Healing from an emotional trauma or extended traumatic experience is a like a long, intimate dance with reality. Or perhaps a three-act ballet. We are on the stage of our own minds, surrounded by the props of our lives, dancing to the music of our emotions. Our memories flash on the backdrop or float around like ribbons in the air. Down below the stage, in the orchestra pit, a chorus puts words to the feelings and gives us advice drawn from our parents’ rules, our church’s rules, all the rules from the movies and books and conversations that have ever colored our thinking.
And our job is to dance our way through the acts.
The first act is named “Magic Thinking.” We stumble onto the stage, stunned, confused and in pain. Our first dance is denial — the “it doesn’t matter” dance. Our second dance is bargaining — the “maybe I can persuade whoever is in power to fix this” dance. The third and last dance before the intermission is anger.
This article is about anger.
The emotional spine
Everyone here who has gone through the angry phase knows how complex it is. We are indignant, bitter, sarcastic, outraged, waving our fiery swords of blame. We are also — finally — articulate, funny, re-asserting power over our lives. We are hell on wheels, demanding justice or retribution. We are also in transition between bargaining and letting go, so all this is tinged with hope on one side and grief on the other.
Anger really deserves a book, rather than a brief article. It is the end of the first act of our healing, because it really changes everything — our way of seeing, our thinking, our judgments, the way we move forward. Like the element of fire, it can be clarifying, but it can also be destructive. To complicate the situation further, many (if not all of us) tended to repress our anger before we entered this healing process.
So it may be helpful to discuss what anger is, where it comes from. What we call anger is part of a spectrum of reactions that originates in the oldest part of our brain. The brain stem, sometimes called the lizard brain, oversees automatic survival mechanisms like breathing, heartbeat, hunger, sleep and reproduction. It also generates powerful emotional messages related to survival.
These messages travel through increasingly sophisticated layers of our emotional and intellectual processing. One of those layers, the limbic system or mammal brain, is where we keep memories of good and bad events, and work out how to maximize pleasure and avoid pain (often through addictive strategies). The messages pass through this layer on the way to our cerebral cortex.
There in the thinking layer, we name things and organize them. We maintain concepts of community and identity (right and left brain), and we manipulate them continually to run our lives as thinking, self-aware beings. Beyond the thinking brain is the even more advanced area of the frontal cortex, which maintains our awareness of the future, interconnectivity (holistic thinking), and the “high level” views that further moderate our primitive responses into philosophic and spiritual meanings.
What our thinking brains name “anger” is actually a sensation of physical and emotional changes caused by the brain stem in reaction to perceived danger. The spectrum of those danger-related sensations roughly includes alertness, fear and anger. While our higher brain may see a purpose in separating fear and anger into different categories, our lizard brain doesn’t make those distinctions. It just keeps altering our hormones and brain chemicals for all kinds of situations, depending on its analysis of what we need to do to survive.
The point of this long digression is this: alertness-fear-anger responses are a normal part of our ability to survive. They travel “up” into our higher processing as the strong spine of our survival mechanism. There is nothing wrong with feeling them. In fact, paying attention to them is better for us in every way than ignoring our feelings (denial) or trying to delude ourselves about what is happening (bargaining).
The many forms of anger
One of the most interesting things about the English language is its many verb forms, which express various conditions of timeliness and intent. I can. I could. I could have. I would have. I might have. I should have. I will. I might. I was going to.
Those same factors of timeliness and intent can be found in the many facets of anger. Bitterness and resentment are simmering forms of anger related to past and unhealed hurts. Likewise sarcasm and passive-aggressive communications are expressions of old disappointment or despair. Frustration is a low-level form of anger, judging a circumstance or result as unsatisfactory. Contempt and disgust are more pointed feelings associated with negative judgments.
When anger turns into action, we have explosive violence, plans for future revenge and sabotage. When anger is turned on ourselves, we have depression and addictions. The judgments associated with anger foster black-and-white thinking, which can be the basis for bias and all kinds of “ism’s,” especially if the anger is old, blocked for some reason, and thus diffuse or not directed primarily at its source. This typically happens when we feel disempowered to defend ourselves.
All of that sounds pretty terrible and toxic. But, in fact, the most toxic forms of anger are the ones in which the anger is not allowed to surface. The lizard brain does not stop trying to protect us until we deal with the threat, and so we live with the brain chemicals and hormones of anger until we do.
