# Anger and its part in causing DP



## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

Before I start I just want to say that a lot of what I am saying here can be applied to other emotions, not just anger. I do also think that anger is an emotion that has an underlying pain beneath it.

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Growing up I had to constantly suppress my anger. In my family anger was an unacceptable emotion for us children to show towards my parents. My parents who were more like big children themselves almost always took our anger personally and shamed us for it. The implicit message that was communicated to us was this, 'if you get angry at us, we will not love you anymore.' To a child, losing the love of a parent ultimately means death. For me this wasn't a conscious thought but biologically we are programmed to conform with our parents. As natural selection shows it, historically if children did not conform to their parents then they would become obsolete.

The fact is my parents didn't have the ego strength to take criticism and reflect on their own behaviour (this is the same with all narcissistic parents). To children, parents are all-powerful gods. My parents most certainly understood this and most certainly liked to keep it that way (as did their parents too).

And so, as my parents rejected our feelings, we (as is commonly done) internalised the abuse and ended up becoming self-abusers. What we were told about ourselves by our parents becomes fact in a child's mind. If my father constantly told me that I looked funny then over time this is going to become my reality. The damage that is done to children through this kind of dishonest behaviour is absolutely catastrophic. You see, if we became angry at our parents, they in turn would become angry at us. They would hit, shout or say something like, 'What's happened to you? You used to be such a nice boy.'

As this happened over and over a wall became constructed between my legitimate feelings of anger towards my parents and me actually being able to feel them as being in any way associated with them. Instead they were forced to become locked away, only finding expression through self-destruction. It is definitely true that blocked off anger is like a toxic chemical. If you don't allow yourself to feel it (and the underlying pain) then it will eventually just break you down.

So... How does this relate to DP you ask?

My basic equation goes like this:

Repressed, blocked off anger / rage causes self-destruction. Anger is often displaced, which basically means you get angry at people for no reason whatsoever. The anger will seem to come out of nowhere as it utterly cripples your capacity to be emotionally free. In my experience this has caused me to drink and take drugs in excess to the point of near annihilation. If your parents told you they wished you'd never been born then it is in these moments where the unconscious rage drives your behaviour to fulfill their prophecy.

Self-destruction = undesirable behaviour acted out unconsciously.

So therefore, self-destruction is a cause for anxiety

The anxiety here is being caused by life becoming horribly predictable. This is the unconsciously acted out behaviour that you find yourself doing and you don't know why. No matter what you try the same bad things keep on happening to you. For example, I was brought up by abusive women. As a child I unconsciously formed the belief that women were bad. As an adult this has made relationships impossible as it cuts off the possibility for emotional intimacy as I am scared of getting hurt. For the longest time however this was not conscious to me. I believed that there was just "something wrong with me" or "the world was against me." Also because I thought women were bad, if a woman liked me then I would assume (unconsciously) that she was bad and that the relationship was somehow "wrong."

All in all it goes a little something like this:

*Repressed, blocked off anger / rage* causes *self-destruction* (unhappiness in a volatile world where you can't get what you want)

*Self-destruction* causes *anxiety*

*Anxiety* causes *stress*

And a combination of all of these creates a *higher chance of developing DP/DR* through constant *stress, worry, confusion and emotional imbalance.
*

I know this has been long but I hope you find it of use!
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*A Note on Forgiveness*

It is a common thought that the solution to unresolved feelings is to forgive those who caused them. From my research I would say that forgiveness is counterproductive when trying to deal with your anger. Forgiveness is not a choice. You will know when you have forgiven someone and cannot force it. It is the exact same principle that can be applied to the idea of attraction, it is an almost entirely involuntary emotional reaction.

Saying "you have to forgive" is a rejection of your emotions. This is the exact same thing that was done to you as a child. To perpetuate this treatment of your emotions will only cause you more problems.


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## babybowrain (Aug 24, 2010)

my old psychologist said something about anger causing my symptoms, I stopped seeing him though. I just don't know what to do with the knowledge...how to stop being angry? to feel your anger out? what to do? how can we fix things?


