The anger we need to survive and thrive

Ever been demonised by someone for lashing out in a situation in which you were honestly self protecting or responding to an emotional gut sucker punch?   Truth to tell the people who lack empathy into the core wounds in you that may be being retriggered are more than likely not only, NOT to show you empathy, but also will be invested in demonising you as a result.   That for many of us may be the end of the relationship or the movement of you to the scapegoat/exile zone.  For those who know us and our wounded self they will try to understand that anger used in just such a way is a valid form of self protection that we needed to survive until we can get to grips with the core wound that lies deep within.  They will question or understand our reaction, knowing us and knowing we were fighting for a truth, obscure or not and due to the wounds we carry it may seem that we are over reacting when really we are just trying out best to deal with something not yet fully integrated.

In this kind of situation after due introspection we may choose to apologise and explain what was triggered for us to respond in just such a way.   Anger is what we use to protect ourselves and survive and remind us of when needs or feelings are being triggered into awareness.  How others respond to our anger will also show how much they really respect us and our needs and feelings.

A large part of healing from so called splitting disorders such a borderline personality involves a period of facing what rage and anger may be hidden within.   The rage and fear associated with original abandonment traumas function to keep the real vulnerable self in hiding and safe from attack.  The real problems start when the valid feelings of our true self are cut off and rendered de-potentiated.  What has happened is that we have swallowed whole the prohibition from those investing in us not having or expressing personal boundaries.  We then sadly come to associate any form of self assertion gone rogue as evidence of a ‘bad’ self that we then try to eradicate (or even get hoodwinked into apologising for).  Sorry!  Did it upset you that I pointed out that when you stood on my foot and then told me it didn’t hurt and I said ouch, that I then got angry?

What if this so called ‘bad’ self only became bad through exile and due to the fact that others tried to tell us we were ‘bad’ for having an intense response to something was actually justified should they really be capable of empathy or seeing into our soul? How then do we bring the so called ‘bad self’ back inside and out from the cold prison of hell it becomes consigned to with all our life energy we had to bury in order to gain love or please others years ago?  How then too, do we deal with the feelings of anxiety or shame which are really just a sign of positive life energy in support of a powerful self returning albeit in initially extreme ways?

Working through our anger issues is very important work and an important part of working through our abandonment depression the core of which is abandoning ourselves and genuine parts of our true self again in similar ways to the ways they were abandoned as we became conditioned to substitute a false self in its place.  It won’t be a comfortable process and may be fraught with unnecessary guilt if we don’t have on our side or fighting in our corner someone who can provide us with necessary ‘reality checks’.

If long ago we were told there was something wrong with our true self and then we made the poor bargain of disabling our instincts and intuitions leading to us becoming what therapist Clarissa Pinkola Estes has called instinct injured we are more likely candidates for trauma bonded relationships.  We choose those who don’t care for us or our true self, who may have an investment in us disowning it.  We also learn to surrender our power to others, we may adopt the ‘play dead’ or dissociation defence to ward off the anxiety of expressing our truth and having to stand for it in the face of disapproval suffering what Melanie Beattie calls afterburn. 

We face the abandonment feelings in full force when we begin to set boundaries.  Its a new behaviour and we have not yet fully developed those muscles and so they may be weak, but with time and with strength to bear all the feelings of abandonment depression (fear, guilt being two), connecting them with earlier experiences we will come through, stronger than we were before.  We will finally have developed legs to stand on instead of collapsing into the foetal position when others don’t respect us, see us or value us.  We will increasingly also be less triggered by those who do this, learning more and more that we can care for ourselves and self protect in healthier ways, which don’t mean we need to lash out, due to the fact we may have taken on board something we didn’t need to.   We won’t need to demand as much from those who are incapable, insensitive or just lack insight, we will realise this as their issue, we all have different levels of awareness.  We will also learn where our real wounds lie and when they are triggered own this honestly and become more able to express what we need, what was triggered or what hurt in healthy assertive ways.  Or else just choose to walk away.