The Healing Power of Processing Anger

Welcome to the Overcoming Sexual Abuse podcast where you get the tools and inspiration to help you overcome childhood sexual abuse. I’m your host Christina Enevoldsen, certified coach, author, and incest survivor, and I’m here to help you heal and live your very best life.

Processing anger is a vital part of healing from abuse. The sad fact is abuse also sets us up to either suppress our anger, where we turn it inward or we lash out indiscriminately. I’ll show you how you can use your anger as an ally and use it to heal your past and present wounds. There’s no doubt
anger will be expressed but the question is will it hurt you or protect you?

There was a period toward the beginning of my healing when the memories and the emotions were all coming up. And I felt angry all the time. And it really scared me because I felt like I was gonna kill somebody.

We lived on Hollywood Boulevard and we used to walk the Walk of Fame a lot, Don and I. And I had to stop going with him because the people being too loud or getting too close to me made me want to push them into the street.

And I didn’t realize that I was reacting to all the times that my boundaries were violated in the past when I was either not allowed to object–that was in my childhood–or when I believed that I wasn’t allowed to object later in my adulthood. And at the time I didn’t relate my so-called “anger issues”
with the abuse, I just considered them some personality flaw.

And some people describe themselves as, “I’m an angry person.” And I understand that feeling because that’s what I felt too. But that’s not actually true. You’re not an angry person. You have the emotion of anger because anger is an emotion, not an identity. So maybe you feel full of anger like I did, but there’s a lot more to you than just feeling angry. And the anger can be processed and you can express it. And you can get it all out and not be full of anger. And yet you can still feel angry when it’s appropriate, but be in control of it instead of anger controlling you.

So, maybe that doesn’t exactly describe you at all. Maybe you suppress your anger. Maybe instead of owning it, you use euphemisms for anger. You might say, “I feel frustrated or irritated or annoyed,” but you don’t say, “I feel angry.” And maybe you don’t believe that you have permission to be angry, or you think that it’s wrong, or that it feels too threatening.

For years after I acknowledged that my dad had sexually abused me, I didn’t feel very angry toward him. There were a lot of reasons for that and a lot of reasons that abuse survivors in general don’t direct their anger toward their abusers. A few of those reasons for me include the belief that whatever happened to me, that was my fault. And so I was the only one to be angry with. And then I minimized the abuse. I didn’t think that it was all that bad. And at the same time, the abuse, that treatment, that I wasn’t valuable taught me that I wasn’t valuable. So anybody was entitled to do whatever they wanted to me. And so all of that was justified, so I didn’t feel angry about it.

And I repressed the memories of abuse in the first place. And when the memories did come up, they didn’t feel real. And so I didn’t attach to the emotions of that, so I didn’t feel angry.

And, you know, it can feel really threatening to oppose somebody who was such a powerful figure in your life, who did so much damage and that I viewed as powerful and so it felt too threatening to be angry. And yet at the same time, my dad was somebody that I loved. In my childhood, my dad was my only source of affection and attention. And so unleashing anger meant possibly losing a relationship with him. And I was also so enmeshed with my dad. I felt such a loyalty to him and, you know, one of the ways that expressed itself was in keeping the secret. And the secret was something only we shared. And it was this perverted form of intimacy and connection. And thankfully, breaking the secret broke that hold on me. But that kept me from getting angry, or at least being in touch with my anger.

And I also later in life, which is when my memories came up, I felt sorry for my dad because he had had such a hard life. I used to compare what I went through to what he went through. And even though, you know, like logically, I don’t believe in comparisons, but I just felt sorry for him.

So also, I was afraid of judging him because I know I’m not a perfect person. And my dad, on the other hand, also did in spite of all the, maybe I should say in addition to all the horrible things he did, he also did a lot of nice things for me too. So it was hard to just reconcile that. And it was hard to comprehend that he could do all those bad things.

And so the other thing is that I was afraid. I had seen anger modeled in such uncontrollable ways that I was afraid if I got in touch with my anger that I’d be an abuser just like my dad.

So if you have suppressed your anger, as you heal, you might notice anger surfacing. And it feels horrible, but it’s a real sign of healing. It’s really good news. It’s an indication that you’re turning toward yourself and you’re connecting with yourself and you’re recognizing that you’re valuable and you’re worthy of protection. Doesn’t feel great, but it’s really great.

