#fear of anger

[amyintherapy]

Trauma layers

Therapy is such a mindfuck sometimes. I 100% get it when people say they don't think therapy would help them because they are pretty self-aware or self-reflective. Cause, that seems so freaking logical. But, I swear, with the right therapist you'll find yourself routinely shocked at how blind you actually can be to your own bullshit. Our brains try SO hard to hide our bullshit from us, it's insane. I guess I shouldn't speak for everyone, but it's so true for traumatized brains, at least. I know that minimizing or outright hiding your issues from you is how the brain responds to trauma. But it's still eye opening to me when I catch on to new pieces of this in myself.

I went into my appointment today with several ideas of what to potentially talk about written down. I knew what had been on my mind the most, but I wasn't sure if it made sense to use the appointment to discuss it because I've discussed essentially the same thing with my therapist multiple times in the past. So a big part of me was like eh, that'd be a waste of time. I know everything there is to know about myself in this area. Probably spend more time on these other things as that'll probably be more productive/helpful. But I decided to at least mention it and see where it goes. I expected to jump topics pretty quickly as I didn't think we'd find new ground to cover. But we wound up spending 45ish minutes out of the hour on it. And it was productive. And yet, it's hard to really express why. It's not like there was some big new revelation. I largely went into it knowing what my trauma is, why I have this trigger, what my default response is, etc etc etc.

To spell out this piece of my trauma a bit...

I had an eggshell stepdad, and a constantly-overwhelmed semi-eggshell mom. My stepdad exploding was my mom's biggest trigger. And anger from either of them basically means anything could happen. Some of what I saw happen after anger, much of it starting off with really low level things like..someone shutting the door a little harder than normal (not really slamming it) or tossing their keys onto the counter a little too loudly. These kinda things were triggers to me as a kid because I knew they could mean an explosion was coming. Anyway, what I dealt with related to my eggshell caregivers' anger...

Emotional abuse between adults (very common)

Emotional abuse at kids (very common, my siblings who were externalizers caught more than I did, but I couldn't avoid it either)

Lower-level physical abuse of kids (semi-common but was my siblings, not me that I ever recall)

Domestic violence between adults (very rare, maybe 2-3 times ever)

Items being broken/physical aggression with household items (Rare-ish, maybe once a year?)

Recurring arguments or break-ups (extremely common. Fights rarely stayed as one event. They'd usually argue, try to wrap it up, and then explode again within a few hours, or perhaps even a few days later, but there was almost always a round two, at minimum. Core issues were never resolved, clusters of several related arguments over a week or two were common as well.)

Once I saw an adult hold a gun to their head after threatening suicide.

Once I saw an adult pull a gun on another adult (neither was part of my household).

Maybe 4-5 times over my childhood cops came to our house following arguments and/or violence.

My coping method was to try to be pleasing when the anger was lower-level. Keep things light if you can, but at minimum, don't do anything that might set anyone off. Once anger was bigger, just try not take up any space. Outright leaving (like going to my room) would sometimes get noticed in a negative way, so don't flee, but stay as far away as you can without actually leaving. Like...stay in the living room but sit silently on the couch, pretending you don't even notice the argument happening. Try to go unnoticed...blend into the decor. Stay out of the line of fire when the bombs are going off, basically. And when that failed and you're in the line of fire, fawn/people please to try to 'fix'.

What this looks like for me now, as an adult - is still to try to 'fix' other people's irritation, frustration, low level anger if I can find any way to. Or with 'big' anger, kinda freeze, or try to fawn/people please if it's directed at me. I can't feel safe if others are upset, so I try to absorb it so I can do something about it. And after someone around me shows anything adjacent to anger (like frustration) my brain likes to assume this is just 'round one' of anger, and round 2 will happen soon and will be bigger and scarier. So I'm very on-edge after 'detecting' any anger in my environment, even when it's really small. And my brain tries to pull my down a rabbit hole of finding potential things I've 'done wrong' that might be making this person secretly angry at me. Even when I logically know it has nothing to do with me. My brain wants to find a potential reason it could involve me. I'm pretty good about not letting it go down that rabbit hole very far, but it sure tries - and I have to spend energy holding it back from going there.

