Dear Regi:

Welcome to the Forums. Glad you are here. If you would like to share about what happened a year ago, in a way that is comfortable enough for you to share here, please do. You can do it here on my thread, or you can start your own thread (go to Forums at the top, click it and go from there). I will reply to you when you do share, if you do.

Dear Airene:

I wrote earlier to you that anger resulting from submitting to abuse doesn’t go away. You asked: “Do you think this is true even if a person works on overcoming that anger and understanding it?”

My answer: this anger may be resolved, I believe, yes. But not easily, not quickly and not because of the mere understanding of it. I think that people think their anger has been resolved when it is simply not felt at the time, but it is there, expressing itself nonetheless.

To resolve anger about a particular abuse, it takes not being subjected to that abuse and the abuser anymore, not in any way, shape or form. I don’t think it is possible to resolve anger while still threatened by the same person (often what happens when adult children continue contact with an abusive parent).

“Isn’t anger the cover for other emotions like fear and hurt and sadness”- I don’t think anger is a cover for other emotions. I think that when we are in danger we first feel fear than we may feel anger, in that order. In nature, when an animal perceives danger, it feels fear first, most often it runs away (the Flight Response). If it makes more sense for the animal’s survival to fight (the sense making had been decided by evolution), then the animal will feel anger following the fear. Anger motivates an animal to fight.

There are all kinds of fighting, in complex human behavior. All kinds of ways to push people away, other than physically do so.

anita