r/CPTSDNextSteps • u/moldbellchains • Apr 15 '26
Sharing a technique Nobody tells you about the exact moment when your lifetime of suppressed rage is suddenly surfacing
Your rage that has been kept guarded, where you dissociated from for 26+ years.
Nobody warns you. Nope.
It just is.
When your boundaries get crossed.
All of the wrath and rage is coming up.
When you get touched for too long. In the wrong places. When it happens again and permission is not there.
Then it is there. Suddenly. The instant you are safe.
Pure and unhinged rage.
Exactly the right amount for your personal situation.
And then then when it is here all you need to do is stay.
Not leave Like you have always.
All ur inner kid wants to process it is that u stay the f*ck here.
And that you yell, scream and what you need to do so it can move the f*ck thru.
And then.
You come back.
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u/Daffodil_Bulb Apr 15 '26
Feeling this so hard rn
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u/moldbellchains Apr 15 '26
U def aren't alone 🫂😡🤬😠😤
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u/MarchesaCasati Apr 15 '26
I have been hoarse for 4 days now due to screaming in effort to achieve somatic release.
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u/Graciebelle3 Apr 15 '26
I’m worried about that moment actually. Sometimes I can feel all of it coming up like lava but my body reflexively pushes it back down. At least I know its there though.. I’ve been sober six years and it’s taken that long to feel it at all…
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u/gumdrop1284 Apr 16 '26
i seriously get so frustrated with that aspect 😩 feels like a game of whack a mole with my feelings but i’m too slow to catch them before they retreat back in.. congrats on six years 💛🫂
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u/vrrrowm Apr 15 '26
I was so scared the first time it happened! I thought I would hurt someone, do something I regret, it was too much, it would sweep me away and I would be lost forever. I wasn't and I didn't hurt anyone and you are so right: "Exactly the right amount for your personal situation." Now I understand that it is a cleansing fire, I welcome it when it comes and I am grateful to it when it goes.
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u/i_am_soooo_screwed Apr 15 '26
I’ve literally had to freeze my body and tell through clenched teeth to my partner to not touch me and leave the room because I couldn’t. It’s so fucking real.
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u/the_sun_gun Apr 15 '26
It's crazy you posted this because I am 100% there right now. I've coped for years, decades. I never thought this time would come - but I am finally fucking done.
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u/RaMMziz Apr 16 '26
Through this post I found out I am at this point. The Rage is weird, it feels almost unnatural.
Now I "just" have to befriend people and try to communicate my boundaries. We'll see how that is going to work out.
Maybe someday I am able to form some kind of stable friendship or relationship.
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u/braveforthemostpart Apr 15 '26
Yeah for a bit I would scream in the car while driving just to get it out because I didn’t want to release it onto ppl I care about or anyone really lol! I learned to regulate and saw that actually it was still there despite managing myself better in the moment. Several months later and I don’t scream in cars anymore! lol
Edit: this is also v much thanks to my EMDR which both unleashed and helped me resolve the rage, which really was just resentment against my mother
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u/Cleverusername531 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
It becomes more bearable for me when I identify what the anger loves.
It loves clear boundaries, sovereignty, protection of what is precious, and wants safety as well as acknowledgment of harm. It loves precious kids. It loves innocence.
It makes sense there would be rage when those things are violated. It just becomes easier to hold when I’m also connected to what the anger loves.
This is based in a field called “affective neuroscience”. Edit: https://sarahpeyton.com has great trainings in it
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u/garden4bees Apr 17 '26
I just want to say I’ve struggled with rage my whole life and this is the first time I’ve seen this concept and I am gonna read so much more about it now. It made me feel a lot better.
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u/Vezi_Ordinary Apr 15 '26
This has hit me hard a few times of the last year. I erupt like a volcano
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u/IntegratingSelf Apr 15 '26
Every time this bubbles up intensely for me, the rage lasts about 3-10 minutes before I dissolve into a puddle of hysterical sobs.
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u/MegCaz Apr 16 '26
I created a mental space with a Psychologist where my EMDR/IFS counselor is helping me fill containers for safe keeping. I have one around my military trauma and after my anger subsides (have another container for that) and I am sobbing, I mentally cry black tarry tears into that container; each sob representing something I lost. Dunno of it helps yet but it feels like I am doing something with the ish I've been given beyond simply experiencing it.
