Anger

Tree, I LOVE that you feel anger at that teacher T!

Could it be that you are learning to stand up for and protect that little child Tree that you have hated for so long?

I know that anger scares you, but I love that you are feeling it, identifying it and expressing it here.

I see anger as a protection against hurt and/ or shame. Teacher T's comments invalidated your child self, and your anger serves to proctect that little one. It is huge that you will not allow her pain to be trivialised or invalidated. HUGE.

All inside kids need an adult protector I reckon!

A lot of my session today was about my anger.

I really AM angry at Teacher T, I have been for a while, and I've been unable to tell T about it. Partly because of my fear that she had some kind of magical ability to see into my soul, and my fear that she cut off contact with me because she saw something bad there (which sounds crazy, but because of the kind of work we were doing together and the things she would say to me...maybe not so much ). Partly because she and T are colleagues - they used to work out of the same office - and I feel weird like I am "telling" on her to her friend.

I finally told him today and he really heard me and validated my anger. He actually has some insight about what happened, because they met about me, and she really is the one in this scenario who screwed up, and then she didn't handle the fact that she screwed up in a respectful and mature way.

So, I was trying to tell him about my anger, but it was really hard not to turn it around on myself. I would talk and whenever I made the shift to turning it on myself (giving my power to her) he would stop me RIGHT THEN and help me identify it. It was actually really helpful. I could see how the pattern of my thoughts leads me to everything being *my* fault. I don't KNOW if I can do that on my own, but I will certainly try.

I told him that the only person I can REALLY let myself be angry at is the person who raped me. Before therapy, I couldn't even be angry at him, but now it's easy. It was SO violent, and I think the violence makes me see clearly that it was WRONG and NOT FAIR and I can easily be angry at him.

It seems like everyone else who has hurt me has couched it in this false kindness...they were doing it because they loved me, because I was so pretty, because they couldn't help themselves, because the "knew" I liked it. Or with my abusive mom, because I was stupid, ugly, ungrateful, etc. But of course, she would also tell me that she loved me. And that I was making a big deal out of nothing and that things were really fine. OMG! It's all so confusing to me. SO SO SO SO confusing.

SO. This weekend I am going to practice letting myself be angry at Teacher T and try to catch myself when I hit the point in my thinking when I turn it around on myself. I think part of my problem is that I don't see things as black and white, and I end up WAY overthinking it when someone isn't nice to me, trying to figure out my part. Crazy making!

I have a lot to work on.