Anger can also be healthy. The anger of Jesus toward the money changers in the temple is a model of righteous anger. In response to trauma, righteous anger is a crucial part of the healing process. Anger has these characteristics:
• Directed at the source of the problem
• Narrowly focused and dominating our thinking
• Primed for action
• Intensely aware of personal resources (internal and environmental)
• Willing to accept minor losses or injuries to win
Anger is about taking care of business. At its most primitive level, anger is what enables us to defend our lives, to kill what would kill us. In modern times, it enables us to meet aggression with aggression in order to defend ourselves or our turf. We expect to feel pain in these battles, but we are fighting to win.
However, anger also has its exhilaration, a sense of being in a moment where we claim our own destiny. For those of us who have been living through the relatively passive and self-defeating agony of denial and bargaining, anger can feel wonderful.
As it should, because anger is the expression of our deepest self, rejecting this new reality. We are finally in speaking-up mode. We are finally taking in our situation and saying, “No! I don’t want this. I don’t like it. I don’t like you for creating this in my life. I don’t like how it feels. I don’t like what I’m getting out of it. And if it doesn’t stop this instant, I want you out of my life.”
Getting over our resistance to anger
Of course, we don’t exactly say that when we’re inside the relationship. In fact, we don’t exactly think it, even when we’re out of the relationship. And why is that? Because — and this only my theory, but it seems to be born out here on LoveFraud — people who get involved with sociopaths are prone to suppress their anger, because they are afraid of it, ashamed of it, or confused about its meaning.
When faced with a painful situation, they suppress their inclination to judge the situation in terms of the pain they’re experiencing, and instead try to understand. They try to understand the other person. They try to understand the circumstances. They try to interpret their own pain through all kinds of intellectual games to make it something other than pain. To an extent, this could be described as the bargaining phase. But for most of us, this is a bargaining phase turned into a life strategy. It’s an unfinished response to a much earlier trauma that we have taken on as a way of life.
Which is very good for the sociopath, who can use it to gaslight us while s/he pursues private objectives of looting our lives for whatever seems useful or entertaining. Until we have nervous breakdowns or die, or wake up.
We can all look at the amount of time it took us to wake up, or the difficulty we’re having waking up, at evidence of how entrenched we’ve been in our avoidance of our own anger. It retrospect, it is an interesting thing to review. Why didn’t we kick them out of our lives the first time they lied or didn’t show up? Why didn’t we throw their computer out of the window when we discovered their profiles on dating sites? Why didn’t we cut off their money when we discovered they were conning us? Why didn’t we spit in their eye when they insulted us? Why didn’t we burn their clothes on the driveway the first time they were unfaithful?
Because we were too nice to do that? Well, anger is the end of being nice. It may be slow to emerge. We may have to put all the pieces together in our heads, until we decide that yes, maybe we do have the right to be angry. Yes, they were bad people. No, we didn’t deserve it. And finally, we are mad. At them.
Anger in our healing process
Anger is the last phase of magical thinking. We are very close to a realistic appraisal of reality. The only thing “magical” about it is this: no amount of outrage or force we can exert on the situation can change it. The sociopath is not going to change. We cannot change the past, or the present we are left with.
But anger has its own gifts. First and foremost is that we identify the external cause of our distress. We place our attention where it belongs at this moment — on the bad thing that happened to us and the bad person who caused it.
Second, we reconnect with our own feelings and take them seriously. This is the beginning of repairing our relationships with ourselves, which have often become warped and shriveled with self-hatred and self-distrust when we acted against our own interests in our sociopathic relationships.
Third, anger is a clarifying emotion. It gives us a laser-like incisiveness. It may not seem so when we are still struggling with disbelief or self-questioning or resentment accumulated through the course of the relationship. But once we allow ourselves to experience our outrage and develop our loathing for the behavior of the sociopath, we can dump the burden of being understanding. We can feel the full blazing awareness that runs through all the layers of brain, from survival level through our feelings through our intellect and through our eyes as we look at that contemptible excuse for a human being surrounded by the wreckage s/he creates. Finally our brains are clear.
And last, but at least as important as the rest, is the rebirth of awareness of personal power that anger brings. Anger is about power. Power to see, to decide, to change things. We straighten up again from the long cringe, and in the action-ready brain chemicals of anger, we surprise ourselves with the force of our ability and willingness to defend ourselves. We may also surprise ourselves with the violent fantasies of retribution and revenge we discover in ourselves. (Homicidal thoughts, according to my therapist, are fine as long as we don’t act on them.)
It is no wonder that, for many of us, the angry phase is when we learn to laugh again. Our laughter may be bitter when it is about them. But it can be joyous about ourselves, because we are re-emerging as powerful people.
The main thing we do with this new energy is blaming. Though our friends and family probably will not enjoy this phase (because once we start blaming, it usually doesn’t stop at the sociopath), this is very, very important. Because in blaming, we also name what we lost. When we say “you did this to me,” we are also saying, “Because of you, I lost this.”
