was not recovering as the days passed. Once you step out of denial and are truthful with yourself, causes an awareness that will not let you forget you are recovering, either formally or informally. At the time I was in serious financial difficulties and dealing with a cancer scare and moving back home. There was a lot on my plate and I was still learning how to deal with recovery and learning how to do it. So the loss of time was not a result of procrastination, it was out of necessity.

That day in the cemetery I began walking a parallel path of life. The road to recovery magically appeared an next to my road of life, one foot on each road. It was a road I could not simply step on to and everything was ok. No the road of life would have to be walked and the in time, it would meld into the one road of recovery and a new life. But recovery was in sight and as much as I could not walk it fully, it was a guide.

This magical road was not a road to nowhere. No this road had a purpose with a destiny. And as time went on, I traveled this road, met my demons and dismissed them. There were so many surprises along the way. The road seemed difficult and hopeless at first. But it was not long before I was realized this road had a gentle slope, a very long gentle slope. With each step I was slowly descending to where the two roads would join into one and I would truly be whole and genuine.

So many times, as I walked this road, I encounter a defining issue , worked through it and felt the healing and wholeness develop in me; I would be on top of the world emotionally, but only until the next wound presented it self. And with each of these confrontations I felt I had dealt with the worst of them. In hind-sight, each wound I dealt with was harder than the previous. And with each cycle I would feel a little trepidation because, if the course held true, then it stood to reason the next cycle of recovery would be more painful. It was at these times when I had to remind myself of how far I had come. Even if I wanted to, I couldnt stop. With each wound I healed I became stronger and better equipped to face the next. I also knew the time would come when I would face the last wounds. And now, that time had come. Anger, the foundation of my life, was the final battle to be fought. I dont know how I knew. But I knew. I knew all my work had brought me to this dangerous place. Anger is a formidable foe and I instinctively knew I would not be able to deal with this alone. I knew too little about anger and learning on the job was not an option anymore. I was in training for over year, and it was pissing me off it was becoming so hard. I could not be angry at my mother! No way! It was not her fault at any level! But, no matter what the truth revealed I would face it, right! Things were really starting to suck. I had come full circle. I was standing at the beginning, only this time I had the full mosaic of my life, shining in the light of truth. Nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. I felt like a guy preparing to run into a burning building to save a loved one and knowing my chances of coming out alive are slim. But you do it, not because you may fail, but because you may succeed. This time I was saving me, I hope it turns out better this time. Once more unto the breach, my quest was coming to an end. It was beginning to appear I would have to punch my way through this one. The damn bag had hung there for six months, a shining symbol of what was to come and the key to moving past it.

And behind door number one is, Mom, where were you? Wow! What a shock for me. I never considered at any time in my past that I may have unidentified and unresolved anger about my mother or father. I didnt understand it. Where the hell were these feeling coming from? After the punching bag started punching back. Mom, where were you? I stayed away from it for a week or two. Staying away didnt matter much because I could not walk by the damned thing without thinking about what had happened. The bag became the guiding beacon in the dark. And this was just the beginning. The bag would turn out to be a time portal to distant and forgotten feelings, pain, wounds, new truths and old truths.

It was a strange place to be. Here I was at the end of an epic journey, and facing my darkest emotions. But I had reached a level of recovery that allowed me to accept this fate. There was no going back; I was going to face my anger. I did have anger towards my mother. But what type of anger? Mom and Dad did all they could and I have always been grateful to them for their efforts. Their methods on the other hand, well that is a different story.

As I worked through this issue my research brought me to some interesting articles about victims having an innate tendency to protect their parents from blame. This seemed to be a little of what was going on with me. But this still did not make sense to me. I was struggling with a core issue which revealed some very primal anger towards my mother. I could not allow myself to be angry with her or my dad. She was not to blame and the only one to blame was Ernie. But my rational mind, fortified with perfect logic was no match for my emotional mind which was fortified with prevailing truth. After all, I had been in training through recovery, to allow myself to feel again. I couldnt just shut this off even if I wanted to. The quicker I accepted this simple truth the easier the process would become.

As I struggled over the next several weeks, I realized I was blocking. This had to change and I had to deal with my anger honestly. I learned, Me as an adult was not angry with my mother, but me as a child was. Understanding this difference made it easier for me to deal with. And so the punching bag came to life in a more productive way. I pounded the hell out of it. The more I punched the damned thing, the angrier I became. With each blow came more hurt and the more loss I felt. I was allowing myself to feel as I did as a teenager. Except this time I was not suppressing my anger, I was expressing it as I wanted to as a teenager. The tears began to flow, like rivers of sadness and anger. My heart was breaking before my eyes. As a teenager I had felt my parents had failed me. I felt that way back then but I didnt know it. Back then I could only hold myself accountable, how unbelievable it was to feel about mom this way. And here lays the conflict. How do I reconcile this? I was exhausted by now and I had beaten the bag until I nearly dropped.

