Anger or lack thereof.

LegacyUser

I've been in therapy for the past couple of weeks and am working through a whole load of things in relation to low self esteem and poor self image. I've been doing well & am actually enjoying the process. The issue of my lack of anger keeps coming up again & again & I feel kind of stuck in talking about it & have told my counsellor this.

I grew up in quite a dysfunctional family with very emotionally distant parents and siblings. My parents separated when I was young & my dad was absent most of the time. He would drift in & out of my life every so often & I just saw him as an older man rather than my dad tbh. My mum was (and often still is) very emotionally abusive & would use emotional black mail a lot.
My relationships with my family have improved as I've grown older, mainly because I distance myself from them a good bit. I love them & I appreciate all the things they've done for me over the years.

My counsellor says that I just adopted the role of caretaker & peacemaker for my family. I can see that. I was virtually everyone's emotional punchbag. Over the years my family have made nasty jibes about my weight, how i'm the stupid one in the family, that I'm lazy, spoiled etc. Anytime I got upset over these things, I was told they were just joking & that I was too sensitive. My father told me (when I was 12) that I was becoming fat like my mother & no man would ever love me. There are countless other remarks that I find very painful to think about.

But I don't feel angry or even really upset about all of this & I'm not sure why.I used to self harm a lot in my late teens but I stopped myself doing that. I suppose now I bottle it up. I hate getting angry with people & rarely stand up for myself. I just avoid conflicts. I realise that I repeat the patterns of relationship with some friends and with my ex boyfriends. No matter how sh*tty some people treat me, I just don't get outwardly angry. I've been smart enough to walk away from an abusive boyfriend but I was never angry with him for the way he treated me, just upset because that's the type of guy I could get. I have some friends that are really bitchy towards me- I have distanced myself from them but I still put up with some of their behaviour. I suppose I think I don't deserve any better

I don't know how to stop blaming myself & turning on myself instead of having appropriate anger. Does anyone have any experience of this or any advice?

Cheers

mikemac1

Don't bottle things up
You have to release pressure and possibly that self harming is part of that

Unfortunately people do take advantage of others and if they see you as weak and quiet you can become the doormat. That can be any situation, an asshole neighbour, a boss or team leader or just a personal relationship.
Just remember these people are often weak themselves and they single you out so they don't singled out themselves

But what happens then is one day you explode and if you do this in the office you could land yourself in trouble. Or your neighbour annoys you for months and years and one day you belt them in the face.

At an extreme this could land you in legal trouble one day, up to assault or manslaughter as you take abuse for years and one day snap with somebody

But more likely is you'll lash out at the ones you love. Come home after being mistreated and you'll lash into someone who you know won't react

You should do an assertiveness course OP. Issues need to be dealt with on the spot. Of course sometimes walk away but if you have something to say then say it, don't walk away and replay every incident in your head and then explode three days later

Toastmasters might help you for speaking and how you come across. Some people attract bullies and some people never or rarely have these issues.

Lastly, ditch the negative people in your life. Some people would just sap the energy out of you. You don't need them so avoid or get rid of them

curlzy

Wow OP, your post made me feel so sad. You sound like a lovely person who's had it very hard. I think maybe it's true that you just turn all the negativity inwards and then hurt yourself emotionally/physically. I would second Sunflowers' post and advise you to read those books, your family definately sound like they could be labelled 'toxic'.

In order to get in touch with your anger could you perhaps imagine yourself outside yourself? Like when I was going to councelling the councellor said that I don't have any anger regarding some childhood things and that it wasn't healthy. He asked me to close my eyes and imagine my child self as separate from me, someone else altogether and imagine the bad experiences happening to her. You know what? I got very angry and let some of that out and felt much better afterwards. Sometimes it's much easier to clamp down on anger, especially if you don't know how to express it but that's bad for you. Do you ever get angry on other people's behalf? Like if someone you love/like is hurt by someone else do you feel anger on their behalf? Well perhaps you could do that for yourself? Like feel anger on your younger self's behave? I'm not sure if I'm making sense but I hope you understand me. I'm sure you were a lovely child that was stifled by a passive-aggressive (all those little put-downs and jibs) and emotionally bankrupt family and my heart goes out to you, all those things to unlearn now that you're grown:(. I think the therapy and reading books on the subject are a good idea, you're worth being happy, you're worth standing up for, now you need to learn that and really and truly believe it.

The very best of luck OP.