christians make me spew pea soup...help!
Date: January 19, 2005 08:30PM
I am not a counselor, so these are some educated guesses based on what Ive been through and what Ive read about other people's recovery. Make sure to check this with your counselor.
First, recovery occurs in stages. What helps you in one stage of recovery may not help later. Its like children and shoes--kids outgrow shoes and you dont want them wearing a pair that's become too small for thier feet--or too large, otherwise they get foot injuries or they run the risk of tripping.
There is no problem with anger as long as you dont act on it or make important decisions based on it.
In early recovery it is very common to go through a phase of being mad as hell at everyone and everything associated with your former group. And its important to be able to step back and question the belief system of a person or group that harmed you and defined reality for you.
In later recovery, you can learn to remain alert but not need anger to stay alert. That's the area where a counselor can be a gigantic help.
It is also an important step in recovery when we can let ourselves feel sad about what we went through. Feeling sad and betrayed is often much more painful than feeling angry. SOme people prefer to feel angry because anger feels nice and powerful. They hate feeling sad and betrayed, because in those states one often feels weak and weakness can feel scary.
If you begin feeling 'stuck' in anger, ask if underneath you're feeling sad or scared. If this freaks you out, its an area where a counselor can really help.
In early recovery, very often many people have to go through a stage of being angry, because thats how they 1) regain the ability to feel their boundaries 2) get in contact with the reality that they've felt harmed and lied to (depends on the group) and 3) anger is often the only way many of us can discover our personal boundaries, especially if we never learned to develop them as children.
Its interesting that many groups teach that anger is bad and even evil. If people are trained to feel afraid and ashamed even to feel anger, they get cut off from an important source of information about their boundaries and whether they could be experiencing harm.
Key thing is respect that you were hurt, grieve for what you lost, let yoiurself feel angry but dont act or make important decisions from anger.
Eventually this will pass. You may need at times to leave the room or change the subject of a conversation so you dont blow up.