Ninjafrodo's runthrough lesson 6

[NinjaFrodo]

Anger lesson!!! Anger is one of the really big ones for me. I have a hard time expressing my anger in healthy way and so I usually get afraid of it and just hold it in until something triggers me and then I blowup. Usually it has to do with being left out or my feelings not being considered. I'd get stuck in many situations and instead of getting myself out of the unhealthy situations I would just sit in them and be confused. Things like if someone is yelling at me or if someone on the street calls me over to talk and I really don't feel like talking. I have also spent so much time empathizing and justifying why someone behaved towards me in a negative way and I only recently realized that this only enabled their behavior to continue. I didn't respect my own feelings and just let them walk all over me and treat me like garbage and I'm sick of that and want to change that.

Its intresting but alot of these situations actually stem right back to the abuse. I got confused and really empathetic, I would think about how my abuser must have gone through the same stuff and I felt sorry for him and ignored my feelings. I didn't want to make him cry or put him through the same pain that I went through and it became so twisted! He hurt me and took away so much from me and yet I was concerned about how he was feeling. He wasn't concerned with how damaging abusing me was, he wasn't concerned that I was depressed and had suicidal thoughts, he wasn't concerned about me at all and yet I put his feelings ahead of my own. 16 years later where am I with that response? I am not working and am on disability, I isolate myself from others big time, I'm scared of people, I have a very hard time trusting people, I space out alot and disassociate from my emotions especially when i'm being intimate with someone, my relationships with friends are in turmoil, I have a low self-esteem and struggle to get through the day and am completely disowned from my family and whats happening with him? He is living in his house, he has family and friends taking care of him, he has pictures taken with them and is smiling...is that really fair? Did my empathy really help out? Did it make me feel any better? Not really, there is a tremendous ammount of hatred and rage and it had to go somewhere and so I directed it at myself and felt guilty for years and years and it ruined my years and it did nothing to him and he is still around children. My empathy didn't get him to reach out for help, it didn't fix the problem at all, it just made me feel bad. He may have gone through the same thing as me but several times he made the conscious decision to violate me and that is unacceptable and I have the right to feel angry about that.

That empathy response kept going on in my life and I kept it up with anybody who treated me poorly and the same thing happened. I would get walked all over, I'd continue to enable them, I'd feel rotten and miserable and guilty, I'd be used and manipulated, I'd become resentful towards myself and others and talking behind the person's back and then it would escalate until I just couldn't take it anymore and would blow up in anger and either I would end the friendship or the other person would.

So now I'm wanting to learn to stand up for myself so I don't have that same stuff happen. I have boundries now and am working towards enforcing them and its tough because i'm in that between place right now. I know my old way of responding isn't healthy or productive but I'm really scared of this new way. It'll take some time i guess. The worst thing i'm afraid of is hurting people who are already really sensitive and really don't mean to do the wrong things and may not even realize that they are doing it. I guess thats where the assertiveness and "I feel" messages come into play.

I am not caring so much about the people who deliberately try to hurt me though.

[NinjaFrodo]

Opened up to my anger and its really scary. I seem to get into anger loops where I can't seem to get out of. It interferes with relaxing, enjoying fun activities and such. Its annoying, I hate it. I just keep going back to the thoughts and situations of several people who really hurt me. I keep holding on, I feel like I need to in order to protect myself from it happening again and I also want to punish those people.

I'm afraid of my anger, it keeps happening that way and I get obsessive and its hard to break free and then I lash out and it ruins my friendships. I become isolated, I'm afraid of getting angry and afraid of something triggering my anger and I'm coming to find that I really just didn't have any kind of outlet for it. I am afraid of hurting others or their feelings to the point that I don't even allow myself to say negative things or comment about what they are doing or saying. I don't allow myself to laugh when I find something really rediculous because I feel that if I do that then I may hurt their feelings and then people not like me and me being alone again like i was in grade 7. I was a bully, I picked on one girl to impress another and she went along with it for awhile and then gave me a huge guilt trip for it and then became disinterested in me. So instead I think these things and I hate myself for them and then they just keep coming up more and more.

