[Polyphony]

I am not a regular poster, but I feel that I have exhausted my resources when it comes to people I can talk to about this in real life, minus T...but I won't see him for two more days and this anger is building within me so quickly that I really, really need to talk about it.

My best friend was sexually assaulted on Monday night. He is physically okay, but of course is dealing with the aftermath of the trauma now. This happened suddenly, with no warning, from a person we thought to be a friend. I wasn't there when it happened--I was a hundred miles away, just for 24 hours, and there was nothing I could do to help.

Now there are plenty of things I can do to help, being a sexual assault survivor myself...but I don't feel like much help. I feel like I'm way more upset than I should be. In fact, my anger is so acute and so intense that it's interfering with my appetite, sleeping pattern, and functionality when I'm not working. While working, I'm able to compartmentalize enough to teach middle schoolers, but as soon as I leave the school, I'm just angry again.

I guess I should mention this: I've been working on my own experience with childhood sexual abuse and sexual assault in therapy...but we've just started. And we had moved away from the topic in light of my new student-teaching experience (I'm about to graduate from college). Suddenly, I'm beyond livid and I wonder if part of it has to do with the fact that I went through this trauma myself and haven't dealt with my anger yet. I haven't, until now, been able to get angry about anything in therapy (and there are many, many things to be angry about) and it seems that now the floodgates have opened.

Now I'm angry every day. Always about this, never about smaller things...but even so, this emotion is so unpleasant...and I feel so hard for my best friend. You hope to the universe that the people you love never have to endure what you've been through. Plus I feel guilty for not being able to stop this from happening...even though I know that makes no sense, since I wasn't even there and couldn't have been.

I feel so mixed up. I don't even know who this anger is for. I'm starting to think that part of it is for me...and that makes me feel worse because my friend is the one who is going through the trauma, not me.

I don't know how to do this. I'm so upset.

I know nothing about how to handle this emotion because up until five days ago, it has been completely repressed. Now it's suddenly a major part of my everyday experience. I have success relieving it a few times a day when I have to do something that requires me to really think...but it just comes right back, as soon as I'm finished.

I'm not sure what to do. Talk to T. Vent to the fora?

Thank you guys for listening.

[Out There]

These are complex feelings. I understand this must be difficult for both you and your friend. I sometimes use an empty chair exercise , to get an empty chair and rage at the person. I am glad you are seeing your T soon. I wish you both well.

[Polyphony]

Thanks, Out There. I imagine T will help illuminate some of the reasons for the intensity of my anger. I mean, besides the fact that something terrible and needless happened to the person who means the most to me...that's a good enough reason to be angry in its own right. We hate it when people hurt our loved ones. I really, really hate it.

And I know it's not my fault, but when we promise to look out for the people we love and someone hurts them, it shakes us. At least...that's what happens with me. I love him so much. That's why this hurts so badly.

[RedSun]

Poly, I think talk to your T about this. I agree with you that it sounds like your friends experience has triggered your own process about your experiences too.

Try not to feel bad about that. Maybe just focus on your friends stuff when you're with him, but ensure you make space to work through yours with your T. Could you have extra sessions at the moment?

Maybe running, working out, journaling, painting etc will help you work through your own anger until you see your T.

I guess your anger was going to hit at some time, so it's good that it's happened when you have a T who can hopefully help you through this.

[Polyphony]

Thanks, Red. I'll do my best. You're right; it's good that I have a T. The problem is, I only have him for two more months. When I graduate, I can no longer see him...which brings with it its own set of feelings (of sadness, because our relationship is close).

Here I was, thinking that I had worked through enough of my feelings to skip over the anger part. Now here it is and I might have to transition between Ts while I have no idea how to handle it. Rough.

I'll see him tomorrow, though, so I'm sure we'll talk about this.

The anger is fairly suppress-able today--I'm about to teach. But I still feel it in my chest. I had no idea it was so physical. That's how I know it's there, even when I don't emotionally feel it. It's a bit painful, really.

[Open Eyes]

I think that it was good that you have a place here at PC to vent this anger and new challenge you are having emotionally rather then not having a place to vent and put what you are feeling into words.

Often the words struggle to come forward to articulate what something like this meant to oneself. However, seeing someone else be a victim can really bring a lot up emotionally that a person could not articulate before but suddenly finds themself overwhelmed and angry as you are describing.

This friend is probably mostly stunned right now and doesn't even have the where with all to even begin to articulate what just happened to him. You can't fix or change what happened, and you may be too emotional to know how to reach out and support your friend right now too. And in the situation you are describing the person who violated was someone both you and your friend knew and may have trusted. Ofcourse that would be a big challenge to you as well on a very deep level.

If you find a need to comfort your friend but don't know what to say at this point, that is understandable. If you do reach out what you can do is validate that your friend is stunned and that you understand that he may be very confused right now and not know what to think or how to feel. It's ok to let your friend know that you are sorry, that you are angry and you want to be supportive to him and that you want him to know that it may take time for him to figure out his feelings and it's normal to be just stunned and speachless.

It is important to know that the individual who is "wrong or dysfunctional" the most is the abuser. Often these individuals never show the part of them that can abuse like this so it's never the victim's fault and often is not something the victim knew to be careful of or was a potential danger. It sounds like neither your friend nor yourself noticed anything that said "this is a bad person" in this other individual. I think it can be helpful if you make sure this individual is not the only one that did not see any warning of this so this victim isn't alone with thinking it's something he should have known and begins to feel guilt about. I think that it is very helpful in a friendship is when a person is not alone in being caught off guard instead of being left alone with this and begin to feel guilt about it.

Also, in this scenario, from what you have described, you are a victim yourself because this individual was supposed to be a "friend" and what this individual did was yet again make you yourself question your ability to trust. Something like that does a lot of harm to one's own "self trust" and that is often very hard to articulate as well as slowly work on gradually rebuilding. On some level you do know this yourself, and that is part of your own anger and emotional challenge with this scenario. However, often the abuser is the one who has the most by the way of "emptyness" and has no where with all to accept any trust or friendship, so much so that the only thing they do know is violate and often it is these individuals that are worse than anything you experience emotionally as they already consider themselves as "rejects" as either they are born psychopaths or they were so neglected that they genuinely don't know how to respect or care.