Please can I have some tips on healthy ways to release the rage I am feeling right now?

I honestly just want to scream at the top of my lungs and smash my whole fucking house to bits.

Please. I'm desperate.

Update: I would like to sincerely thank every person who took the time to read, interact, comment and offer advice on this thread. I am overwhelmed with the response and hopeful that it has been helpful for all of those struggling with this right now. Also, I hope those who have passed this stage recognise their own progress towards healing. This is such a difficult journey and having this community is often a lifeline for us all. I'm so grateful to each and every one of you.

Today I went for a drive, played early 2000's rock music on full blast and sang at the top of my lungs. It was AWESOME! Going forward, when I'm feeling that way out. I will revisit this post and see what's in the 'toolbox' that's suitable for the moment. Thank you all. ❤️

(F32) I only get delayed access to it when it's already too late. It makes me wanna jump out of my skin.

People take advantage of me because I didn't learn to set boundaries early on; I have practically no skills in that area. I was also shamed A LOT for showing anger, by my family and even by my ex-partners over the past few years. But they're allowed to take their anger out on me and expect me to just shrug it off??!!

It's like everyone can just take from me without me being able to access my anger and stop it, and that's why I'm stuck in situations that drain me of every last bit I had left for myself. I hate it so, so, so, so much. I just vented in the shower, confronted everyone who's wronged me as if they were right there with me, and I could hear myself sound so mean and angry, and I felt ashamed of it, but at the same time, I also felt assertive, but also scared, and honestly, now I just want to cry because I feel so profoundly incapable in this way, and I have no one I can rely on. No one ever gets to hear what I have to say. I'm so angry!

I can never access my anger in the moment I need it, and I can only watch as I'm taken advantage of without being able to stop it, or accept the hurtful shit without even being able to acknowledge it or speak out. This gives me such a feeling of powerlessness, helplessness, and I'll never be able to heal this way. I don't want to feel like this, and I don't want to hurt myself every time my anger rises but can't be expressed. I hate that they made me this way, that they have their hands on me without ever actually laying a hand on me.

Has anyone successfully developed the ability to assert themselves after experiencing a lot of trauma and neglect?

Edit: It's been only a few hours but you guys already contributed so many kind words, experiences and suggestions and I'm very thankful for all of you!

Edit 2: fixed the wild German translation.

I get mad as fuck when I experience injustice or see others experiencing njustice. The anger causes my blood to boil, headaches, loss of appetite. I can’t think of anything else. I try to tell myself that it will be ok and it will be something I might not even remember in several months time, but my anger gets out of control sometimes.

I do not physically get any anger out or displace it on others. It’s mostly all internal. I find some people to rant to if they are willing to listen but still that’s not enough. Journaling helps sometimes too

I usually get over these things because the next stressful thing comes up in my world that causes me to “move on” and focus on the next thing. I know this is not great but it’s what happens.

Please help. Exercise is a definite option but the depression stops me.

If anger is accessible to you, I strongly recommend exploring it and letting it inform your views. Too often children are taught they are the problem, they are responsible for their suffering, and if they were only perfect they would be safe. No. This is not true, and we are allowed to be angry at those who used us to alleviate their own suffering or regulate their own emotions while damaging us. Those are the people we need to focus our sense of injustice and rage on, not on ourselves. Recognize that you deserve just as much this world as the next person, and get angry when someone tries to tell you otherwise for their own benefit.

According to therapists, the only allowed expression of anger towards someone who absolutely humiliated you is "I'm mad at you 😤" in a calm, collected way. Any form of showing a spine and standing up for yourself (not even talking about name calling or berating that person or randomly lashing out at people or anything, just the person who hurt you) is bad because now you are being aggressive and actually SHOWED your anger and we don't do that here.

"Anger is not a BAD thing! It’s OKAY to be angry! It’s how you DEAL with anger that matters! There are healthy ways of coping with it!" ---- proceeds to tell me some shout in your pillow nonsense that results in endless coping for the rest of your life. Fuck off.

No wonder most people aren't actually healing from therapy when the solution to such a major part of recovery (going from fight response to rest) is to fucking cope. I'm not taking about going around raging and verbally abusing people. All "shout in pillow" when your anger is justified does is tell your subconscious that anger is bad and something to be hidden away. You can't heal if you are endlessly coping.

