I was angry at my mom sometimes when I was a teenager, and I definitely expressed that anger. Nowadays, I kind of feel like expressing it is pointless -- it won't change anything, and it will just upset her. And I know that her health isn't great, and I kind of always feel like, "Is this what should be the last thought I have about her while she's alive?" Because she has her issues, but she's also been really great in a lot of ways. Like, talking to other people who grew up with chronic pain, a lot of them say that their parents didn't believe them. My mom never did that -- if I said that I hurt, then I hurt, and she would help me try to find ways to hurt less.

Things would sure be easier if people were simpler.

I agree with that in a general sense, but I really need to be able to be angry at my parent

The trick, and this is where therapy will eventually take you, is accepting your anger but also working to move past it so that you are functional and not a rageball.

Warning: this can take years. But being neither repressing 24/7 nor raging helplessly against things that can't be undone is a sustainable state.

"Did I feel better being angry?" Oh, FUCK YES I do.

This goes under the category of if it feels good, do it. I absolutely agree with allowing yourself to feel and express anger.

I grew up with and still have a lot of people around me that are big with large and loud expressions of anger, or other emotions. Several have asked me, don't I ever get angry because they don't see that in me. It is hard to express, but it doesn't work for me. It makes me feel worse, not better. So I don't do it anymore.

This goes under the category of if it feels good, do it. I absolutely agree with allowing yourself to feel and express anger.

I grew up with and still have a lot of people around me that are big with large and loud expressions of anger, or other emotions. Several have asked me, don't I ever get angry because they don't see that in me. It is hard to express, but it doesn't work for me. It makes me feel worse, not better. So I don't do it anymore.

I guess I actually haven't been specific about what "being angry at my parents" means. It's just *feeling* angry. I have no intention to express it to them, because it wouldn't be useful or productive. But just *feeling* angry at them when that was fucking forbidden is a goddamn revelation.

I hear you on people who are chock-full of big loud *expressions* of anger. I'm not comfortable around people like that. That's not what I'm doing (except, I guess, occasionally to Tim, when I tell him how I'm processing things and then bust out with "I was raised by total selfish damaging SHITHEADS OH MY GOD!").

The trick, and this is where therapy will eventually take you, is accepting your anger but also working to move past it so that you are functional and not a rageball.

I'm really kind of enjoying being a rageball, though. And my blood pressure is normal, so it seems okay.

Oh, I do understand. I didn't think you were going to start shouting it out with your parents. But I get that some people find that helpful.

It seems like residual anger about my marriage to Rob has cropped up lately, and the realization that some parts of the relationship were emotionally abusive, which has thrown me for a loop. I'll never get to ask him why though. It complicates my memories of him, and of us.

Maria, I remember how difficult your relationship with Rob was at the time he died. You were actively thinking that the marriage wasn't working. There was so much unresolved there at the time.

Tep, I've had that different memories experience with my sister. I think it's endemic to most siblings in a way because everybody is busy creating their own narratives so we selectively edit the memories which support our narrative-in-progress.

But recently when taking the long drive home from dropping Matilda off at camp, I discovered that EM and I had *very* different memories of what it was like to parent young Emmett. In retrospect, I wonder if all the tantrums I had to deal with from him were coming from his anger/upset about our separation.

Like Laura, I had to come to a point during my divorce where I had to realize that while I had every reason to mad at EM, if I continued to be that furious with her it was going to poison my life. So I let it go.

That noted, I didn't have any trouble feeling angry and betrayed by her. The rage was just so black and warping though that it would have made me permanently bitter. I've seen it in more than a few people who never let go of a divorce.

The rage was just so black and warping though that it would have made me permanently bitter.

This is what mean about how being a rageball isn't a good idea long-term.

I see it happen too often. Also, why therapy is awesome.

I've never been able to seriously tap into my anger towards my parents in therapy. I know it's there, right below the surface, but I just can't get at it.

When my dad wasn't yelling at me, he was mostly ignoring me, and my mom was mostly just ignoring me. So it isn't just that I was never really allowed to be angry at my parents, it's also because I so very much craved (and still crave) their approval and validation. I can't get angry at my parents because I want them to love me.

And on top of that, there's the fact that I tended to take dad's screaming fits at me as a sign that he did love me, because, hey, even negative attention is better than no attention at all.