And so a lot of survivors of abuse associate anger, like I did, with fear and pain and being out of control or with emotional violence or physical violence. And my dad used to rage.  I got some messages about anger that it was dangerous and it was wrong. And the truth is anger is only a feeling. And having an emotion is not harmful. It is not dangerous and it is not bad. It’s what you do with it. Because anger is meant to be directed in ways that are constructive, not destructive. Anger is a signal to defend against harm, not to cause harm and so we’ll get into exactly how to do that. But the first thing to talk about when it comes to anger is that, just like all emotions, anger is an ally. It’s meant to help you and the way that emotions do that is emotions are meant to get you into motion. They prompt you to do something, to take some sort of action.

And pleasant emotions tell you to keep doing the same thing that you’re already doing. And unpleasant emotions like fear and sadness and anger tell you to change something.

So what is anger telling you to do? Well, anger is an indication that you perceive something you value is being threatened. So the action that it’s prompting you to do is protection. And I mentioned that anger is meant to be directed in ways that are constructive, not destructive. And it’s the signal to defend against harm, not to cause harm.

And some of the greatest improvements in the world have been birthed out of anger. I think about Rosa Parks, and she was an activist in the American Civil Rights Movement who stood against racial segregation. And she did that because she got angry. Or the American patriots who stood up against tyranny and fought for the right to rule themselves. And they did that because they got angry. So expressions of anger and expressions of love are really two sides of the same coin. I love this. I value this, so I’m going to protect it.

Anger is the healthy and appropriate response to injustice, and that’s what a parent should feel when they find out their child is being abused, and that anger is meant to put a stop to it and to protect their child. I’ve heard so many stories from survivors that their mother didn’t get mad at the abuser, they got mad at their child. The mother was protecting her own peace and security and status quo over protecting her child. And so what’s the mother saying? “I love peace, and so that’s what I’m going to protect.”

So now I’m going to show you how anger works so you can use anger constructively. Anger begins when you perceive a threat to something you value. So the something you value could be your safety, or your freedom, your sense of justice, or your security. Maybe it’s food and shelter, or love and acceptance, or respect, or your energy, or your self-worth. It could be really anything you value, perceiving a threat to that.

And that threat then triggers a primary emotion. The anger isn’t triggered first. There’s a softer, more vulnerable emotion that is triggered first. And that could be sadness or fear or embarrassment or insecurity or helplessness. And then anger arises. And yet, anger is often, it feels so strong. It’s such an assertive emotion that it hides the softer, more vulnerable emotions. You might not even be aware of any other emotions under that anger. Anger kind of pushes through that and says, “Step aside, I’m going to protect you. I’ve got this.”

And so keep in mind, here’s the order that it happens: A threat is detected, a primary emotion arises that’s a vulnerable emotion, and then you sense the anger.

And so you can imagine that your emotional response to threat is like this iceberg, picture this iceberg. And the tip of the iceberg that you can see, the part above water is the anger. And that’s often the only part that we notice. However, under the anger, under that water, the part that isn’t always visible are the more emotions that are vulnerable, like pain or fear.

And you can think of this also like the mama bear energy when her cub is threatened. and she’s fierce toward the threat but she’s soft toward her cub and that’s often the missing piece of processing your anger. You might present as fierce or strong toward the threat but not then turn inward toward the part that feels vulnerable.

It’s really common that when you feel that, that threatening, vulnerable feeling that you want to feel strong and present as strong and you don’t want that soft underbelly showing. And sometimes you want to hide that even from yourself, you know, you don’t want to acknowledge that, that you even feel that. And so you don’t take care of that part. You don’t have empathy and you don’t offer yourself comfort.

And the best way I can illustrate that is with my daughter, Bethany. When Bethany disclosed her abuse to me when she was 19, in the moment of disclosure, I was comforting and I was soft with her. But I was also livid with my ex-husband. And I confronted him and I wanted Bethany to report him and I wanted him to pay for what he had done. But Bethany didn’t want to report him. She did end up reporting him five years later, but at that time of disclosure, she wasn’t ready for that. She wanted support, that softer side of me, not the fierce protector side. And I just wanted to go off crusading for justice. And yet Bethany just wanted a mom.

And if I hadn’t quickly realized that I could have abandoned her then in that time of need, just as I had originally when she was a child being abused and I didn’t protect her.

And so I think that’s a picture of the way that we often are with ourselves, that we want to go off to fight this external battle to defend ourselves. And that’s really good when it’s done in a healthy way. But if that’s all you do, you’re abandoning yourself because there’s some vulnerability that that threat triggered, and that part needs attention. It’s something like this child’s cry within you, this child’s crying for a mama, and you’re the child and you’re the mom.