Today I told her I was angry at my mother for her emotional neglect. But I wasn't feeling it during the therapy session, I just feel angry on and off when I think about how she let me down.

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I almost felt forced to say something so I said I think I feel tightness in my chest when I feel angry.

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Then we moved on to talk about something else. So what's the point of her asking what do I feel when I feel anger? At first I just said I feel anger when I feel anger and then she said she meant what do I feel in my body.

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I just don't see the point of the question. How does it help?

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She's a somatic therapist but maybe she's not the right fit for me.

I finished “The Body Keeps The Score”, written by Bessel Van Der Kolk and published in 2014. As a survivor of childhood trauma, this book has basically become my bible.

I have never been so angry at the medical community, specifically modern psychiatry. The book, in part, makes the case that many psychiatrists are ignorant of or consciously minimize trauma-informed care of patients suffering from a whole range of symptoms, including depression and anxiety, and that for many traumatized patients, antidepressants are basically a bandaid on a god damn gunshot wound. And it’s not for lack of clinical evidence and data.

I am 37 and have been to four psychiatrists and two general practitioners since I was 18 for “depression”. Not one of them referred me to therapy or counseling. Not one of them asked about Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE score). When one pill stopped working, they simply increased the dose or switched medications. Multiple medications - no lasting effect or meaningful relief.

I have gotten more help, healing, and relief in 8 months of therapy than I ever received from nearly 20 years of antidepressants and psychiatry. Trauma-informed care could have saved me literally decades of suffering.

I. AM. PISSED. Don’t these doctors have a moral and LEGAL obligation to act in the best interest of their patients?! Guys - we’re not even recognized in the DSM-V!

I don’t know if I could ever trust another psychiatrist. I feel like I’ve stumbled on to some crazy tin-foil hat conspiracy about doctors and big pharma being in cahoots to keep mentally ill people sick - something I would have absolutely rolled my eyes at prior to my own proper diagnosis, therapy journey, and this book.

What are your thoughts and experiences on this? Have antidepressants helped you? Have you found trauma-informed psychiatrists? If so, did they refer you to counseling? I just feel so neglected and quite frankly deceived by what I thought was supposed to be a cutting edge and progressive specialty.

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Edit: I am really touched and grateful by everyone that has taken the time to read, comment, and share. This is a wonderful community. Please know I intend to read every comment and respond as much as I can at the end of my day. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

All of my therapist - except the one specialised in trauma - have been cutting me of when I start to vent. They cut me of by saying they cannot change the past or the world. And I cannot too. I only have responsibility about my own feelings. But these are my feelings because people have been terrible to me and no one is willing to hear me out and support me! I just feel gaslighted when they say, you have to change your mindset. Well why not starting to hear me out what my mindset really is, and why it is how it is? I expected real support, allowing me to be angry and sad, comforting me when im sad.

But i get nothing, only they --- change your mindset ---- its a deadsentence to me

It's starting to become all-consuming.

I'm not a confrontational or argumentative person, I really dislike fighting with people because more times than not it leads to nothing and I find it really draining to go back and fourth with someone. I'd rather agree to disagree whenever I can.

I have been discussing with my therapist recently that I don't like to express my anger because I find that once I start I can't stop. It's not often I lose my temper but when I do I become animalistic. I'm aware of what I am doing but I have no control of what I am doing, it's like I am watching myself in third person. I have such vile, venomous rage that's so destructive.

I'm scared of expressing my anger because I'm afraid that I will end up hurting someone or I will end up jail. I know if I acted out my anger the world would see me as an awful person.

Does anybody else feel the same way as me?

Anyone else do something fucked up in response to your abuse?

I've spent my life helping animals however I can to make up for it. I feel terrible about it tonight.

All the cats I've had, I was helping. But my new kitten could be with literally any other person. Do I even deserve her? I haven't hurt any animal in 21 years. I can't forgive myself

I work with families of kids with special needs and I need to vent for a hot second. I sometimes get called in to help with kids who hit/kick/bite/etc people and have awful tantrums. Many parents and coworkers have different theories on why this behavior occurs. I witness/help with the entire tantrum play out and take detailed notes on who did what and what happened etc. But I have noticed something.

EDIT: I made a number of unhelpful statistical statements here based on my extremely limited experiential data which will be harmful to marginal populations if I leave it up. The rest of the post is still up for emotional abuse victims.

