My very new T (of 3 weeks) who I really like - pointed out to me that I don't seem to be angry with anyone about the sexual abuse in my life... in fact I don't see, to have much anger about any of the bad things that have happened to be by other people.

I'm devastated.... completely devastated...

I keep asking him why should be angry, it won't change anything, it won't make anything better, it isn't going to make anyone love me...

I'm angry with myself... I sometimes feel that if I hurt myself enough, I can finally forgive me.

Maybe not being angry is a way of being in control of what happened to you? I know thats how it was for me. I felt that as long as I felt "ok" about it, then maybe it never really happened at all? or that I was fine with it really because it really wasn't that bad? It takes a long while to reach the real anger and it comes in stages, or it has for me.

The self forgiveness is another one for me also. I told my T once that I felt I needed a higher authority to forgive me, because my own self forgiveness meant nothing to me at that stage. Mainly because I still didn't have a strong sense of self.

I'm also surprised that your T would point out how he would be expecting you to feel. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with that.

Take care with yourself!

[Perna]

Being angry at yourself won't change anything either but being angry at the right "person" does help! Focus and "aim" are good things to have in life and they can be yours. But if you take things out on yourself, think less of yourself when someone else has done these bad things to you, you're aiming the wrong way and your focus is lost. Your T is guiding you, showing you the direction and he is not angry at you, why should you be at yourself?

(((freewill)))

[FaithisAlive]

my T also is concerned about my inability to feel anger towards those who abused me...I tend to get angry at other people's abusers though and she brings that up to me as if perhaps I think others deserve to be defended and I don't...I think about this alot.

My t says that I have stuffed the anger so deep that I can't find it and as a result, it has caused me a great deal of health problems, one being depression....she wants me to write my story in 3rd person, renaming everyone involved and see if that helps me feel anger.

I have always been afraid of negative feelings, especially anger... so I kinda know how ya feel...but I guess it takes time... it took a long time to get this way..

hang in there! Faith

[dalila]

<font color="green"> Anger is a hard one. I don't do anger well, I stuff it or turn it on myself. I am learning or trying to learn to be angry at the right persons.

That is hard when one of those persons is your mom. My dad was so wonderful, I cannot understand how he loved my mother so much. I can't understand how he loved me. Because I know he never hated her even when she hated him and wished him evil, I find it hard not to try and be like him - sad for her but knowing it is her problem.

I can't do it like he did and so I keep believing it is me. I was not the child I should have been, that somehow I deserved that treatment. Truth be told - none of us deserves that kind of treatment and as long as I keep it that detached I can believe it. Anger comes out little by little, even when it seems to overwhelm you in firery explosions. And my therapist assures me there is an end to the anger. Some day I am gonna face it and conquer it.
But today I am too afraid of it. </font>