"Let the anger go"

[Anonymous]

Everyone always says this when people bring up old family wounds and grudges -- let the anger go. I'm wondering what strategies people have used to accomplish this. Talk therapy is great and all, but at some point is it just an inner decision? A surrender? A desire to be healthy that wins out over the familiar protection of the resentment? When something has been deep inside of you for so long, how do you even know what it feels like to let it go?

[Anonymous]

Focus all your energy on something you can actually control instead of dwelling on things you can’t.
Remind yourself that anger hurts you more than the person who upset you.
Identify what the experience taught you to help develop a sense of closure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone always says this when people bring up old family wounds and grudges -- let the anger go. I'm wondering what strategies people have used to accomplish this. Talk therapy is great and all, but at some point is it just an inner decision? A surrender? A desire to be healthy that wins out over the familiar protection of the resentment? When something has been deep inside of you for so long, how do you even know what it feels like to let it go?

This. You just stop caring so much. You stop expecting an apology, or amends. You relegate whatever happened to the past, and you decide what to do about the future. If dad never apologizes, never understands what he did wrong (for instance -- i don't know your situation) what kind of relationship are you willing to have with him, if any? Move forward, and give up on any chance of "fairness" as concerns the past.

Think about what you'd advise a friend in the same situation. Better, come up with a similar, but not same hypothetical situation to get your emotions out of the exercise.

Your therapist should be able to help you think through this, but no, there's no magic tool that he/she has to dispel the anger without your input.

[Anonymous]

I had to mourn in relation to my mother. The death of the relationship I wanted us to have once I was an adult.

With my father, once I was able to get straight answers from him about why he did things, I could let them go. When I was a child and even young adult, he could not bring himself to tell me why he made decisions he made even when they really upset me.

[Anonymous]

Seeing the principal actors as somehow more human and mundane and less intentionally "evil." I'm not talking about in a Hallmark card sort of way. I mean as I had kids of my own, I came to realize that my parents (as I am so often), were basically just shooting from the hip in a lot of their parenting decisions and were overwhelmed and very young. That they weren't trying to be unfair, critical, and mean, but that parenting is damned hard.

[Anonymous]

For me, it was realizing that while they had taken my childhood, I had the power to claim my adulthood - and adulthood that, up to that point, they were still controlling because I was still stuck in the anger, hurt, and sadness. The realization that I couldn't change a thing about my past, but that I could change my present and future.

For me, it was as though a hard CLICK went through me. I bawled my eyes out for two days straight, laying in bed and mourning the life I had. And then I woke up, cleared my head and stepped quite consciously into my new life.

[Anonymous]

Good question OP. I thought I had processed all this anger and let it go; I saw my parents and family members as flawed human beings and worked on my own life. I was happy, for a while. Took action and made my own decisions. Even while enduring all sorts of continuing criticism from family. Now, in mid-life, with lots of things not going my way and no hope to turn them around (only acceptance), anger has come back strong with no sense of closure at all. Obviously I had not let it go like I thought I had.

Talk therapy has helped me but my anger is bigger than before, so looking for advice as well, and also interested in detailed descriptions of how people have "let go" and the ways you have done this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good question OP. I thought I had processed all this anger and let it go; I saw my parents and family members as flawed human beings and worked on my own life. I was happy, for a while. Took action and made my own decisions. Even while enduring all sorts of continuing criticism from family. Now, in mid-life, with lots of things not going my way and no hope to turn them around (only acceptance), anger has come back strong with no sense of closure at all. Obviously I had not let it go like I thought I had.

Talk therapy has helped me but my anger is bigger than before, so looking for advice as well, and also interested in detailed descriptions of how people have "let go" and the ways you have done this.

OP here. Yes, this is me. Parents were physically and emotionally abusive. I put it in perspective, confronted them, etc., and had moved along. We even had a decent relationship. However, I find certain life events trigger the feelings again. The first time, after birth of first child, I hashed it all out again with myself and with them, and it was much worse and we don't talk much any more (are on speaking terms but no one goes out of their way). I find that although I do see them as flawed and vulnerable human beings, I also see with more clarity their choices and actually feel less compassion for them than I used to. So that's not helpful. It's almost like an onion for me, I keep peeling back the layers but there is more.