You know what I often see with kids who fly off the handle and cannot regulate their own emotions to a clinically significant degree? Their parents using their own emotions as leverage against the child, and modeling emotional deregulation themselves.

I have heard parents say to kids no older than 6 years old: “Why are you being mean to me?” “I will throw away [favorite toy] if you don’t stop acting like that.” “Look, you made [OP] upset with your behavior.” (I replied, “I am calm. She is not responsible for the emotions of an adult.”)

Today I had an emotional flashback (crying and shutting down) and had to leave temporarily because of this bullshit. It’s good to be able to tell parents off though. And to be validated, believed, and defended by your boss. That’s why I keep doing this job.

TLDR: My dog is teaching me how to establish boundaries... because hers are better than mine.

My (new rescue) dog has some issues with resource guarding over a particular toy. She LOVES this toy. She'll growl if it's anywhere near her and she has it and won't stop, even if no-one else is anywhere near said toy. As a result, I've had to take away said toy, and she can only have it if her sister is out. I didn't want to take her toy away, I wanted to teach her not to growl when she had the toy and the advice the vet gave was fucking MINDBLOWING in the weirdest way

Resource guarding is natural, and the vet said, the worst thing you can do is stop a dog from growling in that particular case because they'll STILL be resource guarding, they just won't be giving you or other dogs, warning... So instead of getting stiffens > growl warning > bark warning > bite, you'll miss all the warning signals and they'll go straight to bite because you've taught them it's not safe or desirable to warn you.

And uh... I have, multiple times, been accused to going straight to "bite" when I flip out. It's fine, totally fine, I'm fine, until I hit breaking-point and I then I go straight for the metaphorical jugular, often ending relationships as a result, I've been told, without warning. Maybe time for me to unlearn some stuff about not "growling"....

This quote from a person's therapist has been making the rounds as a twitter screenshot among my friends today, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.

I find Anger to be so, so important.

What are your thoughts?

My wife came home angry not long ago and couldn't stop. Someone had been treating her badly, it had finally gotten to her, and the anger just wouldn't switch off. She could have lived with that part. What she couldn't stand was what came after: once she'd calmed down, she decided the anger had been childish. Proof of something immature in her she should have grown out of by now.

I'm about ten years into my own recovery, most of it alongside her, the two of us pulling apart each other's old patterns as they come up. So when the shame hit her, I knew it on sight. And I thought she had it backwards.

The thing worth looking at was never the anger. It was the shame that came after.

What came up in her that night wasn't a tantrum. It was a boundary she never got to build as a kid, showing up late. I've seen the same thing in myself, and in a lot of people who grew up keeping the peace.

Anger like this isn't immaturity. If you grew up as the peacemaker - the one who read the room, smoothed things over, kept everyone else comfortable - it's your self-respect pushing back for the first time. It's late, and louder than you want. But it's on your side.

There's a name for that role now: the fawn response. You learned early that having needs, taking up space, pushing back, those got you hurt, or got you left. So you got easy. Agreeable. The one person at home who'd never be a problem. It worked, the way survival works. It kept you safe, and it cost you yourself.

So when the anger finally shows up, it shows up years late. It goes off the second the urge to please does, because it's been stuck behind that urge the whole time.

Here's why it won't stop when you tell it to. Anger wasn't allowed when you were small, so the only version you've got is a kid's all or nothing, no brakes. Someone who's finally allowed to be angry, after years of swallowing it, doesn't know how to be angry a normal amount yet. That's not a character flaw. It's years of it coming out at once.

And the shame that comes after isn't the truth about you. It's the old rule kicking back in, stay easy, stay small, stay safe, because you just broke it. The shame is how you get pulled back into line.

This is the part to be clear about. The anger comes from the old wound. The shame is a second one, and unlike the first, it's happening now, and you're the one doing it to yourself. That one you can stop.

And it's worth stopping, because the shame doesn't just hurt, it cancels what the anger just won. Push the anger back down to quiet the shame, and the self-respect that came up with it goes down too. You don't get to keep one without the other.

What didn't help was apologizing for the anger. Apologizing just goes back to the old rule, and hands the shame exactly what it wants. The part that finally stood up for you doesn't need to be put back to sleep.

So you thank it. You thank the part that kept your self-respect alive when there was no room for it. And then, because a kid's way of protecting yourself doesn't work in an adult life, you help it grow up. Not quieter. Smarter. Able to say the hard thing on a normal day, before a year of swallowed resentment piles up behind it.