So I'm starting to read about Anger in a book called "when anger hurts". Its a book they used in my friend's anger group and its really inciteful. I am also going to start to use some outlets like swearing when playing videogames, beating pillows and stuff like that. We'll see how that turns out.



MIke

[Anxiety2]

Mike,

Well, after the great success last weekend playing tennis I awoke on Monday and flet depressed. I made a feble attempt at talking myself out of it but I caved and crawled back under the covers! Well, the program is right, the first 10 minutes can sabotage the entire day or week. Well that is exactly what happened. I ended up taking the week off, to my dissmay. But that is where I am and so it is a renewed sense of prupose and I am starting lesson 5 tonight/tomorrow. I did run today, which felt great after no exercise Mon-Sat.. I'll not do that again. However, last Sunday I went to the park and painted a white stripe on the backboard I use (stripe to be the height of the actual net). Well today there was this quite handsome, shirtless, tanned guy using the backboard. He commented on how handy the stripe was and wondered where it came from. Hen I told him I painted it there last week he was surprised and quite appreciative. Anyway, he was a good distraction while I ran!!

I will do food this week and then look to you for help on anger. I had a shrink who had me hit my bed with a tennis racket, he said playing tennis is good as is racketball or boxing. I have a set of gloves that I used to use at the YMCA until they removed their htting bags. I was told you feel your anger in your upper back and the back of your neck and scalp. I don't know what the program says, but that is what I know from him, for what it's worth. I do find that if I fell stressed or anxious if I really concentrate on hitting that ball pretty hard it seems to focus my anger or stress and "get it out" when you hit it with force. It also helps you feel your body more, feel more alive and stronger. All good for the self esteem.

Yep, I lost 30 lbs. Have you ever read the book "Body for Life", by Bill Phillips? I did that program and ended up with 9% fat and weighed 175. It was great and all in 12 weeks too. But I wasn't anxious then or depressed and was able to get 8 or 9 hours of very good sleep, something the book says is realy important. I can believe it after loosing what I have mainly because my sleeping went south.

You may be right about the movie, it could be "how the bleep far dow the rabbit hole" Good movie though.

You also may be right about the gay issues. Same problems just some different circumstances. I used to listen to the guys at work tell about their relationships and quite seriously I coulod have said the same things, only I'd have been talking about another guy instead of my wife. Relationships are basically the same, man-man, woman-woman, man-woman, the basic issues are the same. Where the uniqueness comes in is how society has treated "us" in general. I have always thought that as far as descrimination is concerned it is better being gay than black. At least if you're careful, nobody can tell, but it's hard to hide being black and I've seen some outright blatent descrimination. AND I have still never heard from the relegious fellow!

Anyway, I'm committed to get back at this and do lesson 5 this week. I'll be keeping up with you to see what advice you may have for the other lessons.

Oh, and BTW I did figure you were a real Lord of the Rings fan, with your screen name and all....

Take care,
Mark

[finallyhere]

This is a post reply without reading your 'response'. Thanks for helping as a guide. I am still with the program, even though it was purchased so long ago as to not create 'new' revenue. I apprediate your guidance. frodo. finallyhere stillhere

[NinjaFrodo]

Mark aka Anxiety2,

I am really wondering what thoughts created that sabbotage. What were you telling yourself? What was stressing you out and making you feel so hopeless or discouraged or afraid?

By the way I had to chuckle at the nice distraction. I like those kinds of distractions.

The neck and shoulders or the traps are usually the number 1 place for holding tension and I see that issue the most when treating clients with the shiatsu but that tension can really happen anywhere in the body especially if its a weak area. Some people I find hold tension in their whole back where it feels like steel, others in their hips. Anger itself doesn't really cause that, its more of stress that causes that. Anger is actually a way to relieve that but usually that is just temporary because the feelings you may get when you actually blow up and get angry at someone can give you that stress right back.

