our counselor has given us a homework assigmnent asking us to list-for the here and now for right now-what makes us feel anger and rage. anger is something we greatly fear and when we do express it we are always waiting to be punished or worse for it. but in starting the homework we started to find that all of a sudden we had an entire myriad of explosive rage seeping through! and this terrified us! just trying to stick with present day situations seemed to uncover so many other things. has anyone else had this happen? how did or do you deal with anger safely and or/constructively? it caused a lot of dissociation and we have just now come back out of the fog. we would really like to hear others experienes please♥

I don't know how helpful I can be in terms of advice, but I wanted to say I identify with this whole post. I find what makes me angriest—in the here and now—is a result of accumulated similar instances throughout life. I can't think about what makes me angry now without knowing that it has happened in the past, and remembering it. I feel rage, that has been locked away, start to stir. And it is very frightening, and I too have yet to discover how to handle it completely.

The rage is frightening because:

1. First of all, as you said, I've learned to expect serious punishment for showing any degree of displeasure with someone.
2. Second of all, because I am seen — by everyone I know, including myself — as a very docile, even tempered, phlegmatic person. This enraged person inside is so mismatched to my self image that I don't know how to handle that disconnect and still maintain a stable identity.
3. Third of all, I am only used to and comfortable with being the brunt of someone else's anger. To suddenly be the angry person is a radical role reversal I don't know what to do with.
4. Forth, the emotion is so powerful that it's just scary, right? Anything that threatens to consume you is scary.

A book I would strongly suggest to you on the subject of handling/using anger constructively is The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. It's primarily written for women, but there's stuff if there that's valuable no matter who you are. I need to revisit it, and writing all of this now, I'm surprised I've let it fall by the wayside. It was incredibly valuable to me when I first started therapy. The thesis is, basically, that anger is useful, we need to listen to what it's trying to say, and there are healing and harmful ways of handling it.

[CantExplain]

I approached anger from the other direction. I was angry most of the time.

[unaluna]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

A book I would strongly suggest to you on the subject of handling/using anger constructively is The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner, Ph.D.

I love her books, she is so wise, so through, so explanatory! The books are surprisingly useful. excellent recommendation, cometcatcher.

thank you cometcatcher for being so detailed and honest,that was very helpful and gave us another perspective. we are going to give our counselor the name of that book and see if she would want us to read it. sometimes,cantexpalin,we really wish we had been allowed to express anything at all much less anger but to do so risked great harm. how do you handle anger now? is it easy or do you struggle with it?
hankster thank you for also recommending the books!♥♥♥

[tkdgirl]

Anger is actually one of the few emotions I'm comfortable with (not to be interpreted as I have it under control or have a healthy relationship with it). My T said anger is the most powerful and safest emotion. For me its safe in that it allows me to push people away from getting close and hurting me.

I agree with comet that my explosive anger is usually some type of accumulation from the past and that's why it is sometimes disproportionate to the current event in the here and now.

As for actually dealing with anger constructively/safely, for me I usually try find a physical release. This should not be self destructive, as my T has pointed out. I have a kicking bag in my basement that sometimes helps release some of the extreme immediate rage. For some reason I also find listening to loud "angry" music such as Eminem sometimes helps me too.

I would like to caveat my post in that I by no means have good control of my anger and this is something I'm still working on. I'm actually angry at my T for the first time and will be letting her know on Thursday, which should be interesting to see how she reacts. Usually I just tell her about my anger.