Understanding what has changed — what we lost — finally releases us from magical thinking and brings us face to face with reality. For many of us this is an entirely new position in our personal relationships. In the next article, we’ll discuss how anger plays out in our lives.
Until then, I hope you honor your righteous anger, casting blame wherever its due. And take a moment to thank your lizard brain for being such a good friend to you.
Namaste. The healing warrior in me salutes the healing warrior in you.
Kathy
Newlife… They are devoid creatures who try to sabotage us (esp. emotionally) when we try to become independent of them. Even knowing what to expect from them — doesnt ease the pain when we see their writing on the wall. Your reactions to his actions were and are very normal. The goal once i stood up for myself, which was always so difficult for me to do, has been to try to separate my real emotions from his twisted claims and accusations . So try to stand your ground and dont back down…taking one day at a time will get you through…you also have alot of support here as well. I hope the journey isnt as frustrating with Steve on board… my prayers are with you.
Newlife, I relate to what you’re going through. I had almost 10 yrs of marriage to a non real person. I married a fantasy and woke up to a nightmare. It seems the longer we stay the more we rationalize staying. We don’t like what we have but fear the loss none the less. It is so much harder with children. We don’t want to break their family. My Ex is not the biological father but he was there for much of the raising. Now just gone. We all no longer exist to him. He has new victim and she has kids to replace mine in his life. His daughter has the whore to replace me. I’m left just feeling really dumb for putting my life and happiness on hold. He moved on to instant relationship that had been going on behind my back for over a year. How nice for him to never have to be alone or waste a moment wondering if love will ever be a part of life again. Of course for them, it’s not the game of love. It’s just the game of power, control, and exploitation. Here’s to not playing their game anymore with them or any new players. Towanda!
Joy, You mentioned that you are in the place of looking inward as I am too, rather that trying to spend as much time trying to understand him. Its been the single most challenging thing for me.
And something I realized, was that for the longest time, DESPITE knowing and verbalizing to others the horrible reality of what he did, the way he treated me, the lies, the other women, the money he stole, despite my awareness of it all– there was this part of me that as Newlife and as SO MANY LF READERS express – a part of me that felt I would take him back in an instant – and several times I would fall off the wagon and do just that.
So, when I was going over everything in my mind, I made the discovery at a certain point – that there was increasing reason to believe on top of his disorder being the biggest factor — there was something flawed about me. Simply by virtue of stating all the horrific facts and then verbalizing if he wanted to come back, I would do it. Irregardless if the events included apologies, or his claims he will change and never do it again, or whatever “tactics” he would use to try to come back or just walk back in to my life – I would have taken him back. One of my flaws allowing the cycle to continue….
It took me so long to realize that notiion and action in and of itself was my personal wake-up and snap out of it moment -this was no longer solely about him — it was about me if I was willing to take him back fully aware of his inability to love and only use, abuse, lie, hurt me– had to figure out what is it about myself that would allow him back – for me I found it to be my lack of self-love, self-respect — why would I even rationalize that someone who used me, abused me, lied to me, degraded me could easily come back, walk back in to my life. (ahhh my lack of self-trust and my inability to face the reality of the situation and my never=ending desire to want it to work out, change, get better. But at that point for me, it no longer was just about him – it became about me –
For me, it was mostly all about him and his dyfunctional ways. And had I already been armed with sufficient amount of self-trust, self-love, self-respect — I would never have been able to be a revolving door/nor want to be — and my healing time would have been much shorter. But it has taken me several years to be able to say at some point this became about me – any my awareness that I had underlying issues I needed to fix about myself so the cycle could end and truly neve occur in my life again.
And the post on the other thread about closure — a healing post — about the reality of why I desperately sought closure. Now realizing it was unhealthy to seek it – its either shared between two healthy mature adults — or its not to be had simply because it shouldnt be needed or expected from someone whose main goal is to never give you what you want or need. Duh me!!
CAN SOMEONE respond.
I have been in NC– and a whole new state– everything since Oct. 4th.
Why oh why oh why– am I still dreaming of him all of the timne? And the dreams you guys– are SO REAL AND COLORFUL and exhausting and most of all PAINFUL. I wake up all sweaty!
My God– they are torurous! To be back at his home– but he is with another girl– and has redone his home– and I am wondering–“Why did you not love me enough to do this?”
and of course sex is involved in the dreams and jealousy and most of all–TRYING TO GET HIM BACK!!!