I actually smashed Dishes with my friend and with each dish we focused on one thing, person or situation in which we were angry at. We got in tune with that anger and really felt it and then we whipped it at a cement wall and it does really feel good. It feels like apart of that pain and suffering actually does shatter into small pieces. It as you says did make me feel my body more especially this open and warmness in my heart and definately more alive and I felt better about myself.

Body for Life is a program? Is it similar to something like the CBT program with steps and changing things up and talking about diet and stuff? Did it explain why very good sleep is important?

Lol. Its likely called "What the bleep do we know"

You got it! There are some diffrences when it comes to gay and straight relationships, mainly when it comes to sharing emotions and talking and stuff. Women usually are the ones to teach men how to open up and be more sensitive and emotional but when its 2 guys in a relationship its more likely that there isn't as good communication and open-ness. Thats just a generalized statement from a really good book called "10 things gay men can do to find real love". However other then that there are still many of the same issues going on.

One of the other issues with religeon and discrimination is that people equate gay to gay sex. If they don't like gay people then its mainly because of gay sex and if they don't like it then why are they thinking about 2 men having sex? I don't think about those straight couples having sex. Thats how I like to view it but likely for us, we don't have to share that information with anybody we don't trust and don't feel deserves to know that about us. Its privacy without supressing it, just like you wouldn't tell someone who is untrustworthy and known to have a big mouth all your vulnerabilities and the things you feel bad about because you know they might use that against you. Oh well too bad for that religeous guy, he doesn't get the opportunity to be friends with you, his loss.

Alright cool, I will continue to post. Maybe more often than before. If you do have time you should check out "The challenge" series. It was a runthrough of the program that I lead with several other people as well.


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

Your welcome finallyhere and I'll continue to help guide.



So I have been reading a book called "When Anger Hurts" and there are a few key points that I've learned from this book that have really helped me to unstuck myself.

First, Anger is not really something that builds up inside us but more pain and tension/stress, anger is just another coping skill and is used to displace or disperse that tension/stress and instead of using anger you can use another coping skill.

Second, Anger can actually be triggered when other strong emotions come up like hurt, guilt, inferiority, hopelessness...etc because those strong feelings actually create alot of tension and again the anger can displace and disperse those feelings and give some relief.

Third, Anger even though causes relief and helps to reduce that tension/stress, that may only be very temporary as when you blowup at someone or take your anger out on them you may get feelings of shame/guilt and that just adds back those feelings.

Forth, Anger that is directed at other people really hurts them and it creates scar tissue in relationships (friendships, romantic relationships...etc) and then even without being conscious of it these people close up, they share less, they distance themselves, may become more passive-aggressive, they value the angry person less, they resist the person and a whole range of other things and there are many times when that angry cannot be repairable and it drives people completely away.

I've also been working with a model of theirs when it comes to anger episodes. When one comes up you ask yourself what stressors were going on for you before that anger, what were you feeling before the anger came up, what were the triggering thoughts and well it has really got me to realize how alot of the past anger that comes up is really just obsessive thoughts (like mentioned in lesson 10) and now I can really see how that works and how to diffuse them and be conscious of what was going on before that and I have started to do that and have so far gotten through those anger episodes by cutting them off before they spiral.

I had also worked through the workbook and filled out that one section that says to talk about situations that created anger for me and it really helped out alot to write out my expectations of what I wanted and when I filled out the first senario I actually saw what I had wrote on paper and laughed a little about it because it was rediculous and it really helped me to put things into perspective.

So This week's lesson made me really feel like I was in a rut because I did end up getting stuck with obsessive anger but I think I know how to get out of that anger cycle. I have recommitted back to the relaxation cd (because this week I just couldn't seem to relax with all that anger), I have recommitted to doing the cardio and also using the positive self-talk. So back on track I go.


Mike

[NinjaFrodo]

Here is the link for lesson 7 of my runthrough
http://forum.stresscenter.com/viewtopic ... 15&t=25863


MIke