And so here’s an example of exactly how you might use this. And so let’s say a coworker stole your idea or took credit for something you did. And it’s appropriate to feel angry about that for sure. But what else do you feel?

This is the order of things, how it happens, something that you value is threatened. So that’s first, you detect a threat. And then you feel a primary emotion that feels vulnerable. And then the secondary emotion of anger comes up and that’s the part that’s meant to protect you. So something you value is threatened. What is that something of value? And there’s no right or wrong. It could be several different things. But what do you imagine for you in this scenario? Does your job security feel threatened? And ultimately, does that trigger a fear of losing food or shelter? Or is it the love and connection, do you feel, is that threatened? Or was it your sense of justice or respect or trust?

And once you’ve identified that, then consider what tender emotions are coming up. What is the vulnerability that you’re feeling under that? Is it pain? Is it sadness? Is it shame or harassment, is it insecurity, helplessness, fear, so just notice that. And then pay attention if you resist thinking about your vulnerability and just understand that skipping right to anger makes you feel powerful and it’s understandable why you’d resist acknowledging those other more vulnerable emotions, and just try to offer yourself compassion for wanting to resist feeling less powerful.

So remember what I shared about my daughter Bethany and how I wanted to go out crusading for justice when she just really needed my comfort and my presence. So use that picture and see yourself going from being outwardly facing, defending your cause and you can hold that stance. You can be that mama bear and you can protect yourself. You can stand up to the threat but also see a part of you facing inward and being present with yourself. It’s so powerful to really see yourself and see your pain and your fear and whatever else you feel and to be with yourself there.

Now, there’s another part of processing anger. So remember, anger is meant to protect. So it’s important to take an action that will actually give you a sense of protection.

And in the example of the coworker, maybe you could go to your boss and you can set the record straight or confront the coworker or decide that from here on out, “I’m going to keep my ideas to myself.”

And the thing to keep in mind is you can’t always undo the threat, but you can reduce the chance of the same thing happening again. And often you won’t be able to truly release the anger until you’ve answered the question your brain is asking, “How will you protect yourself if this happens again?” And your brain needs that answer.

Another example of how you might protect yourself is if you’re angry that someone you loaned money to won’t pay you back and your protective decision might be to no longer loan money to that person or to no longer loan money to anyone and that’s a boundary And when we talk about setting a boundary, it’s about what you choose, not what you choose for the other person. So you’re setting a limit on what you’ll settle for. And your boundary is for you, so it’s really about what you decide in your own heart.

And you can tell the other person if you want, and that can be a powerful part of it using your voice. That can feel really good. But the important thing to remember is that a boundary is for you. It’s in your heart. So your boundary might just be something you decide to be really firm in your heart that no matter how much they pull on your heartstrings, you’re not going to loan them money anymore. And that’s going to protect you from the same thing happening again.

Another example is from when Bethany and I were in the beginning stages of our healing and it was around the same time I was imagining pushing people into the street. Bethany was in that same area on Hollywood Boulevard and some guy came behind her and grabbed her butt and she was so shocked and she didn’t know what to do so she just moved away from him but was understandably angry about it. And a few minutes later, the guy was gone, but she saw a police officer and she asked him what she could do. And she wanted to know specifically ’cause she had pepper spray. And if that happened again, you know, what are her rights? Would she get in trouble for using pepper spray? And he told her, no, go ahead and use it. So that gave her a sense of And because then she was prepared to protect herself if that same thing happened again. And so knowing how you’ll protect yourself in the same situation is what your brain needs to let it go.

And if you comfort yourself and know how you’ll protect yourself in the future, then you don’t need to ruminate on how bad that experience was. The reason for ruminating is to work out preventing that happening again, and you’ve already got that covered so the brain can be at peace.

So remember those two parts, comforting yourself, being with it, validating it, and then knowing how you’ll protect yourself in the future. That’s how you can be at peace.

And so those examples that I shared already are pretty straightforward. But there’s another type of anger that I want to show you how to process. Remember how people being too loud or rushing too close to me triggered the unresolved abuse from my past? And it’s really easy to be triggered and to conflate those current circumstances and experiences with the past. I did that with my husband Don for a long time. And a lot of our early fights were because I thought he was like my dad or my first husband.

And the way that the brain works, it looks for patterns. It might see a current experience as similar to something that happened in the past. And if it was a threatening past, it pays extra attention to that. And in the absence of complete information, it fills in the missing data with things that are already familiar–the past. And so it really takes sitting with it to know if the person in front of me is truly an abuser. Is this the same thing that I already experienced? Or is my brain just seeing similarities because it is focused on threat?