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## PositiveThinking! (Mar 5, 2010)

I must say that many times in my life I didn't let my rage out, actually, I can probably count with my fingers the times I've expressed my rage.. I don't know why, but I just can't, I feel like I must shut up whenever someone insults me, or stand still if someone hits me.. many times in my life I wish I had said something, like some occasions where I got insulted and I couldn't insult back, I'd get mad at myself for days, fill up with rage but never letting it out. It's actually a coincidence (or not) , that when I first got DP, I was under some stress because of someone I hated in my class, and my dream was to beat him up like everyday but I couldn't even insult him, seriously this is the thing I most hate in me


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## skeyesthelimit (Nov 9, 2010)

PositiveThinking! said:


> I must say that many times in my life I didn't let my rage out, actually, I can probably count with my fingers the times I've expressed my rage.. I don't know why, but I just can't, I feel like I must shut up whenever someone insults me, or stand still if someone hits me.. many times in my life I wish I had said something, like some occasions where I got insulted and I couldn't insult back, I'd get mad at myself for days, fill up with rage but never letting it out. It's actually a coincidence (or not) , that when I first got DP, I was under some stress because of someone I hated in my class, and my dream was to beat him up like everyday but I couldn't even insult him, seriously this is the thing I most hate in me


Sometimes I get angry at not saying something when I was insulted as well. Usually I don't say anything though because the people who insult feel better when you attack them because they know you're angry, and that really tickles their fancies. I had a friend who would feed off of this, and when you would fight back with him, it's like he felt better. Sometimes I think not doing anything can be the best solution.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

babybowrain said:


> my old psychologist said something about anger causing my symptoms, I stopped seeing him though. I just don't know what to do with the knowledge...how to stop being angry? to feel your anger out? what to do? how can we fix things?


I think the anger doesn't find rest because it has been disconnected from its original source. I think the solution to releasing anger that has become "stuck" is to allow yourself to feel it and its underlying pain / hurt.

A start might be to write down some thoughts about your relationship with anger in your life. This could be anything like what made you angry as a child, what makes you angry now, how people responded to your anger, how you deal with your anger now, how your parents and siblings expressed anger etc.

It's certainly not an easy task and I am only just beginning to work my way through it.

One other thing I have noticed, is when I do get pissed off for no reason, if I think, 'is this anger an appropriate response to what is going on?' Then I think about where it is more likely to be coming from (my father for example) and the anger becomes less focused the individual who I have displaced the anger onto and more as something that is coming from my past. Once again it's not easy but I do believe it is possible.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

skeyesthelimit said:


> Sometimes I get angry at not saying something when I was insulted as well. Usually I don't say anything though because the people who insult feel better when you attack them because they know you're angry, and that really tickles their fancies. I had a friend who would feed off of this, and when you would fight back with him, it's like he felt better. Sometimes I think not doing anything can be the best solution.


That's the thing, people like that go for the soft spots. They will identify a weakness in a person (for example if you have been constantly put down by your siblings in the past) and exploit it.

If I have been through a tough time as a child where my parents made me feel worthless and invisible, a bully is going to pick up on that and say something like, 'you're a waste of space.'

It's those comments that make us the most angry because those are the most sensitive parts of ourselves where painful emotions from the past are still contained (unprocessed).


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Cool post. I definitely relate to the self-destruction and anger. Likewise I was never allowed to express anger. So I bottled it up and even still do. When it comes out it's not a pretty sight. I still don't properly know how to deal with anger. How does one properly deal with anger?


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

Yes I agree 100%

After six years in psychotherapy I find it all comes back to blocked and repressed anger almost every session even if I don't want it to. The thing is if you have a healthy anger and can use it to defend yourself you can create healthy boundaries and not dissociate, so it is ok to feel vulnerable with the knowledge you can defend yourself if you needed to. Also inverted anger is what gives emotional repression its fuel and power.

I find in my body there is a huge amount of tension in my jaw and throat because of repressing anger. The question is what to do about it as I have tried a lot of primal therapy by shouting and screaming and stuff but that didn't help, but getting angry at another person is far more difficult, I can scream all day in rage when at home alone but I can barely raise my voice at my therapist.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

My friend pointed out to me that my post has quite a detached tone to it, and that it is possible that I use "intellectualism" as a defense to keep my emotions at a distance. It definitely sounds true and I had already thought this before he even said it.

Basically, intellectually knowing something is very different from actually experiencing it. And I would say that I am still very naive to how this whole process rolls out.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

never_giving_up said:


> My friend pointed out to me that my post has quite a detached tone to it, and that it is possible that I use "intellectualism" as a defense to keep my emotions at a distance. It definitely sounds true and I had already thought this before he even said it.
> 
> Basically, intellectually knowing something is very different from actually experiencing it. And I would say that I am still very naive to how this whole process rolls out.


