The problem of anger as a post traumatic reaction

Traumas occur to us when we are overwhelmed by some external force or threat that at the time we cannot fight off, flee or make sense of. This is why so much trauma happens to us as little ones, at that time we did not have the power to say No or to fight it off and that can leave a lasting legacy of anger or rage and unprocessed energy that remains stored up or trapped in the cells and is actually the undischarged energy we needed to move out of the body in some way in our trauma recovery work. This is also why due to the feelings of anger and powerlessness so many of us get trapped in trigger responses of rage or fight. However, as an old partner of mine once said to me after one of these reactions.. “you can have your rage but you are still a rat in a cage” this guy lacked empathy but he made a powerful point about PTSD. We do need to harness our trapped POWER IN SOME WAY but just getting angry is not enough if we are staying trapped in powerlessness and old unprocessed trauma. I will include a quote from Sarah Woodhouse at the bottom of this post that shows how angry fight reactions may just keep us as trapped as freeze or flight or fawn reactions when what is really needed is to free our trapped power or release ourselves from fear bound shame.

A lot of the work Peter Levine does with trauma involves helping people so overwhelmed by stored and unreleased charge of trauma to both move out of the overpowering freeze as well as release the stored up vibrations in bursts of running or even using vocalizations of the sound Vooooo (although at times I also use the chant Ommm as that is known to lower the level of the stress hormone in our system, cortisol.) to move the energy out of our body as well as overcome the powerful freeze or trapped deer in headlights response.

As trauma victims we can also get scared by our own bodily reactions which may mimic the trauma responses we had when hurt, damaged or overpowered, one of these is elevated heart rate which is why some trauma survivors find exercise too overpowering, similar for those who may have had physical boundaries overwhelmed by say sexual or bodily abuse, they may not be able to tolerate massage or other kinds of hands on therapies.. I lost two therapists due to reacting to them touching me and then trying to hold me forceably (one by grabbing my wrists) I didn’t hurt this told her to back the Fuck off.. and she did… but she also told me she did not want to work with me any more.. which is fair enough but at the time it devastated me with my deep abandonment issues.

Its helpful to know when we feel angry but we have to be aware as trauma survivors when over-reacting in anger or rage does not serve any useful purpose at all..

Some of us use anger as a defense against grief, my ex partner was like this.. he could rage himself (despite what he said to me about rage that I quoted earlier) but he could never cry over what was done to him as a powerless child, he just stayed angry at the mother who walked out on his alcoholic father in order to save her own life..

It can take a lot of time for some of us to access the grief and profound feelings of vulnerability and helplessness we felt as children when hurt, negated, dismissed or overpowered by siblings, peers or adults but this ‘grief work’ and inner feeling recognition work is the most essential part of our healing for those of us traumatized as children, touching base with the pain we can empower our child as the adult we really are instead of remaining trapped in unconscious wounded child.

Much of John Bradshaw’s work on healing the shame that binds us in fear and anger and keeps out grief at bay is in doing this work over a period of time by connecting with key incidents from childhood which often stay buried, hidden or scattered in fragments within our deep psyche, sometimes they emerge in dream images, sometimes as Post Traumatic Reactions. For some of us it takes years and years and years to get to the memories and then touch base with the feelings underlying and process and sort them

.. this ‘age regression’ is important to get a handle on.. Sarah talks in her book You’re Not Broken : Break Free From Trauma & Reclaim Your Life about the split between adult and child. the adult self can help us but it may take a therapist or other to play this role for us if we are protecting ourselves with a nasty inner critic who only wants to keep that child’s feelings bound in shame… they may have to validate that what was done to us was not our fault over and over and over again because when a parent refuses to take accountability due to their own wounds or defenses they force us to carry the part of their shadow they rejected. We then we become then a ‘scapegoat identified’ individual (Sylvia Bretton Perrera coined this terms in her book on the Scapegoat and I have written a post about it I will link to at the end of this article) and even our siblings may side against us if they are chosen to receive the parental favor as ‘the golden child’ bear in mind too, that the scapegoat role can shift as the family dynamic changes.. for example in my family it was my older sister and I who became scapegoats but later after I chose recovery that role then got placed on my sister too at one point, the one who is struggling now..

God knows breaking free of the powerful hold of powerlessness in our lives is not easy at all but it can be done. And on the path our anger and rage has a profound part to play in recovery, in time it will allow us to set better boundaries and know when one may have been violated or crossed.. but these forces may also endlessly trap us in ways that do not help us either, they make keep us safe from all ‘threat’ but they will also in time function to block off new life if we cannot harness the energy and use it for God (or Higher Power/Self’s) Will.. in Good Orderly Direction, even if at the start our direction seems entirely manic or chaotic at times.

Now onto powerlessness. This aspect of the traumatic reaction is innately connected to the other two.. (perceived threat and overwhelm) Perceiving a threat is too big for us to handle and feeling extremely overwhelmed often leads to a sense of powerlessness and helplessness. During or after a traumatic experience we feel vulnerable, unsure, shocked, and fragile. We feel small and wounded, deflated. Many also feel put in their place, shamed, embarrassed or ‘less than’.

The difficulty is that our feelings of powerlessness and helplessness often quickly transform into denial or anger, so for some it can feel like a hard concept to find peace with. Angry, deeply hurt people shout their pain and reach for power. Because they were made to feel powerless, they do everythign they can today to ensure they don’t feel it again. But they aren’t empowered, they’er still trapped in their old reaction.

Reclaiming our power is a critical part of the healing journey. We must consider how our ongoing or triggered powerlessness is affecting our lives today. Perhaps we give up, perhaps we don’t try, perhaps we settle for less than we deserve, Perhaps we become apathetic, perhaps we walk away or shut down. Perhaps we accept abuse or neglect. Or we’re still trapped in our old reactions. Either way, stepping into our real authentic self, and therefore connecting to our real power, is a critical part of freedom and growth. It’s also fun, empowering and expansive. It’s the hear-me-roar, reclaim-your-life part of growing from trauma. And it’s an awesome path to walk. –

Sarah Woodhouse

Link to my post Healing the Scapegoat Within

https://wordpress.com/post/emergingfromthedarknight.wordpress.com/2674