Why oh why– would I know what he is–I trust all of you–
and yet– I go to sleep and dream about my lost love and what I could have done to avoid his discard of me in a moments notice?
My God– I have been divorced before and never dreamnt about my exhusband!!!
It proves however what a trauma– sudden ending of what I thought was a two year love relationshiip.
but why am I trying to get him back in my dreams when I wo7uld not do that in real life now that I know what he is and is NOT.
thanks–
Dear Newlife,
I think you are a much stronger person than I would be in your situation. As it were, the sociopath never said one damaging thing to or about me (that I am aware of). I walked away before the devalue stage. I walked when I started seeing the crazy inconsistencies and lies. I think if I’d stuck around for the devalue, I don’t think I could have handled it. Even without the mean bad words from him, I still felt like the most worthless POS on the bottom of a toilet bowl after the break-up (it was very unclear who discarded whom because he took no responsibility for a no-show, no-call). Disrespectful behaviors, even without harsh words, can be very damaging, I think even moreso sometimes. If he had ever called me a fat slob or something like that, I would have known he is a creep and left immediately. But he was able to sneak the bizarre behaviors by me without me knowing what he was for several months.
I’m so glad you know the truth after 22 years. Your life can only get better now. Good for you!
You are right, the new “hairstyle” brought out the part of me that I see most often in my dreams. I feel I am retaining that part, even though the wig is sitting on the dresser, and it doesn’t seem to have the same emotional effect while I’m looking at it today. It really has been a symbol for me, strange as that sounds.
Dear Meg,
I dont have answers for you in regard to why the dreams – just remember its only been a little over 5 months – there is so much confusion in your system – probably even your subconscious as well..
Sometimes when I would say to myself why didnt he love me enough to make us work… I realized the reality was he didnt love me, he couldnt love me – and I had to accept that. Have to accept the reality. Meg, there was nothing you could have done to avoid his discard of you, and lets say you had sidestepped the discard that night – lets say you did some amazing fancy footwork to keep him from discarding you that night — WAS IT ALL JUST ABOUT THAT ONE NIGHT FOR YOU? OR WAS IS HELL LEADING UP TO IT ? WAS IT TRULY A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP ? WERE YOU REALLY HAPPY AND WAS THE GIVE AND TAKE EQUAL? WAS HE HONEST AND TRUSTWORTHY> Those are the things you have to honestly determine – what was he like, how did he treat you/others leading up to that night – what was your relationship really like with him like?? Honestly.
Yes its been a traumatic event for you. What you thought was a love relationship, was not. Same with so many of us. So to want it back or get it back – we would be seeking a loveless, harmful, damaging soul to return into our lives. Have to understand why you Meg, would be ok with that. Because the reality is you wouldnt be long term. Have you made your list Aloha suggested – about alll the bad things he did to you? To help you stay strong during the day – and help you sort out the confusion… maybe that will be helpful.
I hope somebody has more insight about dreams and their meanings for you. And that with more and more time and continued NC and keep reaching out to LF and supportive people when you are struggling – you will get through this. YOU WILL!!
Akitameg,
You are dreaming about him because the bond you had with him was deep and you had invested so much into the relationship. You are still grieving. I have dreamt about guys I loved for years after the breakup. I still do sometimes, though it gets less and less. I believe that dreams are a reservoir for all kinds of unresolved feelings that we are trying to work out. Over time, as your feelings get more resolved, you may notice your dreams change. You may be standing up to him or even ignoring him in your dreams. And eventually, the dreams themselves will get farther and fewer between. Obviously, these dreams are affecting you after you wake up. This is because of the unresolved feelings you still have. In a way it is good that your dreams are pointing to the feelings you still have so you can work them out. You may want to do some writing–write a letter to the S who hurt you (but I wouldn’t recommend sending it). Try to get the feelings out. It takes time. At some point, you will turn a corner and want to start filling your life with other things. There is no time frame on grieving, my friend. But sounds like this is where you are, and it is perfectly normal, given what you have been through.
I know you feel like it is taking a long time. But be patient with yourself. You are only human. The ability to love and bond is a human trait that is very bittersweet. The one who hurt you so deeply will never be able to experience that kind of bond, if it is any small consolation.