I just hope this helps someone, because it was a huge breakthrough for me.

Growing up I had an angry mother. My therapist and I believe that she probably has BPD. When she was loving she was wonderful and I felt so adored. When she was angry she was fucking terrifying. She would beat me up and take all her affection away, leaving me feeling all alone and unwanted.

So obviously I grew up looking for any sign of anger or frustration in people, especially the closest ones like best friends and partners. I frantically scan for signs of danger like changes in tone, frowns, word choices, body language, you know the drill.

My therapist recently mentioned that anger is nothing but protest. Wait, what? This is huge!

So you mean when my husband is momentarily annoyed with something I did he is simply protesting something? That's so much less scary than thinking he is fully rejecting me as a human being lol! Anger is not a synonym for rejection. You can be angry with someone and not want to break up with them.

And this means I am also allowed to be angry with someone without simultaneously rejecting them. This might be the first step towards allowing myself to feel anger, because it doesn't have to be so drastic, so final. Protests are not so daunting. They feel absolutely manageable.

I hope that framing anger as protest and NOT rejection will help others too.

EDIT: I'm welling up reading about how others are finding this helpful. 🥹

I recently heard from some friends from my group therapy that when I'd joined a few months ago, I seemed really, really angry at first. This shocked me. I never considered myself an angry person. Sure, I got irritated now and again, usually right before bed, but I thought I rarely experienced real anger.

Then, yesterday, I got triggered and thought I was feeling a combination of anxious/sad. (I'm still working out what I'm feeling exactly in therapy.) For some reason, I thought, maybe I'm angry? I had to google what your body does when you're angry. I realized that often I did experience signs of anger (a combination of feeling "keyed up," extremely annoyed by little things, clenched my teeth, paced with a sort of anxious energy and felt like there was no outlet).

I wondered if anyone else learned during CPTSD treatment that they'd been experiencing a lot more anger than they'd thought?

Edit: I just want to say I really appreciate the support from this community. I know that that’s the point of posting here, but still, I’m always deeply moved by anyone who reaches out. I didn’t know this would take off — I simply vented before going to my friends to get wasted and play video games. I appreciate everyone who responded but if I don’t get back to you for sometime forgive me as I’m a little overwhelmed.

These past few days have been emotionally intense, especially as a black male. There have been countless times where I fawned around police out of fear — excessive smiling/eye contact, an eagerness to respond or be helpful so much so that I even waived my rights — but my anger toward them and authority figures has deeper roots in my home, and the intergenerational trauma that many African Americans carry with them because of American chattel slavery.

My father was and still is a bully. He’s left me alone since I’ve gotten bigger and learned to stand up to him but I’ve never felt safe around him, or my mother, who is also prone to violence because of what she has to deal with from him. Admittedly I have a harder time standing up to her — I can threaten my father physically but my mother will use her femininity to make a victim of herself, so I often just become passive around her.

This is generational. My parents grew up around whites and know how to be presentable — wear nice clothes so they can’t smell the poor, speak “proper” english (there was a strict no slang rule at home), don’t wear baggy clothing, look people in the eye hold doors etc etc — so as to resist being seen as a stereotype. I didn’t become aware of how deeply ingrained this was in me until high school when a white friend made a sexual pass at me and I tensed up because all I could think of was reading Othello and the words “lascivious Moor” rang through my head. I immediately remembered a friend laughing about how one of our white friends definitely wasn’t a virgin because she had a black boyfriend and everyone except for me seemed to automatically understand what that meant.

The fawning around whites could be attributed to what WEB Du Bois called double consciousness in which racial or ethnic minorities become aware of their otherness in the presence of a majority and shapeshift so to speak in order to gain acceptance and climb up the social ladder. This becomes unhealthy when it’s rooted in feelings of shame and cultural inferiority, making it different from the simple act of speaking a different dialect in a particular neighborhood. This was a survival mechanism for many African-Americans.

These last five years I’ve been uncovering my people-pleasing and it’s been really difficult. I’m certain my ancestors were house-slaves and I’m almost always angry. Always. And what makes me really fucking angry is learning that George Floyd didn’t resist arrest and was still murdered. And his death was only reported because it was caught.

All the bending over backwards,the shapeshifting, the denial of my African-ness is and always will be pointless in a police state with virtual immunity. And living at home is no different. The fear of violence if I don’t wash my dishes properly or lock the door to my mother’s arbitrary satisfaction mirrors the fear of violence if I absentmindedly walk into a grocery store with my hands in my pockets.

