PSYCHOLOGY: "Anger After A Traumatic Relationship, is a sign of healing!"

Three Quick Questions You Need Answers to:

1. Why am i still angry?

2.How can i recover from this traumatic event by using my anger proactively as part of the healing process?

3. How can i distinguish between anger related to developmental challenges (for example anger due to abandonment/cheating of a partner), versus anger lodged in the nervous system after an impactful traumatic event (“fight response”, “flash rage”), versus anger generated by cognition (rageaholism, low frustration tolerance)?

The 1st thing you need to understand is that anger is energy, or life force, but different moments of anger can have completely different origins. 

It is important to try to figure out the true origin of your anger because anger based on distorted thinking (like i fucking hate his guts! I wish he would die) often will simply vanish into thin air as the thinking is adjusted, but anger stuck in the nervous system due to trauma is an important doorway into healing from trauma. One needs to be released; the other needs to be embraced.

Anger and Trauma

In my experience, anger that is coming up in relation to past traumatic relationships is like a tiny plant that needs nurturing, or a bud blooming into a flower. 

It is the beginning of a process of healing, a process of building back what was broken, of developing an innate sense of having human rights and starting to express one’s conviction around having human rights. 

"It is an important doorway to expression about one’s feelings about the violations they experienced, and it is a component of the telling of one’s story."

 It is an access point to one’s trapped life force, one’s voice, and lost aspects of the self. 

It can be the path to soul retrieval, the restoration of one’s memories of their true nature, or the recovery of natural innate ways of being that they have been cut off from.

Neocortex as Jailer

In each brain, we all have 3 responses to every situation!

1. Fight

2. Flight

3. Freeze 

Mate, please be aware that because of how human brains are wired, much of this (Fight, Flight or Freeze) energy, becomes buried in regards to anger and aggression.

The neocortex, the brain that “thinks” and rationalises and makes us human rather than animal, has been well trained to be civilised.

It's been well trained to also run programs that are civilised, and we tend to settle into and rely on these programs to behave ourselves in society. Thank God for the neocortex, we don’t want everyone behaving like cave people again! Unfortunately, the proper, civilised neocortex creates a host of problems during the process of healing from trauma because of its efficiency in burying things.

Flash Rage “ROAR!”

Most people experience “flash rages.” This is anger that seems like it's coming out of nowhere. For instance, its like there's a volcano underground but it only releases small spurts of lava once in a while. The flash rages are animal-like. It almost feels like a lion that is suddenly growling and snarling and roaring wildly.

How You Heal

When most people experience trauma in their past or present relationship, their perception of reality gets changed drastically. Reality becomes completely full of triggers, or things that are dangerous. 

 "At a certain point the fight response kicks in and, like a faint light bulb turning on. You automatically get the brand new insight that you can fight against the triggers and try to make them go away."

This is the beginning emergence of a sense of self, of wanting to DO something about the trigger, wanting to be capable of making it go away, wanting to be assertive and proactive rather than passive and reactive. 

But the communication may be that of a 3 to 5-year-old child. For example, sudden outbursts of “I HATE YOU!” or “I HATE THAT!” This kind of expression doesn’t solve anything but it represents a breakthrough because it’s the first time the fight response forms a verbal expression to another person. However, the underlying feeling is still mostly of helplessness and passivity.

"Anger that is associated with a traumatic relationship is an indication of melting or thawing. It is a positive sign that the energy trapped during the traumatic experience is trying to find a way to be expressed, ultimately resolving itself. It is also a positive sign that one’s sense of self that was damaged during the traumatic relationship is growing back. Which is great in helping you find love and affection again"

Don't worry, if you are still angry after a long time. There is absolutely no time limit to healing! This is because you are overcoming the numb, immobilised state common after a traumatic life experience. When you are angry, it is an indication that you feel safe enough to risk coming to life again. 
You should congratulate yourself for it.

Especially if you appear awkward, childish or slightly neurotic! 

It's absolutely NORMAL!