And you can use present-day triggers to clean out the wounds and the injustices of the past. And so pay attention to feelings or behaviors that seem like overreactions. And my wanting to push strangers into the street was definitely an overreaction.

So ask yourself what this present issue reminds you of. When did you feel misunderstood like this, or betrayed in the same way, or rejected, or violated?

So subconsciously, of course, I was reacting to when things I didn’t want were forced on me and I was treated like an object. And when people who said they love me committed crimes against me. And when your life is threatened like that, fighting back is absolutely an appropriate response. But the crowd on the streets wasn’t actually causing me any harm. It was just a reminder of the harm. And the trouble is when you sense a threat, your nervous system doesn’t make a distinction between someone hurting your feelings and physically assaulting you. And so no matter what type of threat, you’re biochemically prepared for a physical battle. However, the, again, the annoying pedestrians were not my abusers.

And the thing to know is that directing anger toward the true source of the threat, whether that’s in the past or the present, if you don’t direct it in the right place, there’s a never-ending supply of anger. You can rage and rage and it never runs out. Displaced anger is just impossible to get rid of as long as you project it in all the wrong places, you never work through it. So even if I had blamed the people walking on Hollywood Boulevard and yelled at them or pushed them, they weren’t who I was actually angry with. But once I dealt with the original violations, once I processed that, then the present issues were right-sized, meaning I didn’t minimize them, but I also didn’t make them bigger than they actually were.

So when you have been angry about something for a long time and you don’t seem to get over it, there’s a reason for that. Because anger doesn’t run out until it’s directed in the right place. And it doesn’t run out until you deal with the vulnerable emotions under that anger. And it doesn’t run out until you know how you’re going to protect yourself.

So it’s important to validate the original injustices, to grieve and to process them. And it’s vital to direct the anger in the appropriate direction. So it’s something like, “I’m angry with my abuser for violating me, for telling me it was my fault, for stealing my innocence, for confusing me about the definition of love, for lying to me, for leaving me with all the effects.” And of course with that, it can go on and on. There are so many things to be angry about when it comes to abuse.

Or it could be, “I’m angry with our society for not acknowledging abuse and for making it shameful to talk about.” Or “I’m mad at all the adults in my life who didn’t notice I was in distress or do anything about it.”

Then identify the vulnerable feelings under that. For me, I did a lot of letter writing and most of what I wrote, they were for me to validate those feelings and so I could actually hear myself. And that’s an especially good option letter writing or journal writing if the person isn’t alive anymore or if it would be dangerous to contact them or if you just have no interest, maybe they’re not in your life anymore. And a few of the letters I wrote, I did share with the people that I was angry with, but it wasn’t actually for them, it was for me.

And then the next part is to decide how you’re going to protect yourself. Sometimes it’s not about protecting yourself from that actual person because if we’re talking about childhood abuse, if they aren’t in your life anymore or they’re too old to be a threat to you or if they’re dead, then it’s not about protecting yourself from them, but you can decide how you’ll protect yourself if you encounter someone else who violates you or who tries to belittle you or mistreat you.

And then the final thing to know about anger is that it’s common to use the
emotional intensity that you feel as a gauge for the level of threat. And that can lead to verbal and physical overreactions and escalations. And the truth is the strength of your emotions is not proof of how badly you were violated or how wrong the other person is. And unless you’re facing physical threat, you do not have the right to violate or threaten another person. And so just decide that no matter how angry, hurt, or afraid that you feel, you’re not going to lash out.

The purpose of an anger response is not to punish the other person or to demonstrate to them how you feel by hurting them or getting their attention. The purpose of the anger response is to protect yourself. And so anger warns you of an injustice or violation, but it’s triggered by even perceived injustice or violation.

And each of us have rules for how things are supposed to be, and you might recognize these rules from what you get mad about and what you think others should do. And it’s just important to acknowledge that you don’t have a right to impose your rules on someone else.

However, you can set appropriate boundaries when their rules conflict with your rules. If they’re okay with cheating on you and you’re not okay with that, then you can do something about that. You can’t control them, but you can control their access to you. So for just regular conflict that isn’t about abuse, I highly recommend listening to episode 25.

Well thanks for joining me today. If you want to keep an anger cheat sheet with you to help you process through your anger, you can download that for free. Go to the show notes page at overcomingsexualabuse.com/027. And when you download that, be sure to accept my invitation to subscribe to my emails. And I’m going to send you lots of helpful healing information and tips and resources and I’m bringing you lots more on healing and boundaries and self-care and family dysfunction and so much more. So be sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss any of it.