Anonymous
Post 02/12/2021 20:46     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:OP I am so so sorry you dealt with all of that. My issues were different-some emotional and verbal abuse, parents with mild to moderate mental health issues depending on the stress, personality disordered sibling who targetted me, then series of unhealthy relationships until I decided I must break the pattern of my childhood. I married someone kind and loving who came from a similar household to mine and wanted to break the pattern. I was sexually harassed at work early on, but I fought back filing a complaint before I left.

For me buffers helped. I had a sense of humor and a support network of friends from verbally abusive households. We vented and made fun of our dysfunctional families. I got therapy. I use exercise to deal with anger and stress.

Some things re-trigger me like dealing with eldercare issues. My parents stopped the verbal abuse by the time I was in my 20s, but it came back as dementia set in and was 100 times more frightening. I found others in the same situation and a therapist again and it helped.


Are you me??? This was my story too. My parents were profoundly immature and mentally unwell and I was targeted by a sibling. I don’t feel angry although I had times in my life where I felt very sad or hopeless. But, I’ve been fortunate too. I was lucky to be good at school and a creative problem-Silver and persistent and used those strengths to create a safer future. I was helped by many people and have healed a lot of the worst wounds. There are times when I get triggered, but fewer every year and I find it easier to cope.
Anonymous
Post 02/10/2021 01:29     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I am so angry that my amazing husband died unexpectedly and young of cancer. It’s been less than a year and I hide it well around my family. But I am so mad he is gone. He was the best and kindest person I have ever known. Life will never be the same. Covid has made the grieving worse.


This breaks my heart! I’m sorry, PP. I would be mad too.


Thank you. I’ll never be happy again.


Yes, you will be happy but maybe not as happy as you once were. Someone or something will make you laugh or smile and that will be the first step and just one of many.


I don't know if I can express this properly, but one of the things I learned about profound grief is that it is possible to feel grief and sadness and joy simultaneously. You will always grieve and be sad and angry about your loss, but that doesn't mean you will never experience joy again.

If you aren't aware of it, I recommend the podcast "Terrible, Thanks for Asking." The host lost her husband to cancer. I would go back to the very beginning. She does a much better job than I can of describing how it feels to live with these contradictory emotions.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 13:38     Subject: Re:Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
OP, yes, and sad, too. I think that most people feel this way from time to time. If it was not over very difficult things like you describe, it would be over lesser things, assuming that you are not hurting others or destructive or neglectful. Sometimes success means not repeating the terrible things that were done to us, and that is sometimes enough.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 13:28     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I am so angry that my amazing husband died unexpectedly and young of cancer. It’s been less than a year and I hide it well around my family. But I am so mad he is gone. He was the best and kindest person I have ever known. Life will never be the same. Covid has made the grieving worse.


This breaks my heart! I’m sorry, PP. I would be mad too.


Thank you. I’ll never be happy again.


Yes, you will be happy but maybe not as happy as you once were. Someone or something will make you laugh or smile and that will be the first step and just one of many.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 12:45     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I am so angry that my amazing husband died unexpectedly and young of cancer. It’s been less than a year and I hide it well around my family. But I am so mad he is gone. He was the best and kindest person I have ever known. Life will never be the same. Covid has made the grieving worse.


This breaks my heart! I’m sorry, PP. I would be mad too.


Thank you. I’ll never be happy again.


Not in the same way. I hope you have some happy moments and some measure of relief from grief, soon. I'm so sorry.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 09:17     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Not angry, but I'm bitter that I was born with so many and such severe learning disabilities. I wish my parents hadn't had me. It causes difficulties EVERY SINGLE DAY, and there's nothing I can do about them.


Are you able to work and live independently?


Yes, but not well.


Well, as PP said, you write very well and express yourself very clearly. I’m sorry you’re struggling so.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 09:10     Subject: Re:Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
I’m tremendously sad that my child was born with multiple special needs. Not mad most of the time. He doesn’t deserve a life this hard and neither do I. The anger I reserve for patronizing doctors, insurance companies and teachers who don’t get him.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 09:01     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Meant^^”all the things I was going to accomplish” (forgot the end quotations)
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 08:59     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:ACE score of 8 here. I am turning 59 this year and it feels like I am impacted by childhood neglect now even more than I was in my 20’s. Then, I was in a high of having “escaped”. Now, I am so much more aware of how debilitated I am by fear, avoidance, procrastination, self-hatred, PTSD. I have people who love me but no real friends who are actual companions in my day to day life. I am married to someone who turned to be an addict...and after 20 years of therapy, I married him in my 49’s and didn’t even recognize his addiction beforehand!

I am just so disappointed in myself that I am not healthier, emotionally. I eat compulsively. I read DCUM to numb out and ignore real pressing things. I have dreams from my 20’s that I haven’t even begun to pursue,

On the other hand:
I am a good mom to a late in life child
With said child, I am patient and reliable
I have a job
My brother died by suicide over a decade ago. I have survived
I have never been in trouble with the law or drugs
I don’t actively hurt anyone
I am not an alcoholic

It just seems like a small list of accomplishment compared to my “potential”. I got lots of scholarships. I used to be very smart. I am a good writer. I was going to do great things. Instead, I have a brain full of scattered ideas and I am drowning in regrets.

I get angry a lot, but it’s mostly at myself.


You seem to be haunted by your own expectations of what your life should be, or what constitutes a life of “value”; of course that constant companion of “all the things I was going to accomplish will leave you feeling hopeless, worthless and immobile. And it’s so, so unfair to yourself.

