When Healing, Question Everything

Recently I’ve been struggling quite a bit.  The holiday season is always a big challenge for me thanks to so many awful holidays during my adult life, but 2022, it was worse than usual.  I was really depressed & couldn’t figure out why.  I tried to ignore it since I couldn’t figure it out, & just chalked it up to this happens sometimes. 

Just after the first of the year though, I remembered something.  Many years ago, I read that in some people, repressed anger is at the root of their depression.  I’m all about getting to the root of things so I thought about this.  Suddenly things started to click in my mind.  I have been abused so much & have plenty of reasons to be angry.  Yet, expressing anger always has been an issue for me.  I learned early from my parents that my anger wasn’t acceptable, even though they were allowed to express theirs at any time.  There have been so many other people in my life who continued this treatment of me.  As a result, I learned it was easier to ignore my anger.  But, apparently now is the time to deal with it, so I’ve been learning how to do that.

I started by asking God what to do.  He brought to mind many things done to me that made me angry, yet I didn’t express that anger.  I identified the anger, then thought about specifically why I was angry.  If you have seen the Wheel Of Emotions, you’ll know what I mean.  Emotions funnel down to a precise facet.  In my case, I felt angry because I was mad for being betrayed, disrespected, violated &/or treated as if I didn’t matter as much as other people.  Then, I thought of questions about my situations that made me look at the situations differently.

One example that came to mind was when my mother threw me into a wall when I was 19.  She was upset that although she picked a fight with me that night, I not only fought back, but then I wanted to get away, as any normal human would. That is why she threw me into the wall, to prevent me from leaving.  My father was upset that when he walked out a few minutes before this happened, she “locked him out”, even though his keys were in his pocket.   My ex husband/then fiancée was upset because, according to him, it was hard on him when Mom abused me.  I stayed with a friend’s parents that night & they were upset I didn’t come straight to their house immediately after it happened.  For the first time, I recently realized how horrible this was.  I was the one assaulted, yet no one cared how I felt!  I wondered why didn’t it matter to anyone that I was physically hurt & in a state of shock?  All that mattered is how THEY felt, not me, & I was the victim!  How does this make sense?  How can they honestly be ok with being so selfish?

By asking these questions, it got me madder than I was, which turned out to be a very good thing.  It enabled me to get rid of so much anger inside by finally feeling it.  It also made me realize I deserved to be treated so much better, which helped me realize I never would tolerate this again.

For a long time now, I’ve realized using logic helps when dealing with narcissists.  Calmly asking them logical questions like, “Why should I tolerate you treating me like that?  How does this benefit either of us?” often makes them back off, even if only temporarily.  Until this happened though, I had no idea how useful this could be in emotional healing after abuse.  It really is helpful though, & I hope you will try this as well!