When a T expresses emotions for you?

@ CassyO: in your childhood, then, your experience was that your own anger brought significantly negative consequences, even physical pain. You could have learned then to avoid or suppress feelings of anger. When is the last time you can recall feeling angry?

Yup, I think you are spot on here. I know that by age 11 I had rules in place not to show anger, but I felt it a lot. And I remember by age 13 I had discovered SH and created the rule that I am only allowed to express anger on myself - never anyone else. So any time I felt really ragey I just SH after that. Everything was always my fault, and so in a way my rage became my punishment. Thirty years later, and really nothing has changed.

I get angryish all the time - I have a phobia of the sound of people eating. That sound gets me from 0-rage in 1/10th of a second! I also get angry at shops with bad customer service, and people with no manners. Other than that, the only time I can think of in the last few years when I was really angry, was about three weeks ago - I was in a real bad place, and got really angry at my T in my head. I never got angry at him in real life though.

At the time you were very angry about how you were being treated.

But you were not allowed to express your anger, so you turned it on to yourself.

When did you stop feeling that anger you had as a child and adolescent?

What happened to the anger when you were angry at T that one time recently?

I also struggle a lot with anger. I feel flashes of it, but it scares me and I shut it down (as I was taught to growing up). T has expressed a little anger on my behalf and it makes me so uncomfortable. Like you CassyO I learned to turn it on myself. I'm reversing that now but it's a hard road.

Is there a difference between frustration and anger? I used to feel overwhelming frustration when they treated me the way they did. But that wasn't why I got angry. (I think). I got angry, when they goaded me into getting angry. They got a kick out of getting a reaction out of me, and would harang and goad and needle me, or be outright violent until they got a reaction. I would try with everything I had in me to hide any reaction. But inside my blood was boiling. I would definitely get angry, and stayed angry about it inside.

Absolutely.

I don't know - it was a process I guess. But training myself not to show any reaction and to stay calm no matter what they did or said - meant training myself not to feel. I guess I started the process when I was 14 or 15. I know it ended in the Christmas of 1996. From that point I was completely cut off from emotions. (With the odd explosive day or two here and there of course )

Its dissipating slowly. Is currently a rather large niggle.

It sounds to me like this is exactly what you're T was doing. Therapist are going to have their own emotions. they are feeling human beings. The good ones are aware of that and when they sense they're projecting them, they call themselves on it.

This is useful, IMO, because sometimes we as clients are sooooo not in touch with our own emotions. The T could be way off base, but if they're honest about what they're picking up, it allows the client to consider the emotion themselves.

I've had a couple of moments when I was so busy trying to get through the description of something that I couldn't feel it. I looked up to see my therapist wiping a tear away or something like that, it allowed me room to realize what I was feeling myself.

Frustration refers to feelings that follow from not getting what one wants. Anger often accompanies frustration but other feelings are possible as well: for example, feeling helpless, neglected, incompetent, unlucky, resigned, philosophical, not good enough, persecuted, etc.

For twenty years, then, you have mostly suppressed emotions. How much do you still use self-harm to address anger? Or perhaps you don't feel anger and therefore do not need to use self-harm?

Going forward, what would you like to accomplish with regard to your emotions or lack thereof?