Day 15 - RSVP if similar experiences

I am slowly but thoroughly working my through the programme, doing lots of the in-depth journaling about all the things in my past that I suppressed anger about. There is a stunning amount of stuff hidden away that I have found, pretty much all of it associated with incredible rage, so I have been "airing it" with enthusiasm. What I am finding as well though, is that in general I am very easy to irritate and piss off, particularly with my wonderfully supportive partner ! So, is anyone else experiencing this thing of being very close to losing your temper all the time? Is it to be expected or a I just turning into harridan? BTW, I have always been a very calm, easy-going person, until I started the programme !!

 

That's a really interesting response, Archie! Mind you, we certainly expect new symptoms to crop up as people uncover their negative repressed emotions. Typically these manifest physically, and sometimes emotionally so why not behaviorally?

I feel like the description of your "normal" self as very calm and easygoing is the key here. It seems to me that your brain must have been working really hard all of your life so far, to cover up all of those buried sources of rage, with a totally unrealistic and unnatural veneer of calm.

I'm not a psychological expert by any stretch of the imagination, but might it not make sense that your brain is now struggling to deal with what must be a very sudden and unsettling change in the status quo?

As for what to do, I prescribe a healthy dose of self-forgiveness, self-love, and nurturing for the young child still within you.

Keep us posted,

~Jan

 

Archie
Uncovering, or allowing old wounds, hurts and other assorted negative experiences to surface is stressful in and of itself. Here you are, finding out that your hurts from the past were not only painful at the time, but due to the years of suppression and, for the most part, ignoring of these hurts from so many years ago makes you incredibly angry to the point of rage.
'Why was no one there to help/protect me then?'

Unfortunately, for our beloved partners, we may have also repeated this pattern of stuffing/not stating our anger at them, maybe for much lesser issues, but nevertheless this is our setup for extreme rage directed at them. (our poor spouses). Here we are uncovering all sorts of stuff, and along with this long ago past, our current issues also surface. Who gets the brunt of this anger, the beloved spouse.

I suggest, along with the wise suggestions from JanAtheCPA, that you continue journaling about ALL of this. Do some journals just on your issues that may be more current (i.e. with your spouse). Seek not only the hurts but begin to seek and find a place of forgiveness, for yourself, for your spouse.

It is very unsettling to come to terms with our suppressed rage and long ago hurts. BUT, it can be done. Knowing the source of the rage and then, discovering a place that allows you to begin to let go and move on, thus ending that phase of your life. I did it, it took awhile, but you can do this as well. Hold yourself in love. You are worth the journey,

Kindly
Lainey

 

Archie,

I passed through a long phase of this and it was quite troubling to someone who was easy-going to their core. I'm not sure how much the anger was due to repression and how much was a reasonable response to very challenging circumstance, it was probably a bit of both, but it did settle down.

In many ways I am not nor have ever been a typical type A TMS personality. I'm much more type B, and in the early days of learning about TMS I made the awful mistake of focusing on negative stuff. Aside from being insane, it only made me unhappy. I came to see how that advice pandered to the negativity bias in my brain and that I fared much better by re-embracing the wisdom of learning what needed to be "let in, let go and let be".

Our early forays into healing are marked by many novel explorations that need not come to define us. Having "anger" as something to readily access and express in our emotional repetoire is essential. That it may be a little known emotion means we may handle it clumsily in the beginning. This is ok. We are working things out and emotions can be strong at this time. I also cried a lot (which Dr. Schubiner attributed to grief at an expected life lost) but I do not see myself as sorrowful.

Let your emotions come and go. Don't hold onto them. Resist intellectualising. It gets much easier with time.

We all have a baseline temperament, a psychological state that we return to when healthy. Trust that this will restore itself as a part of your deeper healing.

Plum x

 

Hi Jan, thankyou for your helpful reply. Yes, I always strove to be easy-going even when stuff pissed me off, and as you say, my brain must have been working very hard to keep everything supressed. So now that the volcano has erupted, it is a completely different thing for my brain to del with, lol! My yound child is still raging so I think your advice is very good - she needs alot of loving attention. Thank you. p.s. my partner is wonderfully understanding which is such a gift.

Hi Lainey, thankyou for replying to me. You are absolutely bang on about also stuffing away my anger at my spouse too, and so now I try to speak up but in a non-damaging way. When my anger at him gets too intense, I journal my rage out which is very helpful. I feel completely at odds to how I used to be, which is extremely uncomfortable but there is an element too of it feeling more honest and "cleaner" somehow. I also agree with you that I do not want to hang onto all this rage, so look forward to being able to let go. The most extreme example so far is my older sister who I adored but who bullied, controlled and manipulated me for all our childhood, shaping me into a compliant personality, who was then ripe for abuse by others. When I discovered my rage at her, and it exploded out, for several days I felt in a totally different dimension of hyper-rage and bewilderment. Could literally barely sit still at times. Fortunately it eventually eased and calmed down, but it was the most incredible, intense, unsettling emotional experience I think I have ever had. So, thankyou again for writing and for your support advice. I will stick with it.

 

Thankyou Plum; insightful and helpful words. I really appreciate you taking the time to reply. Archie