For Healing Trauma, Venting Your Rage is Overrated

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If you had childhood trauma, and you’ve sought help for the problems it’s caused you in your life, you may have been told that you needed to get in touch with your ANGER to heal. If you've been suppressing your rage, venting anger can feel great... at first. But for many people with Childhood PTSD, getting pushed to go deeper into anger can be a dangerous assumption. The fact is, people who were abused or neglected in childhood can tend to get emotionally dysregulated -- feelings can go from a normal level to a surge level VERY suddenly ---- for seemingly no reason. In this video I teach why anger feels like medicine in the moment, but can turn quickly into poison for your life.

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I am not a therapist or physician. My videos are for educational purposes only. Information provided on this channel is not intended to be a substitute for in-person professional medical advice. It is not intended to replace the services of a therapist, physician, or other qualified professional, nor does it constitute a therapist-client physician or quasi-physician relationship. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please call a local emergency telephone number or go to the nearest emergency room immediately.

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[joyful_tanya]

CCF, you are always reading my mail. 💌 I appreciate you. I'm doing so much better these days.

[lauriemorales]

I wasn't allowed to express emotions as a child. But i had to deal with their anger and rage toward me!!

[keip]

People always make the assumptions "You are an angry woman" but many people say women can hold grudges or better at having them. But it is so rude especially with the "let it go" mentality. Like it is so easy to force amnesia to letting it go. So much stigma to toxic positivity exists. It's sickening many don't take psychological truamas to anything but the emotions of joy should exists without anything else!

[Julietttapril]

I stuffed anger from severe abuse, abandonment all my life. Until I had a life changing nervous breakdown. Anger was important for me to get out and feel in order to get free. I think everyone is different. I am by nature not an angry person and have had a very hard time feeling anger about all the abuse and abandonment. That had kept me stuck most of my life. I thank God therapists gave me permission to be angry about it all. The church I was in also said anger was sin. So I stuffed it even more. I’m so glad I know the truth now because it set me free.

[SharronFrey]

If I were to “get in touch with my anger, ” I’d be in prison. I have to remind myself that NOBODY in my dysfunctional family is worth that.

[nattie]

Growing up with the "I'll give you something to cry about" was terrible for me. Ididnt let myself feel any type of emotion

[capnawesome]

Thank you so much for making this video. Venting is actually very scary sometimes for us partners of those with cptsd. I think it works people up more than it calms down.

[EricBryant]

In my c-PTSD recovery, I did find that I needed to get to the point of the rage. But I see rage and anger as very different. I was so frozen and numb emotionally, before getting into ACA recovery, that I didn't even know what rage felt like and thought I had never experienced it or felt it. I also like you was terrified of anger and angry people (one of the Laundry List Traits).

So it wasn't until I got to rage, then working through that rage constructively with a deep tissue massage therapist, that I could really feel a little jump in healing. Thankfully, I didn't have to lash out in rage. It was controlled. I talked it over with my therapist as well as my priest.

That made way for forgiveness. Instead of confronting my family (which is what I wanted to do initially), I wrote a letter to them. I thought it would only be like a 1 page letter. It turned into a 7-page diatribe where I got to rage against everything they had done to screw me up. I didn't send it to my family nor did I read it to them (at the advice of my therapist).

That was smart advice. Writing that letter coincided with Lent and the Rite of Forgiveness we celebrate at my church. My HP used all this -- including the rage -- to continue to advance my healing.

In our basic text of ACOA (Big Red Book) Tony A does talk about a need for some of of us childhood trauma survivors to get to the point of the rage. But I agree with you, Anna. For those who are already in touch with resentment, anger, and rage, this may not be what they need. I was the opposite: the depressed, numb, never angry, always fearful type. I never thought I was allowed or worthy or even capable of feeling rage -- until I did.

Love your perspective Anna! <3

[CoCo-lemh]

I’m angry right now..I lost my eldest brother last July..he was a C3 total quadriplegic…lost my father 50 days later to cancer and dementia. My brothers death completely broke me…how my younger brother and mother handeled it..the whole ICU and hospice care…12 days of it…never coming to see him till the plug was pulled…I was there the entire time at his bedside. I’m the middle child…the scapegoat…younger brother being the golden child who held the keys to my older brothers guardianship and both parents…I was written outta the will. That hurt…but how they handeled my older bothers illness and death…set me off…I knew at that point I had to go completely no contact with them, Grieving 2 deaths…and a no contact with the remaining 2 in my family of origin has been so overwhelming painful. I know it’s gonna be a healing journey…but the emptiness inside…the anger..grief and lifetime of carrying that scape goat “label” has me so brokenly distraught…

[everaftermurals]

What I’m hearing and understanding is that by doing the daily practice, you are in fact feeling feelings and taping into it: whatever it is sadness, anger, rage, etc. I would imagine that when writing fears and resentments you absolutely do tap into that, even momentarily.