Hearing what other people have gone through is very helpful. Thanks to the poster who mentioned not caring as much, not expecting. I think new life events can trigger past expectations of what that would or should have looked like. Consciously reminding myself that it's not going to be like that, and that I have to make a choice about how much I "care" -- let it get under my skin, hurt me, etc., is helpful.

[Anonymous]

OP, I had abusive parents. I got out, became a functioning adult, and thought I was doing great. No drug or alcohol issues, good job, healthy and loving relationship. Well, the birth of my first kid threw me for a loop. In addition to the normal post-partum emotions and the sleep deprivation that comes along with having a newborn, I think I was just in mourning for my childhood. What helped was talk therapy, parenting classes so that I could learn what to do as a parent (since I never had good role models in my own parents), and a lot of support from my spouse. Also, cutting myself some slack -- when I started to feel really angry about something, I learned to recognize when I was feeling that way and say to myself, "Ok, you need to take a break. Go lie down in a darkened room for 10 minutes and just BREATHE."

I am much better in terms of my sadness and anger now that my kids are a little older, but I do still sometimes experience it -- like, for instance, hearing a friend of mine the other day talk about how her mom is flying across the country to come help her take care of her baby for the next 3 months. So good for my friend and I'm happy for her, but it made me feel very sad, jealous, and then angry that I cannot lean on my own parents for such support. I have to kind of just give myself permission to feel sad at those times. Because it IS sad, after all.

I don't know if it will ever fully go away - I think it's more just controlling my reaction to these feelings.

[Anonymous]

Friend of a friend was telling us how helpful her parents are with her kids, but she added that "For everything they do, they expect triple back. They call my husband to come unload their groceries". It made me realize that a close relationship with parents/grandparents isn't all roses.

[Anonymous]

Allow yourself to have those feelings and ignore those who say to just let go. I think it's forcing us to just let go that allows those feelings to have a stronger hold on us than ever. As someone who was also abused by a family member who is still alive (so I can never completely be "free" of since I still have to hear about her), I constantly was told to "make a clean slate", "forgive & forget," "get over it." Well, that set me up for abuse again and again. And, finally I realized that I needed to forgive MYSELF -- I need to forgive myself for having rushes of feelings of sadness and fear when I did nothing wrong and was an innocent child. When the feelings arise, which they do, I hug myself, give myself a long breath, and tell myself I am RIGHT to have those feelings and am doing nothing wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Allow yourself to have those feelings and ignore those who say to just let go. I think it's forcing us to just let go that allows those feelings to have a stronger hold on us than ever. As someone who was also abused by a family member who is still alive (so I can never completely be "free" of since I still have to hear about her), I constantly was told to "make a clean slate", "forgive & forget," "get over it." Well, that set me up for abuse again and again. And, finally I realized that I needed to forgive MYSELF -- I need to forgive myself for having rushes of feelings of sadness and fear when I did nothing wrong and was an innocent child. When the feelings arise, which they do, I hug myself, give myself a long breath, and tell myself I am RIGHT to have those feelings and am doing nothing wrong.

That's really nice. I do think in the case of my parents what would help these feelings go away is a relationship that is parental and nurturing and fills those unmet needs. As an adult it's hard to find that, though, so I guess you have to learn to literally give it to yourself. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Everyone always says this when people bring up old family wounds and grudges -- let the anger go. I'm wondering what strategies people have used to accomplish this. Talk therapy is great and all, but at some point is it just an inner decision? A surrender? A desire to be healthy that wins out over the familiar protection of the resentment? When something has been deep inside of you for so long, how do you even know what it feels like to let it go?

No strategy needed. Just a single act of will.

[Anonymous]

My therapist helped me.

It isn't like you wake up one day and just say "today will be different". There is some mourning to do, as well.

[Anonymous]

I thought I had dealt with my anger. My parents have both passed. But now that my kid is in HS-it is all flooding back. My father always harped on me about my grades, I was never good enough. Now I am perpetuating the negativity and am so stressed because my kid isn't doing as well as he could. It is ruining my health and our relationship. I am going to therapy to learn some skills, but I feel sick just thinking about my behavior.