Over the next few weeks I was able to understand most of my confusion. Only Ernie was to blame. My mom did all she could and the legal system was no help to her and neither was society. She cried when she knew I was in pain and her heart broke a thousand times over this stuff. She tried endlessly to pull me back. And she didnt have a clue what was going on until it was too late for me. I was the one painting the rosy picture for everyone. I was forced by virtue of my situation, to be a difficult teenager. Any parent dealing with a difficult teenager knows the heart ache and frustration of trying so hard and usually to no avail.

As far as the anger goes, I have accepted and understand why I had anger towards my mom. It is human nature, especially as a child, to expect your parents to be able to protect you from all dangers. It is equally normal for a parent to feel guilty when they cannot protect their child. At such an instinctive level it was understandable I was angry at Mom. I was a kid and I didnt have the luxury of clairvoyance of fore-thought and wisdom to understand it was ok to be angry.

Did my parents fail? Yes and no. Was what happening to me their fault? No. As adults we have the have the luxury of hind-sight and it is easy to say this or that should have happened or this or that should have been done. This is not the real world. I was angry at my mom for no other reason than she was my mom and she couldnt protect me. But in the end she did save me and that is what is important. From a more practical point of view, no parent wants their child to be abused or mistreated. And every parent wants the best for their children. My parents didnt want this abuse to happen to me. What purpose would be gained if I measured my parents as a function of their failures as I perceived them? If we measured every parent this way we would not find very many successful parents, would we? The measure of a parent is not in their failures or their inability to stand up to forces beyond their control. I measure my parents by their hearts and how successful they are at raising a large family. Form this perspective; my parents are great parents and people. They are human first and parents second. They did there best, but fate had a different plan for me.

This was an important and critical step in my recovery; critical because it was so basic in its nature. Kids angry at their parents? What a revelation. All of this made me realize how difficult a teenager I was for my parents. I was so because I was more afraid of Ernie and what he could do to me and my family than I was of my parents.

This ended my first intense episode of anger. There was no way I could maintain these levels of emotional drain. I had to slow things down a bit. I needed a rest for a couple of weeks, I needed time to heal.

When I started this new technique of hitting the bag only one time, I was hoping to created similar triggers as happened with Mom. For about two weeks and 50 to 75 single punches to the bag, nothing of consequence happened. Other than a few fleeting glimpses of anger about Ernie I was not getting anything. I began to wonder if this exercise was a waste of time. Shortly after feeling a little discourage things began to happen. I was getting flickers of anger that were lucid in nature. Ernie was becoming more predominant in my feelings, but there were other surprises. My dad was beginning to be part of this. All I could think was, Christ, not again. Where the hell was this going to take me with Dad? Over the next couple of weeks there were triggers for my brothers, sisters, Bette, there seemed to be no end to the anger. Was I angry at everyone? I was beginning to realize this was not healthy. I had to modify my technique a little and deal with my anger issues one at a time. I decided to focus on my dad and one of my brothers next.

The next several days proved to be challenging. The end result of my anger toward my family all seemed to be the same. I was angry as a kid but as an adult I have no anger for any of them. And my conclusions were the same as they were for my mother. My family was not to blame. I wasnt mad at any of them. But as a kid I only knew subconsciously, loved ones are suppose to protect me. They were only the instruments to allow me to get in touch with all the anger of my youth.

I began to feel sorry for the bag. Things were working so well that other sources of anger began to pop up. Not least of which was my anger at my wife. I was really pissed at her. I would like to think this was a surprise but it wasnt. I had accepted I was responsible for the marriage failing even if it was not obvious I was doing so. Evidently I had other strong feeling I did not want to acknowledge. Regardless of what I did or did not want to do, I was in it up to my ears now and there was no way out of it. I had good training for the no way out scenario.

I realize how unhealthy and damaging un-healed anger is. I was always told it can kill you, I think they may be right. In truth I was angry at everyone at one point or another. My anger dwelt in the dungeons of my mind and heart. It had lived there as the anger of a child, a wounded child. It made it easy for me to feel defensive and sensitive about my life. In the day I subconsciously wanted everyone I loved to come to my rescue. They simply had no idea I was in need of rescuing. But I had, over time, developed a defensive attitude about my life and therefore, it was easy for me to believe everyone knew and easier for me to keep my loved ones at a distance. Even if they wanted to help me, it was doubtful I could let them.