Learned, Thanks for sharing. The hard part for me is knowing that I’m dysfunctional. I can’t even consider a new relationship because I truly have no clue as to how to go about the whole process. All the skills that should have been learned, were missed because I have always been drawn to emotionally wounded types. The desire to heal their hearts was great enough to allow them to break mine. I’m sure I have had my fair share of N’s. The ex is the only SP so far. I’m a magnet for them so I can’t trust myself to try friendship or dating with any men beyond my cyber buddies and my childhood friends their are no men. My therapist was great and very perceptive in our first meeting. He thinks the dysfunction of my childhood and being abandoned by my Dad twice plays into my issues. I have a great relationship with my Dad now, but it doesn’t change the fact that deep down I feel that people will always abandon me when I need them most. By choosing bad men, I get what I expect and theoretically it should hurt less to lose a piece of crap than to lose a real gem of a man. At least, this is my theory so far. I remember reading, Women Who Love Too Much in my teens. I know that at the time it spoke to me. I need to read it again as well as the Betrayal Bond. For now, the process has become about me not him. I know why I want him. He never fails to not give me what I need. That is familiar and it is what I know.
Meg, I’m sorry that he plagues your dreams. I had the beat him up rip his penis off dream which was somewhat sexual though we were fully clothed. Even in my dreams I can’t get him naked.LOL. And I had the closure dream where even in my dreams I can’t get answers from him. But so far only those. Really, I suggest counseling. Most places have free counseling with pastors or at domestic violence shelters. They would welcome you even without physical abuse because the patterns of behavior are the same even without the violence. If you can afford medication and a true therapist I think it would help. I plan to start medication to ease my anxiety and to help me sleep better as soon as I get off the heart monitor next month.
Star, So glad you had a knock ’em dead day. Let your light shine! It sounds like you are trying to get in touch with your authentic self. I recommend books by Sarah Ban Breathnach. I think you would enjoy the exercises. They are fun and enlightening. I know they lead me to the Hair dye aisle. Red hair for the inner Irish gal and it just looks good with the freckles. But really, I just want to be a Ginger Kid. LOL
Joy – you said something that stood out….
“The desire to heal their hearts”….. when in fact, we havent even healed our own hearts. I think I projected that desire within me onto them…when in fact they dont even want their hearts healed. I just covered up the fact that I did, or busied myself with trying to ” heal” his.. instead of focusing on healing mine.
And Joy, the goal for me is to not pick BAD MEN, because GOOD MEN wont blatantly abandon people. And btw it hurts to lose anyone who have chosen to bond with and love — good or bad men. But a good man will give you his goodness – we have to give ourselves what we need – up to and including being surrounded by good men and women. We have to realize the person we need most to protect us, support us, love us is ourselves. Trust ourselves we can give the basics – strength, love, respect — when we do this we are no longer magnets to them – we are aware of what our boundaries need to be and we are that much closer to being on the right track for life. Im heading out to do errands, but I wanted to tell you that your comment about wanting to heal their hearts – was the way Ive lived for far too long. I want to heal my own heart and share a strong balanced healthy me with someone i will attract because I will never give a bad man another chance – first red flag – hes in the red flag dumpster. I must and will learn to trust myself once and for all!!! Thanks
Joy, this is a very funny you should mention that author, but I was at a flea market yesterday, and a book called “The Authentic Self” by Sarah Breathnach was sitting out in one of the exhibits. It caught my eye, and I would have bought it but it was very expensive for a flea market. So I didn’t get it. There is always the library, though.
Reading some of the latest posts made me realize how complicated it is to heal from these dysfunctional relationships. It might be easier if we could just see once and for all that the sociopath is crazy and his behaviors have nothing to do with us. But the complicated part is that we know we have issues as well, and that we cannot have a healthy relationship until we heal these issues within ourselves. Sometimes (at least for me) that can translate into blaming ourselves for what went wrong. It took many years of grieving and dreaming about an ex to realize (after joining this site) that he was truly not capable of loving me. He was not a sociopath, but was emotionally unavailable and had some antisocial tendencies. When I finally saw that after being broken up with him for 8 years, the dreams stopped. Always in my dreams about him (however few they have been in later years) I was trying to talk to him or make peace with him, or else he was cheating on me or left me for another woman, and I was feeling awful. It really did help to know for certain that the guy I was in love with really was never capable of returning that love. I felt the bond a wife feels with her husband with that guy. We were only together for 3 years and lived together for most of it. I believed he was the one I would marry and spend the rest of my life with. The discard was so brutal and painful, and it wiped me out financially too. Knowing how bonded I was to him, I can’t even imagine how hard it is for some of you who were married for years and had a family with these creeps. It took a long time not to feel bonded with the guy of 3 years. And even when he was the farthest thing from my mind, like you, Meg, dreams of him would pop up out of nowhere. It seems like there are still pockets of grief I go through over him and other past relationships. It’s almost as if the more healing I do, I have to re-process these old relationships in the light of the new information. Last night I was dreaming about my mother and stepfather (who died many hears ago) and woke up feeling depressed. I hate the ups and downs.