#ptsd rage

[atimodeus]

Alright, ya gremlins: it's finally here.

After writing and rewriting this essay five or six times over the last month and a half, I've finally settled on a version I think I like — meaning I think I've finally figured out how to articulate what's been on my mind.

Katsuki Bakugou holds a very specific place in my heart. I reckon writing this long ass essay in earnest may be considered pretty "cringe" by some standards, but honestly, I found it very cathartic. Maybe I need to touch grass. Or maybe, fiction can sometimes just be another tool we use to understand ourselves.

Which is to say: looking at angry kids like Katsuki feels a lot like looking at myself.

[traumatizeddfox]

I WASN’T A BAD DOG

I WAS A SCARED DOG

[borderlineangel222]

i’m afraid that one day my anger will overshadow the little love i still have left for the world

[furiousgoldfish]

One of the issues you run into when you're not allowed to express anger as a child, is that you're no longer able to get angry. When you're in a situation that should evoke rage, you instead feel fear, anxiety, panic, or grief, emotional hurt and helplessness. You end up operating a body that cannot feel or express anger. The only times you do feel angry is when you're directing it at yourself, it comes as a form of self hatred, and desire to cause pain and injury to yourself. Because this is the only way you would have been allowed to be angry, only way it was safe, to direct it at yourself, same as everyone else is doing constantly, teaching you that it's normal and expected.

Growing up like this means that all of the anger from your childhood keeps getting stored into your body instead of externalized, and you still cannot get angry when the situation demands it. Instead, when you're being disrespected and injustice is served in your face, you can either feel helpless and lost, or the frustration you feel irritates you so much you cannot stand it. Your body is not used to feeling anger and doesn't know how to process it. Instead it feels like you're going to explode, restless, endlessly irritated and at a complete loss on how to handle it. Because you never learned how to handle anger, except to take it out on yourself, and you might be driven to just keep doing that, forever.

Taking a stand for yourself and confronting whoever deserved your anger might still feel terrifying and all of the insane things that happened to you as a result of childhood anger might get triggered. You might feel too frightened to confront them because you can imagine all sorts of ways it could come back to hurt you - this person could try to get you fired, for example. They might smear campaign you and get you evicted, they could threaten you with something or blackmail you, they could destroy something of yours, spread rumors, hold a grudge and do thousand times worse to you. Those are thoughts evoked by memories of childhood, where abusive parents threatened and did any or all of these things, including torture, in order to keep you from expressing anger.

However this person is hurting you right now, unprovoked, and getting no resistance. From that, they're learning that they can keep doing it, with zero consequences, because you've already been broken and cannot fight back. That is a dangerous situation to be in too, even if it is impossible to predict whether this person is insane like your parents and will try to get revenge for any bit of resistance for their abuse.

I had situations where I would be pushed over the edge and allowed my anger to come out at someone - and people would sometimes complain about it, but they would usually back off, and I would regain my peace of mind because I created a consequence for disturbing it. Anger, however, doesn't feel good. My body is not used to it so it makes me incredibly tense, stressed, frustrated and upset, and it doesn't go away for several days, even weeks sometimes. Because scratching the surface of it evokes the repressed childhood anger which is almost unbearable with how giant it is.

Human body can learn to process anger, it can feel better, more powerful and more in control because of it. It can protect you without inflicting damage to others. It doesn't make you anything like your abusers, who let their anger out at someone who wasn't their equal, had no way to fight back, and did not deserve any of it. Your anger creates boundaries that keep you safe, it doesn't exist to torture others for existing.

It's easy to fall back into the place where you don't want to be angry, and try to be accommodating and allowing of injustice, just so you don't have to feel frustrated and afraid. I often fall back on it too, just wanting to live and have peace. But life around other people often doesn't allow it, and sometimes anger is necessary to send a message of what boundaries will not be crossed without a consequence. Anger is not a bad feeling, it is an act of self love. It comes out to let you know that you've been treated unfairly and it's there because it's telling you that you matter. That treating you unfairly is something to get mad about.

[la1npilledg1rl]

I was only a child when I started begging people to love me.

[a-healthy-dose-of-apathy]

i wish i was traumatized the “right” way.

i wish i was one of those people where my trauma made me a nicer person. a sweet little people pleaser who gets scared doing things alone. the ones who are effortlessly kind and don’t get angry. the one everyone likes and treats like glass. instead i’m an overreactive and angsty mess. i get angry too quick, i don’t have a whole lot of empathy, im eager to stay locked away, i’m selfish and not very shy about that, and i’m not chomping at the bits to help people because no one helped me and i can’t get over that. i remember being a small child and even though i was surrounded by anger, i myself never felt it even when i should’ve. i just felt sad. now, anger has burrowed itself to me like a parasite and i am dying.

[heavenfell-au]

You'd be angry too.

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[hop3wrlds]

i think that when you grow up in a house with an angry mother that anger will forever sit inside your chest

[small-but-mightyy]

[welcome-to-alice-in-helll]

[dissociativecollective]

Why am I so full of rage? Why am I so full of rage? Why am I so full of rage?

Where do I put this anger? Where do I put this anger? Where do I put this anger?

Perhaps I am a better knife than I am a person.

Once you understand the form, kill it. Never hesitate. Hesitate and you're dead. Hesitate and you won't get back up to fight again. Never hesitate, just kill it.

Remorse is for the dead.

[gh0stgirl-hotline]

Having a personality disorder is insane cause it literally makes you unlovable like when you are a kid you are deprived of that love and safety and you spend the rest of your life chasing it only to realize you will never ever get it the personality disorder that resulted from the lack of love in turn has literally made you unlovable totally and completely everyone hates you the fear anxiety rage shame that eats away at you everyday the constant and inevitable rejection it’s an endless cycle of hell for anyone involved the mood swings knowing that anytime you let the fun crazy persona slip and they see how depressed empty and anxious you really are is no fun after all cause nobody really loves you they just love the way you make them feel always discarded the second the mask begins to fray

[borderlineangel222]

i never felt loved by my family which is why i always searched for it in the worst places because when you’re about to die of thirst, even a drop of poison tastes like heaven.

[furiousgoldfish]

people will throw the 'forgive them for yourself, so you can have inner peace' phrase around like it's a cure for the goddamn ptsd

[la1npilledg1rl]

I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother I am not my mother

[a-healthy-dose-of-apathy]

i cannot separate myself from my own agony