Expressing Healthy Anger in Your Trauma Recovery
Have you been abused and traumatized? Are you wrestling with roller coaster emotions, including anger, grief, and invalidation? If so, today’s blog post is to offer psychoeducation about expressing healthy anger in your trauma recovery.
Anger is a natural human emotion. Feeling angry is a common and normal trauma response to violent, toxic people who disrespected your boundaries and safety.
The predators will lash out at you if you do express your anger toward them. They will call you, “Crazy!” This is how they deflect and deny your own conscious reality.
The abusers deny what they have said and done to you. The physical abuse, the psychological abuse, the sexual abuse, and all of their appalling evil actions.
The toxic folks refuse to accept personal ownership and accountability for their cruel words and behaviors. Oftentimes, they will invalidate the hellish nightmare they put you through. (Denial, deception, deflection, and selective amnesia.)
I find it quite malicious when so-called Christians lash out at abuse survivors. Before you judge, condemn, and criticize a person for feeling angry towards the abusers, educate yourself about the five stages of grief.
In case you are unaware, anger is a normal stage of grief and loss. It is disrespectful and triggering when people accuse trauma survivors of being sinful for feeling angry. The naysayers hiss, “Just move on and get over it!”
If someone truly is a believer, they will demonstrate the fruit of the spirit; being loving, kind, and respectful. Otherwise, they are a wolf disguised in sheep's clothing.
Even Jesus expressed righteous anger. Righteous anger is getting angry at the evil things that are not of God. Feeling anger is not “bad.” It is actually a healthy expression when you’ve been traumatized, violated, and abused.
Before you try to get into a heated debate about anger, I challenge you to learn the credible facts about how repressed anger, suppressed anger, and buried anger can do more harm to you; physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
According to Dr. Gabor Mate’, trauma and addiction expert, if a person represses or stuffs their anger and emotions after being abused, it can manifest into full-blown illnesses. Many trauma survivors who’s suffered abuse, who buried their pain for many years, and who have legitimate anger may get diagnosed with:
· Chronic Pain
· Cancer
· Complex PTSD
· Compounded Trauma
· Auto-immune Conditions
· GI Distress
· Debilitating Migraines
· Anxiety Disorder
· Clinical Depression
· Addictions
· Maladaptive Coping Mechanisms
· Plus, other medical conditions
“The less conscious we are of anger, the more deeply it eats away at us. I have seen many people with migraine headaches or asthma or nerve pain, for example, whose resentment nerve found its way to the surface in the form of direct, healthy assertion.” ~ Dr. Gabor Mate’
Dear Abuse Survivors, my prayer for you is to give yourself permission to fully express all of your human emotions. To find a productive way to express your righteous anger towards the despicable violence, manipulation, and insidious abuse that you have suffered.
In effort to allow anger to move through your body to release it, may you have the courage to feel it to heal it. Be gentle with yourself. Consider seeking emotional support by a trauma-informed expert.
Lastly, to gain more wisdom about healthy anger and trauma, I recommend that you watch Dr. Gabor Mate’s YouTube video, Anger is Your Ally: A Mindful Approach to Healthy Anger.