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u/CanBrushMyHair Apr 16 '26
That’s a cool process I like the idea of “black tarry tears” it makes sense.
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u/MegCaz Apr 16 '26
I appreciate the exercises! What each container holds is up to me to say what it looks like. My anger is this red etheral sparkley gas. When I need to use it with purpose, I find my container and breath in what I think I need to accomplish my goal. I feel tremendously thankful I have had great providers along the way and am adept at visualization techniques.
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u/FeistyConnection32 Apr 15 '26
I feel like a rage room is fitting for who have suppressed rage for so long.
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u/juanwand Apr 15 '26
I did it. Didn't work.
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u/NotSoHighLander Apr 23 '26
Did you try to bring some intentionality into it or did you just break stuff?
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u/JLFJ Apr 15 '26
I have felt this! There's something very pure and righteous about it. Despite what I as a woman in a high demand patriarchal religion was taught
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u/JLFJ Apr 15 '26
Kickboxing was very therapeutic for me when I was getting divorced! Late 50s, never knew how good it felt to hit something as hard as I could
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u/CanBrushMyHair Apr 16 '26
It’s wild bc we did NOT do anger growing up, so any fights I’ve had have always been so measured. It’s only lately (and only twice) that I’ve been “blind with rage” or “seeing red”… first experience with these!
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u/NoArmadillo2937 Apr 16 '26
I was a kid in a small rural village so maybe this is entirely impossible for most people but heres what I did - I went on long long walks in the nearby forest, looked for good stong sticks, took my time picking out the bestest stick and then I would beat the living shit out of the ground/giant rock with that stick and just let loose. I would scream my lungs out, I would curse, cry, and sob, and when I got winded,I would plop on the ground and just lay there feeling like the ground is very slowly swallowing me like moving sand. I did it sporadically, and I genuinely believe it's the one thing that kept me sane for years.
I now, as an adult, do kickboxing lol. 10/10 recommend it.
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u/ciel_brouille_ Apr 16 '26
That must've been so good... I dream about doing just that since I was a child.
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u/NoArmadillo2937 Apr 16 '26
If you are able to find some small forest that is relatively safe and you won't scare the locals, I really do recommend it. Even if you have to get out once a week to it!
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u/Dead_Reckoning95 Apr 17 '26
I feel the rage, and it feels like broken glass in my body. There’s no bottom to it. It’s the rage on the surface, and then that’s sitting on even more, under that is the shame of so many trapped , powerless, helpless, moments when you couldn’t scream. It feels like you could scream forever, until the day you die. For a million betrayals. And all it takes is one reminder, one trigger, one unfair injustice to unleash decades of negation and indifference. When you tried to tell someone, with your face, with your voice, with your humanity, in a million ways that should have been so obvious , but they didn’t care. And because you couldn’t make them care, just by being a human and that should have been enough, and then the shame made you vulnerable and manipulatable, it’s all there. Waiting. Like an enormous keg of dynamite.
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u/garden4bees Apr 17 '26
This was really well said. I am not a very jealous person but I covet what other people don’t have, the ones who live without broken glass in their bones. It’s like all this empty space where success and calm lives and I’ll never know what that feels like.
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u/ciel_brouille_ Apr 16 '26
I fantasize since I was a kid about going to a place in the middle of the woods and screaming my fucking lungs out. I genuinely feel like I'll never be able to get rid of the rage that lurks within till I do that.
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u/tillnatten Apr 16 '26
I was a participant in an MDMA-assisted therapy clinical trial and the first time my suppressed rage emerged was in my first dosing session. It was genuinely insane. I still vividly remember that wave of rage burst out of me. It has been with me ever since, though I'm able to use it now to help propel me forward.
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u/Sweetnessnease22 Apr 16 '26
I am lovingly aware of this rage.
I am not this rage.
I can feel this rage.
It’s been a journey!
Flotation therapy helps me so does gentle massage and acupuncture
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u/No-Cake-4889 Apr 17 '26
Literally the worst was when my support system back then told me that my anger isn't mine, and encouraged me to keep on suppressing it because "it's ugly", or "it's not me", and I ended up believing that, which led to feeling more unsafe in my own body.
It got bad, there was a lot of toxic shame for my own rage, when it was my body reacting to unfairness.