It took a while for me to sort out the anger I had for my wife and how the abuse was involved. The truth is I was really angry about the divorce and how she has treated me since. Since Christmas night 94 she has treated me like dirt. She has been unkind, abusive, and lied many times. Barb knew she was treated like a queen by me and there was never any level of abuse of her by me, accept one angry letter. I was an excellent husband to her and it is so sad she has lost sight of all of this. I spent my life being as kind and generous to people as I could be. And she in one act of being cruel and abusive she labeled me for life, as the type of person I hate to my core. If she had a thousand people who knew us she would not find one who would say I was anything but a great and loving husband to her. I have come to pity Barb. But she knew what she was doing, just not why she was doing it.

Underneath I was very angry she had never dealt with her own sexual abuse. Her abuse was her trigger for venting all her anger from her first husband on me. These are not my words but the words of both counselors who had worked with us over the years. And both knew I was in for trouble with Barbs past. Recovery has taught me, as much as I love her and understand her heart, she definitely turned out to be a cruel and heartless person. I feel bad for her and recovery has also taught me I deserve better. To this day she has never had one conversation or given me one item of mine. No pictures nothing. She has been heartless, cruel, abusive, and unkind. And I am stuck with loving a person who would sooner piss on me than show the slightest measure of kindness or fairness. She had no right ending our marriage because a prank phone call and I dont think she did. I wondered if she had a boy friend and recovery has shown me that everything that happened that night was all too convenient. Why was she standing at the door of my office without knocking or coming in as she always did. The door was never locked and why was she on vacation two weeks after that Christmas, and why would no one tell me who she was with. I deserve better than her and I am done with blaming myself for her lack of far sightedness. Whatever her reasons are, she is a pretty damned unkind and ruthless person. Sorry Barb, but this is my story and it is based on truth not the BS you sold the world about me. I was a great husband to you. I dont know where the truth is with her but I do know she is wrong about me. Her abuse wounds turned her into the monster and that is so sad. Hell when I thought I was dying from cancer, I sent her a letter saying good-bye. And even under these circumstances she could not show me one bit of kindness or send me a picture of us married, so I could take it with me. And of course she would not send me my wedding ring which I wanted to be buried with. I never got a get well card from her. And if I did die, I believe she would dance on my grave. Good-bye, Barb. Her hate of me is a terrible burden for us to carry.

This was my anger soliloquy while punching the bag. But my heart still tells me how I really feel, at least the feelings that are important. I had a very difficult time dealing with my anger for Barb. I didnt want to be angry, but this process has brought back so many forgotten memories. And the realization my marriage was taken because of two wounded people who never dealt with their pain. The abusers won this round. In truth, it doesnt matter who was right or who was wrong. Abuse sucks and I was a great husband. There has never been any closure for me with Barb. She has refused from day one to make sure I never had closure. It was ironic, when I filed for an annulment with the Catholic church; She would not participate and that made it very difficult to get the annulment. I guess ripping my heart out wasnt enough. But it is really over now and I am free of the anger and I have chosen to remember Barb with an honest heart and not deny myself the truth that I love Barb very much. And that is one thing she cannot take away.

I was in a state of active anger about Barb for about one month. It had come full circle again. I was cycling in and out of anger, hurt and a few other things. The truth is simply this. We were both wrong. And that is where it begins and ends for me. My soliloquies have ended and I know Barb never cheated on me and what happened happened and she knows I never cheated on her. I dont agree with Barb about a great many things, not least of which is how she has treated me. I thought she was better than that. But I understand now and I can live with a better conscience about the whole mess with Barb. I can live with knowing how great our love was for each other and how wonderful a husband I was to her. Our counselors and Barb have all said this about me in the past and they are right. That is the hardest part for me, the love. I am left as bird with no wings. It is hard not to feel regret but I would be fooling myself if I didnt. I have regrets and the wound in my heart can never heal without forgiveness from Barb. And even if forgiveness was coming, I dont think I have grown enough through recovery to ever forgive myself. But to have lived and known this type of love is nothing less than miraculous for me. I am dead to Barb and that is so sad and painful for me to deal with, but I have been dead before and I always seem to find a way to hang in there. I can live with knowing Barb genuinely loved me, a long time ago. And the fact that she was totally wrong about me. Also, I believe as others do, she is very much still in love with me. That and a dollar will get me a cup of coffee, for all it is worth. She is not a strong enough of a person to face the truth about how wrong she was or her real feelings for me.

The whole anger process was the toughest of all the steps of recovery to deal with. In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined how much suppressed anger I had. How the hell did I control it for so long, or did I? Of course I didnt, it had a hold on me most of my life. Like addiction to booze or drugs, anger is just as damaging and it did become an addiction and lead to self-destructive behavior. The energy I put into suppressing my anger was staggering, energy that was wasted and desperately needed else-were at the time.

