Anger

Taken in L.A., 1986

Anger has always been the most difficult and most rewarding emotion to uncover within the process of healing. In the moment of abuse, the natural first reaction is one of anger. The fight instinct takes over in a moment of fear of death, and the adrenaline surge that temporarily turns us into super humans is meant to kill the person or animal posing the threat, to ensure our survival. In situations of child abuse, the anger response is almost never possible or allowed. When it is expressed from a child victim to an adult abuser, it reflects the wrongdoing back to the perpetrator. Abuse comes out of repressed anger that seeks to be released onto a powerless new victim. If the victim shows the very emotion from which the abusive act stems, it is an unwelcome mirror, usually followed with intimidation or increased violence, so that the abuser won’t have to be confronted with themselves.

In my childhood, I was graphically threatened, made to understand that the free expression of my anger would lead to death, and silence and submission would keep me alive. The forced repression of anger from child abuse can create tremendous havoc on the system. When the anger remains deeply suppressed, is not released onto other people and so controlled that the person is not even aware that they have anger, it can fester and ultimately manifest as disease in the body. On the complete other side of the spectrum, it can be expressed in the very same way that it was handed out, when someone abuses children. In the middle ground are multifarious ways in which anger causes harm to oneself and others. In the biggest way, the need for power, which comes out of anger, creates the entire hierarchical power structure that still controls our society.

I’ve recently become aware of the other side of the eerie lightness that sometimes has me fall effortlessly into a persona who always passed for someone not traumatized. I would feel extremely comfortable in elegant surroundings, as if I completely belonged in them, while I was struggling to get by financially. This privilege helped me survive: I was once approved for an apartment without proof of financials; I got hired for a few jobs for which I was hardly qualified. That lightness and old money ease was tied to the perpetrator who had flown me to the US from Europe on his private jet when I was nine years old, showed me his land, assuring me I belonged with him, with his family, in his class of people. I had been so in need of the affection and the positive reflections he gave me, that the horrific conditions in which we met were split from my consciousness, as well as the rapes.

I'm experiencing the anger now, as I let myself feel just how old this man was, how comfortable he was with getting infatuated with a child, and how much he lied to me. I'm angry to be made to feel I was part of his family when I was only part of his dark side. I have been furious, and in letting go of that lifelong anger, I notice changes. For example: As I'm not seeking comfort in the external beauty of things anymore, I can see colors more brightly, and suddenly everything is more beautiful. Also, I found myself being perfectly frank with an older man who was patronizing, taking the conversation further than I previously would have, because in my fear I would have not wanted to rock the boat. Small things, but I notice them with joy in my heart, because the information about this abuse is integrating, my anger is released and directed to the psychological source, with the person to whom it belongs, and I am becoming free.