I wouldn't say working out how something works intellectually is bad as it gives you an indication of where to go to progress. It's like the old psychoanalysis ways, they were masters as intellectualising the human condition but it never actually changed or cured hardly anyone to do that, so psychoanalysis is rarely used now but the maps they drew are helpful in more modern psychotherapy.

I have done a lot of analysing of myself intellectually and I came to similar conclusions about repressing anger being important, but those conclusions didn't actually improve my life so I tried at looking at ways to express those emotions, so I read up a lot about primal therapies they experimented with in the 1960's which involve doing things like screaming into a pillow or bashing something up with a baseball bat, so I tried that for a while and I could easily work myself up into a powerful rageful state. There was a bit of use in that it showed me that I do have internal power to defend myself if needed and it showed I do have a lot of unexpressed anger, but in the end I found it never actually resolved anything, which is backed up by most of the scientific evidence of that time that primal therapies can bring out repressed emotions but they don't resolve what's under them so you don't actually get anywhere.So now I try to deal with it in regular psychotherapy and do some alternative body methods to try remove my tensions in a bit more of a compassionate way than before.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

Pablo said:


> I wouldn't say working out how something works intellectually is bad as it gives you an indication of where to go to progress. It's like the old psychoanalysis ways, they were masters as intellectualising the human condition but it never actually changed or cured hardly anyone to do that, so psychoanalysis is rarely used now but the maps they drew are helpful in more modern psychotherapy.
> 
> I have done a lot of analysing of myself intellectually and I came to similar conclusions about repressing anger being important, but those conclusions didn't actually improve my life so I tried at looking at ways to express those emotions, so I read up a lot about primal therapies they experimented with in the 1960's which involve doing things like screaming into a pillow or bashing something up with a baseball bat, so I tried that for a while and I could easily work myself up into a powerful rageful state. There was a bit of use in that it showed me that I do have internal power to defend myself if needed and it showed I do have a lot of unexpressed anger, but in the end I found it never actually resolved anything, which is backed up by most of the scientific evidence of that time that primal therapies can bring out repressed emotions but they don't resolve what's under them so you don't actually get anywhere.So now I try to deal with it in regular psychotherapy and do some alternative body methods to try remove my tensions in a bit more of a compassionate way than before.


Check it out: Alice Miller's guide to finding a good therapist


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## Rebekah (May 16, 2009)

I think this is such an important topic--anger and DP. I did get lots of counseling about my anger towards my abusive parents so I would stop self-destructing and picking friends who would destroy me. I know that talking about the pain with a competent therapist helps to release and heal it. Practically speaking, I have found that with people on the job and other "friends" who are abusive that the best way for me to feel better when someone has trashed me is to tell them to stop what they are doing and if they don't even recognize that their manner is abusive then I'll get them out of my life--they're psychopaths. I did get "restraining orders" against my boss and a co-worker on the job for their bullying tactics against me. I feel so much happier and empowered, and very little DP, now that I have decided to have zero tolerance for assholes. My parents were both abusive towards me and I had to disown my own mother (and sister) because she justified her ill treatment of me to herself. I did get counseling for this because it's such an unnatural thing for a child to disown a parent. But, it is important to not allow the abuse to continue. I have decent self-esteem now because I'll "beat the crap out of" anyone who comes against me now--that's my mental attitude now to jerks. I'm not a fighter, so I just distance myself from them, and take a higher-road approach to stopping it. There is such thing as good shame and it should be used when necessary to amp it up on a person who can't listen to reason.


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## snow storm (Aug 10, 2010)

I think that gradually releasing the tension in the body through some body therapy methods sound like a good thing. If you play an instrument that can be a good way to get in touch with and release some emotions. I do some melancholic improvisations on the piano every now and then and at times I get in touch with some deeper layers of emotion. When I have released some of the sadness I feel that my anger is not so overwhelming and easier to deal with and easier to express. I think that when we first start to release some ot the emotions then they will feel less and less overwhelming and gradually easier to express.

What I plan to do is to get in touch with a voice teacher and do some voice training and vocal exploration and see if that can help me to release some blocked energies and help med get in touch with a more authentic expression. I guess there are many ways to release emotions you just have to find the method that suits you.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

I find that a lot of my anger has to do with my mother, religion, authoritative figures, etc. I am also angry with myself. My anger has to do with my mind and ego I believe. I feel like I have so much anger bottled up inside of me, I don't know how to properly express it though or know what to do with it. I guess I could speak with my mother about my anger and explain why I feel so angry when I am around her. Deep down I love my mother but whenever I see her I get super angry. I guess the only thing I can really do is forgive. This is hard though. Especially self-forgiveness.