I think it would benefit you to work on shifting your focus to appreciating the life you’ve built for yourself and your child, all on your own. It is not a failure that your DH turned out to be an addict - you are far from alone in that struggle. Working, supporting your family, paying your bills, being kind - those aren’t “nothing” and there is value in all of it.

I mentioned in another thread that a friend was telling me about a phenomenon where making one small step in your life can shift everything, even minutely so that you are moving in a new direction or seeing things in a different way...it doesn’t have to be a huge, microcosmic thing...it can be very small...like volunteering, or keeping a journal, or taking a walk in nature every weekend...

My wish for you is that you come to see your value, and recognize that your survival is no small feat, and that an “ordinary” life is still of value. The key is to make peace with it.



Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 03:07     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Yep I am angry at the family I was born into. I would have loved a normal, kind, loving family and instead I got mine. I lucked out massively.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 01:49     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
I get angry sometimes when I read the people with such cartoonish wealth and privilege on DCUM acting like they earned it all and that everyone else should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps yo the position of wealth that they were born into.

I get angry sometimes that so many people’s lives are genuinely far easier than mine.

I get angry sometimes that my brother is dead and his cruel, abusive wife is alive.

But it doesn’t take long for me to remember that I am luckier than just people. I just think..,I’m the history of humanity, my bed is one of the .001% most comfortable beds ever. That I sleep more comfortably than kings and queens just a few hundred years ago.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 01:44     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm talking the stuff you cannot control:
- being physically abused
- growing up in poverty
- emotional, mentally ill parents
- infertility
- abusive spouse
- addicted family members
- medical issues + poor health
- premature deaths in your family of origin or spouse/children
- sexual abuse


All of these things happened to you? At age 25 you stop blaming your parents and start living your life with your choices. It is your choice to be miserable by living in the past and wallowing in self pity or you can choose to make better decisions and live in the present


Says someone with an ACE score of 1 or 2. Complex PTSD is not “wallowing in self Pity” you heartless pile of rotting excrement.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 01:41     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:ACE score of 8 here. I am turning 59 this year and it feels like I am impacted by childhood neglect now even more than I was in my 20’s. Then, I was in a high of having “escaped”. Now, I am so much more aware of how debilitated I am by fear, avoidance, procrastination, self-hatred, PTSD. I have people who love me but no real friends who are actual companions in my day to day life. I am married to someone who turned to be an addict...and after 20 years of therapy, I married him in my 49’s and didn’t even recognize his addiction beforehand!

I am just so disappointed in myself that I am not healthier, emotionally. I eat compulsively. I read DCUM to numb out and ignore real pressing things. I have dreams from my 20’s that I haven’t even begun to pursue,

On the other hand:
I am a good mom to a late in life child
With said child, I am patient and reliable
I have a job
My brother died by suicide over a decade ago. I have survived
I have never been in trouble with the law or drugs
I don’t actively hurt anyone
I am not an alcoholic

It just seems like a small list of accomplishment compared to my “potential”. I got lots of scholarships. I used to be very smart. I am a good writer. I was going to do great things. Instead, I have a brain full of scattered ideas and I am drowning in regrets.

I get angry a lot, but it’s mostly at myself.
.

Correction: I’m turning 50 this year. Add to my list of failings the fact that I frequently post typos to DCUM because I’m typing in my phone and autocorrect rarely works.
Anonymous
Post 02/08/2021 01:39     Subject: Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
ACE score of 8 here. I am turning 59 this year and it feels like I am impacted by childhood neglect now even more than I was in my 20’s. Then, I was in a high of having “escaped”. Now, I am so much more aware of how debilitated I am by fear, avoidance, procrastination, self-hatred, PTSD. I have people who love me but no real friends who are actual companions in my day to day life. I am married to someone who turned to be an addict...and after 20 years of therapy, I married him in my 49’s and didn’t even recognize his addiction beforehand!

I am just so disappointed in myself that I am not healthier, emotionally. I eat compulsively. I read DCUM to numb out and ignore real pressing things. I have dreams from my 20’s that I haven’t even begun to pursue,

On the other hand:
I am a good mom to a late in life child
With said child, I am patient and reliable
I have a job
My brother died by suicide over a decade ago. I have survived
I have never been in trouble with the law or drugs
I don’t actively hurt anyone
I am not an alcoholic

It just seems like a small list of accomplishment compared to my “potential”. I got lots of scholarships. I used to be very smart. I am a good writer. I was going to do great things. Instead, I have a brain full of scattered ideas and I am drowning in regrets.

I get angry a lot, but it’s mostly at myself.
Anonymous
Post 02/07/2021 23:32     Subject: Re:Do you get angry about the life you've been given (things you cannot control?)
Anonymous wrote:Extremely sad and angry right now. My 60-year-old mom has terminal cancer. I'm an only child, so no sibling support for me. I'll be my dad's sole caregiver down the road and I am just not a caregiver by nature, which terrifies me. Please don't flame me for this, but this whole experience with my mom has taught me how much I hate taking care of people. There's no way in hell I'm having children! COVID is making it even worse, because I can't see my friends for support and phone calls and video chats just aren't the same. One of my closest friend lives 15 minutes from me and won't even see me socially-distanced outside with masks on, because I've been going into work five days a week. I just need a hug so badly right now.


My heart goes out to you. I did want to address the "no sibling support" part. I have been the caregiver too and had horrible verbal abuse hurled at me. My sibling made things worse. She is disturbed and loves to feel drama. She also made sure to get a good payout as I did the work. My sibling has made it all more stressful not less and I truly am surprised at the depth of her evil and frankly so is my therapist!