I respect your perspective Anna. Healing is incredibly nuanced, and what works from one will be a different experience for another. For me, I’m finally understanding that I need to go through it, allow myself to feel the things I was never allowed to in order to acknowledge, understand, and then I pray, release it. It’s the avoidance and burying of my feelings… it comes back like ghosts to haunt me.

Grief therapist David Kessler says: what we avoid pursues us, what we face transforms us. This really hits home for me, it’s absolutely the truth.

[treyxna]

I needed this right now. I’m hurting so bad.cptsd and bipolar and grieving my girlfriend that passed is catching up to me. It kills me how mean i can be to the people i love💔

[lauriemorales]

The rage just came on it's own. Then it turned to sadness.

[lw]

Oh goodness. it DOES heal. Once I understood that my personality issues were caused by the people who threw me away, they started to melt away. The anger dissipated before the depression. I had rage on tap. I credit my relationship with Christ. I want to love the way that He loved. My life was very empty when I was angry. I knew that the intimacy that I needed would be there if I changed. And it was.

[D.M.S.]

I took acting classes and wanted to play sadness. It became one of the strongest rage scenes my acting teacher has ever seen. After that my tears came. For the first time I broke through the wall and reached the other said.

I'm closer to my sadness since then. I cried to movies and music. As my last gf left me suddenly (she was a lovebomber, I thought it could work, it was a mess), I cried and I was sad because my heart got broken, but I was also happy because I was able to cry. It was weird.

Don't just be angry. Get to the sadness! And then comfort your inner child.

Many women cry instead of being angry. Fight through the tears to your rage and after that comfort your inner child.

Men tend to anger when their sad. Because our society teaches men, that crying is for the weak. For many women it is the other way around, because our society teaches them that rage is not ladylike.

Do it in verbally or on paper, if necessary do it with someone you trust around you. To help calm down afterwards. A professional or an experienced friend, that maybe reached that point already. You got it!

[lauriemorales]

Our nervous systems are not properly regulated.

[loveinthematrix]

My mom passed away this December. My father is a sociopathic narcissistic, 100% slowly killed her and damaged her health through the course of years and spreading lies about her after she passed but crying and pretending to be a great person at the funeral. My anger, was through the roof, by the end of the week being around my family who dismissed, ignored and invalidated me once again. No one even hugged me when I walked into the room, no one there to care about my tears because the smear campaign since my childhood worked. Someone recommend I should do boxing because my anger issues were so extreme but never seemed to acknowledge the root of that anger, it was my sister who told me that, who denies my childhood experience. I am tired and yep I am pissed off but I want to be at peace. I do not want to pass on anger issues. But I’m angry because no one ever listened. It’s unfair that people deny your pain and the evil people have put you through but then call you angry and unhinged the moment you let it out. I need help with my anger issues but I do want to say maybe I have the freaking right to be ya know. Sorry.

[MrsDAer]

I cannot handle anger as well, even when people speak with a louder voice.
I carry anger but I’m ashamed of my anger, I cannot express my anger in public. I do when I’m alone, I curse and speak to myself out loud. But I cannot get angry at a person or in public…sometimes I don’t even know if I have the right to get angry… ( NPD mother and older sister, they always shamed me or laughed at me when I was angry as a kid or when I was an adult).

[siennaprice]

Being that I am totally blind, on the autism spectrum, and have CPTSD, I know what anger feels like. I don’t think being blind has anything to do with my anger. But being on the autism spectrum and having complex PTSD can make emotions really intense. Luckily, I’ve grown out of my most angry of angry. I used to lose my temper with people, I used to scream at the top of my lungs, I used to hit things, I used to slam doors, throw things, and even break things. Luckily, those days are over. The only thing I really hate when I’m angry, is myself. I don’t hate myself because I’m angry at myself for being angry. I hate myself as a way of communicating my anger. I wasn’t allowed to cry. Crying was looked down upon By my caregiver. I was shamed, laughed at, and even mocked for crying by my caregiver. But the funny thing is this. If I kept my feelings to myself, and didn’t tell that caregiver what was truly wrong when she saw, I was just regulated, I would get shamed for not telling her. I’m really working hard to replace the self injurious behaviors that I have. I have so many coping skills, and I love them with a passion. Music really helps me a lot. So do my favorite sensory items, like my sensory brushes, or any sensory item that’s soft. My weighted blanket also helps me too. Plus a lot of other coping skills.

[cuspofchange]

My mom was a face slapper and hair puller and very petty with me in many ways growing up and then she would send me to my room and say " dont come out until you have a smile on your face" ! So when i got tired of the isolation i would come out with a big smile 😀 i was 30 i was going through so much that i went to see a therapist and he asked me to tell him what was going on ? He had a note book and i just dumped it all and when i was done he told me " did you know that you had a smile on your face the whole time you were talking"? I felt so embarrassed ! Like i was being accused somehow, i didnt understand and i never went back to him🤷‍♀️

[annekim]

The "folded a chair and moved the vase" thing was priceless. Love the little sweetness in that child!