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Originally Posted by AliceKate
So upfront, to anyone who is reading this and has trauma issues that are not "solved" by anger and rage, you probably shouldn't read this. Stay safe and move on, ok? 
Brace yourself etc, this will be a long read  |
Thank you for sharing. And it's really great that it helped where I wrote about validation of rage. I do believe you have the right to express your anger in a controlled and not malicious way (and of course lawful way lol). Alot of people don't mind a bit of snapping or lashing out if it's not like constant. And pain vs anger: If I were you, I'd rather try to learn to control the anger and its expression and learn to deal with it and process it overall in ways beneficial to you and other people, instead of converting it all to pain. Don't believe anyone who claims anger can only be a secondary emotion! Anger, when it is actually a primary emotion, does have an important role and message as much as any other primary emotion. Even if you don't act on the anger directly, it can quickly give you important messages about your wants and your boundaries and when you do act on it it allows you a way to assert your wants and boundaries. I agree of course, don't just use anger to avoid all softer feelings in a relationship....but pain and anxiety in its place, I don't understand or see the real point to forcing those either. Oh, this isn't even off topic, this is actually about vulnerability in a way
And just trying to clarify if I got this right: have you been getting to experience more and more pain as you allowed vulnerability in therapy in the way you described it? Just not through the pain yet, as in, you can still avoid it if you want to avoid it, and you don't know yet how to fully work through it?
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Originally Posted by AliceKate
Ah, yeah, I said that, but I did mean being your emotional self, so actively expressing your/my emotions. Just doing whatever to feel vulnerable, which I think for you, as for me, is openly portraying our emotions inspite of as usual keeping them in or using anger as a protective shield to keep them from other people.
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Yeah I think I understand now. I still think for me only certain emotions are truly risky. The more private and meaningful emotions and attitudes, so to speak. Shallow ones aren't really those ones. Except if they were too out of place, obviously I don't want to be laughed at or have weird looks thrown at me, stuff like that but I think that's true for most people
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I have to think about this a bit more, but I think it might be the same for me. I don't usually portray a proper depiction of my emotions and at least some of the time, seem inappropriatly void of them. I.e. someone close to me came close to dying at some point and I felt nothing at all. But then I also think death is kind, so I don't actually mind it. Okay, digressing from your point...
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I think there's no such thing as "portrayal of a proper depiction of emotions". Emotions just are....not "proper" or "not proper" in that way. It could be you felt nothing because your emotional reaction is delayed and it will come out only later. That's totally fine too
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I don't find it ironic at all. I mean, it's impossible to achieve full control of the emotional landscape of course, but anger is the essance of trying simply by pushing all other emotions out. Seeking power is a reaction to feeling powerless. No irony in that other than it is not in fact possible to establish full power over another person (while keeping the realtionship alive).
The point is letting go of the will to control it all. For me, at any rate.
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I meant emotional power and control, which doesn't even have to utilise anger, even the softest, subtlest feelings can be used (by some) to gain power and have control of the emotional relationship, so that's why I was being cynical
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And yeah, it didn't use to be about fear for me either and these days it is but sporadically something I am actively afraid of. It's more a choice led by concious thought than by feelings. But the emotions are coming from time to time, now, and of course they are predominantly negative emotions, sadness, fear, that sort. So I need to work throught them, it's what it is 
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Hm for me it's both me doing all the psychoeducation and "therapy" on myself plus other stress being too much but yeah I can be more emotional too and it's not always useful lol. When they are not useful, then I just act to reduce stress rather than trying to force processing of them. I want to let my brain do it all at its own pace as far as processing emotions. EFT (Emotionally focused therapy) states that staying with emotions only has a point if the resulting processing is actually productive processing, so to speak. Or dropping the psycho lingo, for me if my emotions are being out of control, I need to reduce stress and let things go at my own pace rather than force the issue.