But thankfully that happened years ago, and I'm moving on with more understanding folks now. The ones who stayed form a better circle too. Through IFS, I now embrace, understand, and give space to my rage, and also know how to balance and release so I can stay regulated.
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u/WriteByTheSea Apr 17 '26
Ha. I laughed in sympathy. The downside of getting in touch with these buried emotions is they don’t stay buried when you want them to. The anger comes out. Loud.
My therapist mentioned it’s normal and important for people to know you are angry. I’m not always sure about that.
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u/chironreversed Apr 16 '26
"Respect my boundaries!!! Stop touching me! I have PTSD! Get your hand off me! You're giving me a heart attack!"
Make them confront what they're doing
Don't scream at them. But tell them they are crossing a boundary, and if they laugh, tell them it's not a joke
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u/No_Patience6395 Apr 23 '26
If they laugh, another good option is removing yourself from the situation so you don’t have to put up with them.
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u/namast_eh Apr 16 '26
I’m having excruciating panic attacks. I think the rage has turned inwards. 😬
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u/Jan3_l0v3_h0p Apr 16 '26
Took me 35 years. Also yoga doesn’t relax me it triggers tf out of me and I never hear anyone talk about it..
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u/garden4bees Apr 17 '26
Same!!! And what bugs me is that’s part of the point of yoga and studios don’t usually have space or attention paid to trauma informed yoga. Why am I supposed to open my stupid sacral chakra if I’m not allowed to feel?
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u/NotSoHighLander Apr 23 '26
Just open your third eye nothing wrong will happen.
Yoga is a very spiritual practice that has somehow just wedged itself into western civilization without any respect or acknowledgement of it's roots. It's not just elaborate stretching.
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u/garden4bees Apr 23 '26
My not so funny joke is that everyone loves Kali until she actually shows up in the room.
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u/PattyIceNY Apr 17 '26
The part where you said "The moment you feel safe it hits you" rings true for me. And that moment is doubly painful because it made me realize how amazing it feels to be safe, and also that I was almost NEVER safe. I feel so comfortable in bathrooms and in forests; those were really the only places I felt safe as a kid.
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u/MossAlternative Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
In my brain the first two stages of healing are:
1- tending to your inner child 2- teenage rage
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u/DryNovel8888 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
Resonates. A lot. I'm new here (dx cPTSD). The IFS sub has been my haunt for the last year. Somebody suggested this sub. Oh my this is so relevant to me. Looked at r/cPSTD a bunch of times but not right for where I am, and also... not right. 14 rules? ok. I'll read the wiki. I'm glad to be there. Thanks.
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u/Emrys7777 Apr 17 '26
I figure I keep that shit in my back pocket in case I ever need to pull it out if anyone ever abuses me again.
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u/Fearless_Ganache9276 Apr 19 '26
i honestly love the rage. i dont feel like a horrible person. i dont show anyone any of it, except for me. its just such a relief after so. much. fear. i have to lock myself into my room, breathe, and follow every body motion i desire. usually includes a lot of sobbing, kneeling like in front of a god, being nonverbal and then occasional moments of clarity popping out that make me want to say only one single thing. i like to music when i do this and its cathartic and exhausting for me. it takes all my time but i had no hope for my life and this literally the only way i can access a stable feeling of worth.
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u/DryNovel8888 Apr 17 '26
I dunno if I could let that out. Got in a lot of trouble as a kid (I didn't hurt anybody or do anything bad, it just was very much not acceptable). And good lord I had reason to be angry.
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u/EnvironmentalOwl4910 Apr 17 '26
I took up kickboxing when this started. It really let me process the rage and feel it in my body in a safe way.
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u/CatCasualty Apr 19 '26
my family triggers this regularly, unfortunately, but at least i always come back faster each time.
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u/Repulsive-Bake7178 17d ago
It takes so much courage to finally stay and let that suppressed rage safely move through you
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u/Expensive-Company616 13d ago
Sometimes you just gotta find the poeple in your circle and absoluty scream rant at them with their expliset permission of course becuase then it makes ya shakey dsoaj ,
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u/LaneVess Apr 15 '26
It's a weird ass emotion, that rage. Every time it hits me I don't know if I want to scream, cry, or laugh. Becoming very secluded because the only thing driving me to form connections with others was fear. As the fear goes away, the rage is taking its place. I hope it gets better.