I'm so sorry all that happened to you, raging vortex! That is so hard to deal with - esp. it being your mother who harmed and traumatized you.

Indeed, trauma is more painful and lasting than drama. There's a difference between traumatic stress and non-traumatic stress. And when there's repeated trauma from a person, that's called betrayal trauma as well as interpersonal trauma. Betrayal trauma and interpersonal trauma last much longer and are more difficult to treat than non-interpersonal traumas, such as natural disaster traumas. While both traumas are long-lasting, some people may not even see natural disasters as "traumatic."

When it comes to our mental health, how we experience trauma - whether it be from a person, place, or thing - is important to us and our overall well-being. It matters to us because we need support, treatment, and help in many areas of our life since such traumas tend to last a lifetime.

Anger processing, or what the trauma treatment center called "catharsis" or "cathartic" (I forgot which), is important. It's a release of righteous anger, righteous emotions over being hurt and experiencing secondary victimization through a lack of justice. Whereas some victims/survivors will receive some form of justice (e.g., acknowledgment from family court systems, criminal justice systems, and child welfare systems), others may have never been able to receive justice at all - whether they reported it or not, or whether they even received partial justice but not the full realm of justice that should be afforded to victims.

Our anger sometimes stem from systemic issues. Parental rights versus child rights include arguments on what is considered unlawful versus illegal versus lawful abuse, neglect, etc. The system is geared towards protecting the defendant, so victims of crimes (criminal) and unlawful (civil) acts are often left with lifelong hurt and pain that can never be resolved through mere incarceration (incapacitation theory in Criminal Justice and Criminology studies), deterrence policies (deterrence theory), court-sanctioned retribution (retribution theory), restorative justice policies (restorative justice theory), and/or rehabilitation for our abusers who are in prison or jail and/or who are paroled or on probation in lieu of jail (rehabilitation theory). No matter what forms of police powers and/or therapeutic jurisprudence there are in any court system (including special courts), the victims tend to lose - even if they "win" in a court of law. The victims have to deal with lifelong challenges, lowered SES and social standing, reputational loss, health loss, mental health loss, shortened lifespan, relational losses, sometimes career losses, and definitely identity losses.

It therefore is understandable that, given all of these traumatic losses AND secondary victimizations through not receiving true restorative justice for anyone, the victims of such heinous crimes are angry.

In theory, we're being protected and guarded by the powers that be. In reality, however, we're vulnerable - and even more so. According to victimology studies, once you're a victim of a crime (regardless if it is substantiated in a court of law or not), you are more at risk for becoming a victim of another crime in the future (and it doesn't have to be the same crime-based victimization; it could be a different kind). Victimology researchers are still trying to figure out the reasons behind this phenomenon, but in the meantime, we victims/survivors are hurt and therefore righteously angry.

For cathartic/legal/lawful anger, we can process this painful anger in many ways:

1. Through verbal expressions, like here.
2. Through artistic expressions like doing artwork or using psychodrama or some other dramatic demonstration legally and lawfully while peacefully protesting.
3. Through becoming an advocate for other victims as well as being a self-advocate of your own victimization. You can do this by spreading awareness, getting educating and then educating others, becoming a teacher/professor about such issues, and more.
4. Through becoming a legal/lawful protector, such as becoming a Guardian Ad Litem (GAL), becoming a victimologist, becoming a criminologist, becoming a researcher, becoming a law enforcement agent, etc.
5. Through becoming a legal/lawful healer, such as becoming a volunteer for crisis centers, becoming a counselor, becoming a psychologist, becoming a psychiatrist, becoming a forensic psychologist, becoming a medical doctor, becoming a pastoral counselor, etc.
6. Through peer-support systems like what you also did here, as well as by becoming a leader of community support groups for victims/survivors, etc.

Anger processed alone can be done so with the tools we have learned in therapy for our particular disorders.

Some anger processing can be done through CBT for Trauma by identifying our triggers, the situations that brought up those triggers, the memories attached to all of that, the displaced anger that might have been taken out (or maybe not), the righteous anger that has been displayed appropriately (i.e., lawfully) for self-preservation in certain circumstances, the walking-away anger so that you can process it with someone else in a safer space, etc. There is much you can do to take the CBT to your own personal level, with regards to righteous anger for trauma victims. Be creative, and use the intelligence within.

Anger can also be processed through some of the DBT skills for those who struggle with either personality disorders, mood disorders, and/or military traumas among veterans (many combat and MST survivors of traumatic military experiences have been given DBT as well, without having ever had a personality disorder on their jackets or in real life; so DBT isn't only for personality disorders, but also for those who struggle with emotion dysregulation). There are limitations to DBT, such as with the feeling that you are "subduing" your natural emotional process from being expressed, explored, and released in a safe space. For that, CBT might work better (I know CBT works better for me than DBT, especially given my brain fog). But if you struggle with emotion dysregulation, including anger displacement (meaning, you're displacing your anger on objects, places, people, or things that truly don't deserve the level of anger-based violence), or other related challenges, then DBT will help save you from future pain, sanctions, trouble, losses, consequences, etc.

