Anger

Oops Sunrise... I would be angry for you too.... sorry.

Sometimes I think it is a self worth thing on your part or sometimes it could be a maturity thing on your part to see beyond it. I can respect either.

Echoes, what you're describing over the health insurance sounds similar to my reaction to my pain doctor's office refusing to refill my scrip for 5 days, at which point I'd have a gap in my meds, which could be dangerous due to withdrawal issues. i felt so helpless and was furious about being in that situation where someone had power over me and at their whim my health was being hurt. I went on and on about to the people around me. Of course you're still upset - there's been no resolution or recognition. It sounds similar to my situation where I at least want my mother to understand how much pain she caused be this January.

Sunrise, our thinking is eerily alike. I am not in your situation, but if I were I rather think my reaction would be similar. I don't think I could stay in the relationship, and I would be saddened by that, and perhaps a bit resigned, but I don't feel like I could get angry. I don't even want my mother to understand how much pain I am in to make her feel guilty about causing it. I want her to understand because maybe if she does she will stop doing the things that cause me such pain. Or at least I want her to see the consequences of her actions, because often I think she just ignores them by leaving the room while I fall apart in her wake.

My T suggested that I bring her to a session so that I can try to express this to my mother with a third party present. I think I want to do that, because I don't know of another way to talk to her, because I am terrified that if I say the wrong thing she'll just scream at me for hours for accusing her of being a failure as a parent. She can be very defensive. I'm torn between wanting to wait for such a session to be stronger (and I've only been seeing this T for around 6 weeks) and wanting to do it now because the longer the situation continues without things being said, the harder I feel it is to maintain the status quo.

You know what the scariest thing is? My mother is a trained psychologist, psy.d and everything.

i never thought i got angry until i did DBT.
Linehan talked a bit about the function of anger and different situations which tend to result in anger.

- injustice.

if we think someone is treating someone else unfairly.

i first realised that i did indeed feel anger by appreciating that that was the feeling that i had when i saw one person treating another person unjustly / unfairly. of course a fair amount of sadness and despair that people would do that was present as well... but anger too, sure.

one of the functions of anger is to motivate us to attempt to rectify the injustice.

losing your cool and screaming and the like tends to not be effective. punching someone in the head also tends not to be effective (assault).

but it can be hard to see that one is angry when one has only seen the unhelpful expressions of it and it can be hard to admit to it and express it as well. takes time and role models help, yeah.

now... i experience an irritation quite a lot.

realise that... i'm quite an angry little %#@&#! really ;-)

I should know this but I have a cold and the brain is not clicking..

What is DBT?

I never felt anger until a few years ago. I started kickboxing and as I worked the punching bag the anger just started flowing out. So, I got a bag at home and did some real work. I was amazed at how getting it it out and punching/kicking it away made me heal. I come from a severly abusive background and I had a lot to get angry about.

Now, I only get angry every now and then and it is usually over things like politics, war, mean people...very rarely about my life situation. My boyfriend and I almost never fight--we decided that fighting was not what we wanted out of a relationship so both of us go out of our way to be considerate and we talk and talk and talk. The times he has made me angry I (eventually) told him and we worked through it.

Now, if I am feeling angry, its generally for another reason--anger sometimes masks what I truly feel--like disapppointment with myself or abandonment or any of those great things.

ECHOES, thanks so much for your answer. You gave me an example of how to express anger "appropriately" (I have never known what people meant by that vague term). I really need concrete examples since I haven't had role models, and you provided just that. ((((hugs)))) Thanks for sharing that. I'm going to copy your post and save it so I can refer back to it if I ever forget.

Right now I wouldn't feel able to say to someone "I feel angry," because I'm not sure I do feel that, and also it would be very, very scary for me. It would be opening oneself up for more hurt and abandonment and rejection. I imagine that if I said to people "I feel angry" or "I feel hurt" or whatever, they would simply say "I don't give a s**t how you feel, get over it," and I would be hurt even more. (That has certainly happened before, and I guess I have "learned" from my mistakes.)

Becca, that could be really helpful to bring your mother with you to a session. I would be very interested to hear what you decide on that. And if you find it helpful. My T has suggested a couple of times that he could really help my relationship with my mom if I would bring her to therapy with me. It's an area he does a lot of work in--mending relationships between adults and their parents. But it's not what I want to work on now, with other more problematic and high priority relationships pressing on me. So the next thing is maybe I would bring my husband to therapy with me. T and I are talking about that now. Kind of terrifying.

DepressMe, it sounds like you have a really great relationship with your boyfriend. [/cheers]

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SecretGarden said:
I should know this but I have a cold and the brain is not clicking..

What is DBT?

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Dialectical Behavioral Training - ...right?? I recently joined a yahoo group called dbtskills. I haven't participated though. I prefer to talk about it with my T first. All this is still like learning a new language to me ... way over my head most of the time.

...and I'm SOOO glad this thread was started!

That smiley so made me laugh.... way out loud. Is it one available here? Toooooooo funny.

I will google the term unless someone would like to give me a synopsis. After a nappola.

I do want to bring my mother to a session, because there are things I need to say to her and I don't feel safe doing that without a buffer. It's getting to the point where I would love to bring her to my next session, because I just want to say those things to her, but I don't feel ready therapy wise to do that. Maybe I can spend my next session with my T getting ready to bring my mother to a session.