None of this is news to me, at all. I sort of forget when I've made certain realizations in therapy, but I think I've known all of this about myself for at least a year? So I wasn't sure there could be anything productive to come out of sharing how someone was frustrated around me this week and it triggered me...and how I knew I was triggered, and talked to myself about how my brain was reacting the way it did when I was a kid, but how my current situation is safe. How someone else's anger isn't a threat to me anymore. How I've created a life for myself that is safe, even when people get angry. I can have tough conversations with those closest to me. I don't get very close with anyone I can't do that with. So I consciously recognized all of this, but it didn't get rid of the anxiety. I stayed frozen in a moderately anxious place, hyper vigilant, unable to focus, and so drained from all of this emotional energy being spent on basically, nothing productive.

I expected my therapist to remind me that I'm trying to literally rewire the pathways in my brain, and I have 30ish years of my brain going down the "anger is very unsafe, I must regulate others' emotions and people-please." pathway. And that was said. As well as some usual points about how some of this equates to expecting myself to be able to mind read, and given that I am not a superhero or someone with magical powers, that expectation is cuckoo for cocoa puffs. I know this, but the reminder is good. But some new things were said too.

They asked if, after detecting someone else's frustration recently, I was able to put a loved one in my own place. We've talked a lot about how it's easier for me to empathize with myself if I imagine someone I care about in my shoes. Would I tell a friend that they should 'fix' someone elses frustration? That if someone sighs in their home that they should become hyper-critical and over-analyze anything they could have possibly done 'wrong'? Of course, the ridiculousness of this is apparent to me when imagine someone else in my shoes. But I admitted to them that I hadn't been able to remember to try using that trick to change perspectives until after I had settled some. That when I'm first triggered, I kinda seem to lose access to that more logical side of my brain that would allow me to try to remember specific suggestions or tools that had been suggested to me. They said it makes sense to forget when you're that emotional, so sometimes visual reminders are good. Like wearing a bracelet with a compassionate statement on it or something. Honestly, that feels cheesy to me, I don't really care for wearing anything that has text of any kind on it, to be honest and growing up with no positive feedback/praise has left me with a strong aversion to positivity like that..which is something else to work on but, one thing at a time. Anyway - I do like the idea of some sort of symbol in my environment serving as a reminder even if it has no text on it. Something that I'd take as a reminder perhaps, without anyone else needing to have a clue what it's about. So it was nice to get a little bit of a fresh idea on something additional to try. But bigger than that...they helped me realize that I have continued my pattern of self-abuse, and just disguised it as trying to help myself.

Meaning...I see myself being triggered, I see myself starting to fall into old patterns of trauma responses to try to cope, and I know that reaction is maladaptive at this point in my life. So I try to stop myself from repeating that old pattern of trauma responses...and on occasion I can stop it in its tracks. But not often with this anger related trigger, it's a real powerful one for me. And when I'm not successful and I find myself becoming hypervigilent and self critical due to someone elses anger..I beat myself up about it! I beat myself up for beating myself up...because I'm 'supposed to' be working on being more compassionate. And that's still part of this cycle, it's just another layer of it. I beat myself up because keeping myself in a position of guilt/shame keeps me small so I can stay in this position of feeling like I am wrong and they are right and I am guilty and need to fix.

It's bonkers that even in my attempts to heal, my old self-harming mindset comes out disguised as a cure for.

In other words..

My logical brain "I need to stop beating myself up. That is a trauma pattern that used to serve me as a kid, but is just harmful to me now."

My trauma brain: "Right! We're hurting ourselves and that's dumb! Let's beat ourselves up about that! That's the solution!"

Fuck.

[julien5-malfunction]

4am thought;

the therapist had this deck of cards on her table. The cards have questions on them. The top one said

"What is it like to be you?"

and I read that out loud and the therapiat wanted to know.

"Misery"

Sheer fucking misery, every single fucking passing moment, and there is no salvation

Because I'm not good enough. Not sane enough. I suppose this is my punishment for doing something so wrong I got a life sentence of misery. It feels like solitary confinement in a way, I imagine. How I'm deeply alone so much of the time. Deprived the of freedom of choise in regards to many things in life. Was... is my lone style of existing the reason for my suffering or a reflection of it? Am I doing my time for a crime I have yet to commit and would said crime be called a revenge in that case, I'm paying back for the time I have done in advance?