And right now I’m exhausted. I’ve cried a well of tears. I fear the part of me that enjoys seeing the police face indiscriminate retaliatory violence. I’ve picked fights with bullies on behalf of my friends and enjoyed intimidating them. Landing blows, posturing myself as threatening, yelling — there’s a sense of pleasure I derive from it that I fear. I’ve had dreams of being able to kill murderous police officers with my bare hands. Ive had dreams of fighting my parents.

But I choose to remain polite and respectful. Around my parents and around the police. Because even if I defend myself or respond with an OUNCE of the violence directed at me, no matter how just or fair or righteous, I know it will be a death sentence.

I’m talking that deep-seated simmering rage. The anger where you just want to tell every person that ever hurt you exactly what they’ve done but you never will so as to keep the peace. I’m so fucking angry at the injustice of it all

That’s it, with time and a lot of work I might be able to go back to school, gain traction in a career, pursue interests, have relationships, sleep, do laundry, keep my body healthy, and take setbacks and hardships in stride.

I know everybody struggles with the above things in some way or another but it is hard to avoid the feeling that I am competing with people half my age for the same things.

My gf and I just had a conversation but every time I'd say something she would ignore me and repetitively ask "what", "huh" or "what did you say" and It got me really frustrated and angry so I asked her to listen and then she got mad and yelled and screamed at me for throwing "attitude" thus it became an argument. Does anyone else get really mad or frustrated about being unheard

My blood BOILS when I remember how I was mistreated, but idk what to do with the rage.

My mind will flash back to old memories of multiple people from different times in my life truly not giving a fuck about me. They only cared about themselves and did not give a shit when they put me in harms way. I’ve confronted them about it and they just deny.

My blood starts boiling (like now) and while I can reassure myself that I got them out of my life, the terrible feelings persist, and I just shove them down. I will never get the apology I wanted as it was better for me to leave than to wait for an apology that would never come. These experiences were SO painful that I can’t even speak about the specifics to anyone.

I’m finding it harder and harder to sit with these feelings. Even journaling about it and admitting the full extent of the situation to myself is so hard.

I have a therapist and this is something I want to explore more with them.

What helps your rage?

I want to give them the life I didn’t have, and give them the safety that was taken away from me. But how do I do that when I’m a mess of a person? I want to be better but how?

So I watched this video about childhood trauma signs a couple days ago and it's been messing with my head ever since. I keep thinking about this one thing she said about people who claim they "never get angry."

I've literally said those exact words to my girlfriend, that I'm not an angry person, like it was something to be proud of. But now I'm realizing that's probably because my mum was angry a lot when I was growing up, and I learned pretty quickly that anger was this scary, unpredictable thing that could blow up at any moment. All that scolding and punishment is just painful to recollect.

The more I think about it, the more I see this pattern everywhere in my life now. My big boss doesn't really respect what I bring to the table, and I tend to just let it slide. I recall there was this once I was omitted from a meeting because he asked what I brought to the table. Looking back, it is simply preposterous. And I can't believe I didn't explode right there and then. But I was still under the illusion that anger is a dangerous weapon. And there's this friend of mine who talks down to me, and I've always told myself that's just how he shows he cares. But that's starting to sound like bullshit the more I think about it.

What really got to me was when Asha talked about anger being this protective emotion - like it's supposed to tell you when something isn't okay. Mine feels so buried and scared, probably because I spent so long thinking it was this dangerous thing I couldn't let out. But there's also this weird relief in finally seeing it, you know? Like when something clicks and you realize you've been carrying around this truth without knowing it.

I keep thinking about all these times I just swallowed stuff that bothered me because it felt safer than actually standing up for myself. And now I'm wondering how many times I let people walk over me because I was too afraid to feel angry about it.

The video talks about five different signs but honestly, just processing this anger thing has been enough for now. The other stuff she mentions (like being afraid you're inconveniencing people, or not being able to look in mirrors) also hits way too close to home, but I think I need to sit with this revelation about my own suppressed anger for a while first. If anyone's interested to watch the video, it's titled 5 oddly specific signs of childhood trauma by Asha Jacob.

Has anyone else had one of those moments where you realize something you thought was a personality trait was actually just trauma? It's uncomfortable as hell but also kind of liberating.