The important thing that my therapist had told me was this:

1. Anger does NOT equal the behavior "violence."

Anger is an EMOTION! It's okay to have these emotions! You can express these emotions verbally using "I" statements with a therapist, a family member, a trusted friend, or the person you're angry with (so long as you are expressing how and why you, yourself, are angry). Using interpersonal skills here will be effective.

And here's some addition information that I picked up in all of my psych courses in college as well as my criminal justice courses in college:

2. Violence is a behavioral response to anger and is therefore a choice.

Whether your choice is impulsive (immediate) or well-planned (premeditated), its' still a choice you have power to control through therapy, through accountability systems, through using your wise mind, etc.

You can still be righteously angry without using behavioral responses like violence as a result of your anger.

Violence should only be used lawfully and legally when there is an imminent threat upon your life or livelihood that requires you to defend yourself and/or others (such as defending yourself or your children from a break-in).

There are different types of violence, such as physical violence, emotional violence (including non-verbal passive aggression), verbal violence (including both verbal passive aggression and verbal direct threats or statements), sexual violence (using verbal or physical means to sexually assault someone), structural violence (such as getting others to gang up on someone you hate, despise, etc.), and so forth. Some forms of violence are more lawful than others, such as verbal and emotional violence, though it may not be helpful to you as the victim with reasonable/rational/righteous anger to necessarily react even with lawful violence (such as verbal or emotional) - particularly because you may lose your job, your reputation, etc. (i.e., there are consequences attached).

Pay attention to the consequences of your actions after you experience the emotion anger.

3. Oftentimes, there are thoughts (cognitions) between the emotion anger and our reactions (behaviors) to the emotion anger. This is our cognition to our emotions. The cognition is where cognitive behavioral therapy or DBT will work to help us choose what action we will take in response to our emotion anger and our automatic thoughts from the emotion anger.

Our automatic thoughts might include things like "They're all out to get me!" or "I'm a bad person and will never be good enough."

Our automatic thoughts to a given triggering situation that brings about emotions like anger might spiral down to additional thoughts and/or impulses that might lead us toward violent behaviors. Again, breaking these things down in therapy, in therapeutic homework, in coping skills, in conversations online like here, in support groups, in supportive relationships will help save you from making behavioral choices that could cost you in the long run. It's the cognitive work that we do in-between that helps us to guide our decisions and therefore our behaviors.

There are better behavioral responses to violence when the victimization isn't imminent, or even when it is, such as being able to report, being a whistleblower and having laws protect you, being an advocate, etc. It is all dependent on the situation, however. Yes, you can use violence to defend yourself in certain situations. But in most situations, there are ways to avoid the consequences of using such violence.

So, the emotion anger can be expressed verbally, so long as it is lawful and legal to do so.

Additionally, the emotion anger is not "negative" in the sense that it should be deemed as "always negative" in nature, such as is the case with toxic positivity gurus (e.g., "always be positive"). Always being positive is NOT realistic when there are too many threats, dangers, triggers, losses, etc. that warrant other built-in emotions as well. Toxic positivity is inherently an anger-prone behavioral response in reality because it is passive-aggressive in nature. "Toxic positivity" is therefore an oxymoron since those who want to always be positive are exhibiting (passive-aggressive violent) control over those whom they deem as "not positive," which is a form of non-positive passive-aggression, possibly including gaslighting, which stems from their anger because not everyone is as positive as they want them to be.

Anger is a good emotional reaction when there are injustices and harms being done to us or others. Anger is allowed by all mammals. It's a built-in, natural response to threats, injustices, harms, and even certain perceptions (even if they aren't real). Anger gives us information, but we have the choice on how to react to that information. For animals, their choices differ from humans. But for humans, we have thought processes - or cognitions - that we can use to help us determine how to respond to situations that trigger our anger emotions.

Overall, anger is something that any female, trans, nonbinary, or male can experience. There shouldn't be this gender-role stereotype on how females should be less angry than males, for instance. My T took a feminist response to the guilt that some of my angry parts were feeling when trying to express the anger they felt. Our T helped my angry parts to open up and understand that, "Again, anger is an emotion, not a behavior." It's therefore not bad to express anger with "I feel angry because..." or "I feel angry when..." statements.

As my T said to me and my "angry parts" inside, "People often get anger confused with violence." Anger is an emotion; violence is a behavior and therefore a choice. The choice between the emotion and the behavior is where therapy helps. So it is okay to express anger through words, so long as we are using "I" statements that express but not direct the anger toward others through violent behaviors.



Be angry! Vent! Use "I feel..." statements to express your anger. Get support. Get validated. Get help! And know that our feelings are temporary. We will not be stuck in anger forever. We can learn to process our emotions as they come.