"To be like me" is a lot like, seemingly being out in the free world, but inside you're in solitary confinement. A lifer. In solidary misery. And it's all you'll ever fucking know. What is considered 'mistreatment by the system', by the system it's self, is what I get, it's what I'm used to. I don't expect anything more and am fully comtempt. Breadcrumbs. Silence and the urge to scream till my throat bleeds but I make no sound. I don't want to bother, ask for too much. All that I seek is a reason to keep resisting the urge to self destruct myself or a clear awnser that there is none. It feels like I'm waiting for the last cinders of any hope to go out before I'm ready to make serious arrangements for my departure.

I'm pretty sure that would include payback for suffering for a reason I cannot understand. And if that happens, I won't stop when I feel like I've made it even.

Till then I'll try to remain peaceful and decent to my capabilities. No one cares about the anger that is slowly posioning me from the inside out. Nobody's business, maybe caused by them but not their responsibility. Maybe the weakness of my mind to let it consume me at times.

That's why I crave to be alone. I mean, completely alone. Soundproof and invisible. It's the only way I feel safe to really let some of it out, is to be 101% sure nobody will not ever withness any of it. There would be no evidence, that I ever let it take over me and therefore, it could never be used aganist me. I'd be safe. at least from others. Others would be safe from me. I, not so much, as being angry usually becomes a threat to myself, more than others. If I'm angry, therefore I am. So by simply existing I also am the very root of the issue, because I'm the one experiensing it. And it's only logical, the problematic process cannot contaniue, therefore ending it's self in order for the problem to stop exsisting.

To be like me is to be a barely functioning program on the laptop. It freezes up and a window pops up asking, kill the process or wait for it to respond. You keep pressing 'wait'

'wait'

'wait'

and usually, at some point it'll kill it's self regardless.

That's what being 'suicidal at night ' feels like.

Ctrl+Alt+Del to open manager and select the process freezing up the whole computer. Kill the program. Leave the desktop open and do nothing since the cpu can't handle more than idleing.

That's what the slight drinking feels like.

'To be like me' is to go explain insane bs like this at 5:20 in the morning and finding a computer more relatable in the way that your think.

...

am I an AI?

Does that mean that I had just became self aware of it, IF I was?

Also being so good at it that you can actually take the train of thought to get out of a mindscape.

[mumigeonjo]

Inside cats,,🐱🐱

[mintsuwu]

Thank you random Twitter user for providing the world with a way to watch the movie online 🙏

[0104-vikita]

That was a great movie 🍿🎥

[ia-gnom]

[smile-files]

i just wanted to draw them in rainbow order :)

[52lololol]

Pixar really made him said "I can fix her"😭😭😭💀💀

[shepscapades]

A last life ethubs comic that isn’t really about last life ethubs

[icecreampizzer]

It's like 2015 all over again man... light doodles and such! First one was drawn from memory (plus my oc Deja Vu SMILES) and some yuri yayy yayyy (I explode and the smoke dissipates and I'm doing the family guy death pose on the floor)

[killedbyfrank]

Here's another really cute image of all the emotions sleeping in their pajamas 😁

[erranplayz]

They did not💀

[mumigeonjo]

[hootbon]

I did an artstyle render!!1!1

[asexualenjolras]

It's so genius that Inside Out 2 uses Anxiety as an antagonising character that opposes Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger without making her an antagonist, or villain. She is trying to protect Riley just like they are, but she is so caught up in her own ways that she doesn't see the bigger picture. And that's exactly what anxiety feels like.

When she realises this, it causes a panic attack (which is also beautifully depicted) and she spirals.

Anxiety is a genius character, and it is so important to me that the other emotions don't attempt to push her out of Headquarters or out of Riley's life but instead find ways of coping with her.

Because Anxiety shouldn't control your life, but she will still be in your life. And it is possible to live with anxiety.

[ppanhwi]

Puberty