For about six months I worked tirelessly on anger and it worked just as hard on me. To my surprise I had hit the lowest point, emotionally, in my recovery. Working through the anger for so long made it very difficult for me to stay out of a depression. It was manageable but there were days when I wondered if recovery was worth continuing. I wondered if I should just stop and start living life again, beyond this recovery stuff. But I knew I couldnt quit and I wanted to, at least for a while. No this moth is stuck in the flame. During these trying six months I was still cycling through all the other anger issues. Anger issues do not turn on and off like a switch. They are fluid, always changing in form, fit and function. And always in the middle of my thinking and feelings, was Ernie. He was there; a day didnt go by when he was not on my mind. Every scrap of anger reminded me of him and why I was going through what I was. As I progressed through anger, in time, as the issues dissolved with healing, Ernie became more and more into focus. I had reached a point where I felt strong enough to move forward with the only anger issue on my mind now. Ernie. However, I reached a point where I was blocked. I felt I was being kept from my anger with Ernie by these large imaginary steel doors and I could not move any closer to my anger. I decided to use this imagery in my mediation exercises.

I started, working up to a point where I was ready to start breaking down those steel doors keeping me from my face to face with Ernie. The night I laid down and started going through my mediation induction process, I had an unusual feeling and an unfamiliar frame of mind. I wasnt sure what I was feeling all I knew was I had had enough. I was expecting another one of those galactic sphere episodes again. And frankly I didnt care. In my mind this was simply, something that I was going to do. I had no fear, no anger, no nothing for that matter.

That night I found getting into my meditative state was easier than what usual. I found myself standing at the doors and again I was feeling nothing. I had already decided I was going to find a way to open those doors, walk through them and have my say. I asked myself, What is the truth, Richard? Nothing happened. So I walked to the doors, and it felt good because I felt I was in total and absolute control, when I pushed on the doors they swung open with ease. And there he was, my old buddy, Ernie. I looked at him he looked at and I felt nothing. He was just a pathetically depressed looking person, who appeared lonely, lost and tormented. And still I felt nothing. I couldnt even feel bad for him. I simply looked him in the eyes until he connected with mine. I held the gaze for a few moments and then I simply turned and walked away. I had no need of him any more. I was totally surprised and at a little bit of a loss. I came to do battle and yet when the time came, I had no need to. I had already beaten him. I was still here.

But that would not be the end of my anger for Ernie. It was a day or so later and I wasnt thinking much about anything. As I was walking by the bag it triggered me in a big way. I started whaling on the punching bag. All the while I was telling myself, you dont get off that easy, you son of bitch. One memory let to another with each a couple of blows. I was remembering everything, the rapes, the shame, the quilt, the lost friends, my wife, the blood, the fear, the bruising and the anger. I was exploding, I was losing it totally, I thought. And I said to myself, I dont give a fuck! I have had enough of his BS and I want it gone. So I punched the bag until I dropped that day, and the next, and the next, for about five days. On the fifth day I simply stopped all of a sudden, looked at the bag, took the gloves off and walked away. It was finally over. He had taken me to the bowels of hell and I have found my way home.

Well I thought it was over, however that clever little beastie that I have affectionately come to call recovery, was up to its old tricks. I spent the next few days trying to sort this new one out. But I knew all along what was going on. I wanted the anger issues to end with Ernie but it was not to be and I knew it. As I said, at some point in time I was mad at everyone and I just spent the last seven months on anger, bring everyone I was angry at under the umbrella of my recovery. But now was the time to face the anger one more time. The only unresolved anger left was with me. When I figured this out, I just shook my head and said what the hell, I came this far, I might as well just take it on home and get her done, clever little beastie. You got me again, I thought.

I had come full circle again. My self- directed anger had to be dealt with. I felt really weird about this particular anger. I wasnt having any emotional reactions to it. As with all the other steps in my recovery I had to try and understand what was happening. But this time I could not get a read on my feeling about my anger towards myself. I couldnt figure out which method to use in trying to connect with it. A day or so later I decided on the bag. I didnt want to wait any longer, I wanted this behind me. Recovery was getting old and I wanted to move on to a better life and not find myself in a constant state of recovery. So I put the gloves on and I figured I would do as I have done in the past, pound the bag and see what pops out, and all I could do, was stare at the bag. I had no need to hit it. I stood there thinking about all the anger I had worked on. I remembered all the people I felt angry with and why. It was all a very calm experience. I didnt feel any anger. As I stood there trying to figure out what the hell was going on. I felt emotionally dead, until it dawned on me why.

I spent my entire life beating myself up with anger. I just spent seven months healing from anger. Somewhere in the process I had forgiven myself, I just hadnt realized it until now. I didnt need to beat myself up anymore. It was over, truly over. What a trip.