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## Minerva8979 (Jan 30, 2010)

I can totally relate to this btw. My dad was a rager and we were never allowed, and still arent, to stand up to his insane paranoid douch-bagery. So consequently, I had many repressed emotions.


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## snow storm (Aug 10, 2010)

surfingisfun001 said:


> I find that a lot of my anger has to do with my mother, religion, authoritative figures, etc. I am also angry with myself. My anger has to do with my mind and ego I believe. I feel like I have so much anger bottled up inside of me, I don't know how to properly express it though or know what to do with it. I guess I could speak with my mother about my anger and explain why I feel so angry when I am around her. Deep down I love my mother but whenever I see her I get super angry. I guess the only thing I can really do is forgive. This is hard though. Especially self-forgiveness.


I have the same problem with my mother. A lot of anger there. She was never able to take my expressions of anger and sadness and made me think that self-expression was a negative thing. But she was caring at the same time. But was she did wrong had a huge impact on me and I really cannot just let go of the anger. So I try to express it to her. And I get angry at myself because Im not very good at it. Anger directed towards oneself is mostly destructive I will say. We all make mistakes and we can not always live up to our own expectations and do what needs to be done, that is a part of life and being human. I really think that we should try to forgive ourselves and get on.


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

surfingisfun001 said:


> I find that a lot of my anger has to do with my mother, religion, authoritative figures, etc. I am also angry with myself. My anger has to do with my mind and ego I believe. I feel like I have so much anger bottled up inside of me, I don't know how to properly express it though or know what to do with it. I guess I could speak with my mother about my anger and explain why I feel so angry when I am around her. Deep down I love my mother but whenever I see her I get super angry. I guess the only thing I can really do is forgive. This is hard though. Especially self-forgiveness.


I can relate to that a lot, I find I get very angry just thinking about my mother but then I do love her but I know she can't handle my anger so I don't express it, so in a way I have to protect her and parent her even though I am her child and I guess that's the way it's always been even when I was very young.

I have heard gardening is supposed to be quite therapeutic or we could start a real life fight club see how that helps


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

_Toxic Parents; Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life_ by Susan Forward

Everyone who has spoken about anger at their parents, I highly recommend the following book.


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## babybowrain (Aug 24, 2010)

never_giving_up said:


> _Toxic Parents; Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life_ by Susan Forward
> 
> Everyone who has spoken about anger at their parents, I highly recommend the following book.


you can read parts for free here http://books.google.ca/books?id=rF-KognLBOgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=toxic+parents&hl=en&ei=m_feTOvLIJqInAemkYSrAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## EverDream (Dec 15, 2006)

I have anger issues as well.

I could never express the way I feel when I was young. My mom suffered from a neurological diease and my dad didn't notice me. When I did try to express the way I feel to my dad, he always like ruled out everything I said, so I learned there is no one to talk to.

I don't know what to do with anger. yesterday I had to be with my sister in law which I hate. Whenever I see her I get extremly angry. I didn't know how to calm myself down so my self- destruction is cutting myself. I didn't do it for months, but I was so angry I had to put it out someway.

And my sick mom told me the exact same sentence you wrote:
"I wish you were never born"


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## Rebekah (May 16, 2009)

Please everyone, get counseling to talk to someone about your anger--or a trusted friend who is supportive, it helped me tremendously. The dual-nature of my parents' (and sister's) personalities (toward me)--love and hate--registered as confusion and anxiety in my soul and forced me to depersonalize for protection from the hypocrisy. Counseling with a normal, healthy adult who changed my beliefs about how I viewed them in relation to me, helped me to become grounded and take back my own selfhood (self-esteem). Those sad memories that keep replaying (in the background) in your head and color your world are what keeps you dissociated. DP is a thought disorder.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

snow storm said:


> I have the same problem with my mother. A lot of anger there. She was never able to take my expressions of anger and sadness and made me think that self-expression was a negative thing. But she was caring at the same time. But was she did wrong had a huge impact on me and I really cannot just let go of the anger. So I try to express it to her. And I get angry at myself because Im not very good at it. Anger directed towards oneself is mostly destructive I will say. We all make mistakes and we can not always live up to our own expectations and do what needs to be done, that is a part of life and being human. I really think that we should try to forgive ourselves and get on.


