Today, I feel no anger toward the many people who have abused me throughout life.
I know it gets complicated when there is more than one abuser, and sometimes we do weird shit to protect false ideas about our abusers.
But, I don’t even feel anger toward the strangers or people who mean nothing to me.
I have to think it is more about feeling anger than it is protecting the people. Maybe I am protecting myself from this anger?
It is weird to me because I have no trouble getting angry about things that happen in current day. I don’t like to hold onto anger because I think it creates toxicity in oneself to not let it go, but I do feel it is healthy to breathe anger into the situations or people that deserve our anger.
I think about my past, the people who hurt me, and I think I should feel anger toward those people who have ruined so much of my life. Internally, I feel and hear nothing. Crickets. Paralysis.
I have heard unexpressed anger turns into depression. I have tons of depression….
Living in a DID system can make the idea of trying to reach the anger feel impossible. It is kept far away from me for some reason.
Though I think I can handle the anger because my anger doesn’t scare me today, I have to believe there is some internal wisdom protecting me from this anger.
Or, maybe it is really just fear. Maybe I only think I am good with anger, and I am unknowingly terrified of the anger that must exist somewhere within me.
Maybe I don’t feel as though I deserve to be angry?
I am very in touch with my shame today, which means I feel as though I or we are bad.
After decades have gone by, I am still trying to control the abusive situations by believing they happened because I am inherently bad. I still struggle to fix this "bad" that exists within me.
When you grow up with extreme abuse and more perpetrators than you can name, it is hard not to believe it is your fault. You are the common denominator. Perpetrators even found me in adulthood, which is even harder to explain to myself.
I think of myself in terms of energy sometimes. I think of that child who attracted perpetrators. I think she must have had an energy about her that perpetrators could pick up on.
Is it wrong to be angry with yourself for putting out this energy into the world?
The message my abusers carved into my brain is that I don’t matter, and am only useful to them for their sick pleasures of torture and sex.
It’s challenging to build a healthy self after being raised with those messages.
It is incomprehensible to me how some adults can treat a child the way I was treated.
I want to say it is because they were so sick, but I really still struggle every day with the idea that there is something so inherently wrong with me from the day that I was born that I deserved this.
I know I will never heal holding onto these beliefs, but how does one let go of what feels so much like their truth?
Therapy Bits 