Well said, that last part is so hard for me to do but what you said is so true.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Pablo said:


> or we could start a real life fight club see how that helps


I actually tried this before. I would go up to friends and tell them to hit me as hard as they could. They would hit me (softly) and I would hit them back full force, then we'd get into it. It was actually a good release, but never solved anything.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

EverDream said:


> I have anger issues as well.
> 
> I could never express the way I feel when I was young. My mom suffered from a neurological diease and my dad didn't notice me. When I did try to express the way I feel to my dad, he always like ruled out everything I said, so I learned there is no one to talk to.
> 
> ...


Dang sorry to hear that, that is really rough. It sounds like we all have a lot of similar issues with anger and we deal with them by destructing ourselves. My way has been through drugs. I haven't done drugs in a while but it was always my release. I guess like snow storm said in the above post all we can really do is realize that people make mistakes and forgive the people who hurt us and forgive ourselves. Easier said than done obviously.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

Rebekah said:


> Please everyone, get counseling to talk to someone about your anger--or a trusted friend who is supportive, it helped me tremendously. The dual-nature of my parents' (and sister's) personalities (toward me)--love and hate--registered as confusion and anxiety in my soul and forced me to depersonalize for protection from the hypocrisy. Counseling with a normal, healthy adult who changed my beliefs about how I viewed them in relation to me, helped me to become grounded and take back my own selfhood (self-esteem). Those sad memories that keep replaying (in the background) in your head and color your world are what keeps you dissociated. DP is a thought disorder.


Sounds like you are really making some progress Rebekah, good to hear.


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## never_giving_up (Jun 23, 2010)

I would say that forgiveness is counterproductive when trying to deal with your anger. Forgiveness is not a choice. You will know when you have forgiven someone and cannot force it. It is the exact same principle that can be applied to the idea of attraction, it is an almost entirely involuntary emotional reaction.

Saying "you have to forgive" is a rejection of your emotions. This is the exact same thing that was done to you as a child. To perpetuate this treatment of your emotions will only cause you more problems.


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## snow storm (Aug 10, 2010)

never_giving_up said:


> I would say that forgiveness is counterproductive when trying to deal with your anger. Forgiveness is not a choice. You will know when you have forgiven someone and cannot force it. It is the exact same principle that can be applied to the idea of attraction, it is an almost entirely involuntary emotional reaction.
> 
> Saying "you have to forgive" is a rejection of your emotions. This is the exact same thing that was done to you as a child. To perpetuate this treatment of your emotions will only cause you more problems.


I agree with this. I have tried to let go of my anger but it really is not something that I can choose to do even though I wanted to. What I try to do though is not being so hard on myself for not always being able to express my emotions. Sometimes I just don't have the guts to do what I feel is required. Then I get angry with myself. I think the anger that you direct towards youself can get really destructive. I try to tell myself that it's a process and that Im moving forward alhtough not always in the pace that I wished, trying to keep some self respect.


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## Surfingisfun001 (Sep 25, 2007)

never_giving_up said:


> I would say that forgiveness is counterproductive when trying to deal with your anger. Forgiveness is not a choice. You will know when you have forgiven someone and cannot force it. It is the exact same principle that can be applied to the idea of attraction, it is an almost entirely involuntary emotional reaction.
> 
> Saying "you have to forgive" is a rejection of your emotions. This is the exact same thing that was done to you as a child. To perpetuate this treatment of your emotions will only cause you more problems.


wow ya totally, well said


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## Pablo (Sep 1, 2005)

I think forgiveness is the ideal end result at the end of a long process of being angry, feeling the hurt, recognising one of your needs wasn't met, grieving and then letting go and moving on. I agree it is nothing you can actually choose to do and all the religious brainwashing which commands people to forgive is just mad making as it blocks genuine feeling and creates a contradiction in you which results in anxiety. But in the end forgiveness is good for you because like the Buddhists say holding onto anger is like holding onto hot coals, you end up burning yourself more than anyone else.


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## Rebekah (May 16, 2009)

That's good, "holding onto hot coals" burns yourself. I found that by learning the truth about my relationships and why a person abused me, gives me peace of mind. There's something about seeing the big picture about a situation that allows you to say, "Oh, I see now." I also know that I had to be removed from the offenders before I was able to heal and then forgive. When you're in the middle of a firefight, you are not thinking about giving the other person a big hug, just keeping yourself alive. I am able to look back and reflect on my relationships with abusers in my life and forgive them, since I am safe now in my own home, and don't associate with abusive types anymore, if I can help it--at work it's not so easy. I learned to trust and act on my instincts (sensitivity).


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