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I have been thinking about the anger thing again, since going down memory lane with the whole Ella/Jeff thing. (And I’m apologizing Teneil again, for running your important thread off the road—hey, everyone, post here instead).
First, I’m not interested in posting here personally about Ella and Jeff who aren’t here anymore to respond. I want to acknowledge that Ella is working in the trauma model and is on the advisory board with B. Steffens for Apsats. I have read a lot of her stuff and it seems fine. I recall in a live stream session with Patrick Carnes, she went after him on line and did a good job trying to hold him accountable. My concerns were with her hustling for business on this site where women are vulnerable, and what I saw as an ill-advised and reckless need to put her ex SA husband, turned counselor, in front of our faces and suggest that we engage in unregulated or unfacilitated dialogue with him. How could any professional therapist not know that could trigger traumatic responses, which it did? Then, in his blog, in response to the woman who had a traumatic reaction to him and tore a strip off him, he went after this site, and “negative people” who are angry and won’t accept help. In fact, that is his last blog entry. It is now his trophy entry, from Oct 11, 2011. He has not posted anything else, or, if he has, I can’t find it. Because that entry, IMO, tells us who he is, what he believes and how he operates professionally. So my issues with Ella were all around the way she did business, and the way her husband behaved.
With that preamble, I have been ruminating on this ongoing anger thing, and how he chose in his blog entry to shame us again for being angry, and not accepting his help. I think the key to cracking this whole ugly therapeutic model is in the area of female anger. I think it is the one thing that will not be acknowledged or tolerated. It brings out the worst in the the therapist, and the fundamental flaw in the model, which still is to deny the violence of the offence, the righteous anger experienced by the partner, and the undisclosed abuse that is the ongoing method of treatment. And even though Jeff thinks he’s working in the trauma model, his need to shame the anger unleashed by the professional carelessness of his wife therapist tells us his is merely an “egoic” recovery. That is, if his ego is bruised by anything that happens since his “recovery”, he’s back in the old addict profile, responding the same way.
Just my thoughts on what happened and why.
Thanks for this, Diane, and for the ongoing dialogue about anger, and for being such a champion of women’s passion and emotion.
It’s hard enough that we are constantly shamed by men for expressing our very real and very appropriate anger, but women like to pile on too–especially those who suffer from malignant hope (a disease I, too, was infected with) and want to hear only what speaks to that hope.
As my head clears and I regain my footing, as I begin to define myself once again as an individual rather than as a spare part for my husband’s life, I can feel anger and joy fully. I’m glad for that. And I will freely express both.
And, for some of us, it is the persistant shaming of our anger that keeps it alive. It is the lying about it that “counselors” like him do that drives the anger stake deep into the ground. We need people who get into the business of therapy and counselling to be honest because the dishonesty just re-traumatizes us. So, the professional dishonesty of what was happening and going on and then revealed in his blog is what is the problem for for me. It creates another trauma and distrust. So much so that, for me, I decided I couldn’t go to the APSATS training event in June because she and her husband might be there, in leadership. I just couldn’t face the shaming of my anger anymore.
What the fuck is it about ‘angry women’ that terrifies men so goddamn much? Searching through my ‘treasure trove’ of quotes and this is the only one I can find on the subject:
“An angry woman is vindictive beyond measure, and hesitates at nothing in her bitterness.” ~ Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn
Misogynist much, motherfucker?
An angry man is a bully beyond measure, and hesitates at nothing in his vengeance.
Diane Strickland.I can’t find his blog. I want to read it. I posted where I asked him a question and received his answer, I responded, and then Ella jumped in. I will post a link if anyone wants to read it But I used my name and it is on her website under “resources” and then “ask an addict”……
I will not be told that I cannot be angry. I understand a good therapist that helps you work thru the anger but don’t tell me not to be angry. I am angry and that is final.
He never really answered my question any way. Just the same old adict speak but it wasn’t bad. She pissed me off when she told me …(paraphrase) ” I can’t imagine how hard it must be for a husband working recovery with a wife that does not believe in sex addiction”. That’s not her exact words but you get the point. Maybe she is right. Maybe it is harder for him. I. Don’t. Care.
If anyone would like to have a discussion about what is “hard” then I will participate and trump him every time.
Oh, yeah, and men are NEVER vindictive? Give me a break! Tell me how dr. evil isn’t vindictive? Not that he would admit is because he really is just such a nice guy and he is just responding to my anger which is so out of control.
dr. evil writes about me in his journal as a “woman scorned”.
It pisses me off- it trivializes my anger. “Oh, yeah, you know angry women….”But his anger is legitimate and he deserves to vent it and have it validated and he is just finding his voice and setting boundaries and blah blah blah…
Our truth is their Kryptonite. They may duck the anger and may call us vindictive or women scorned or whatever but we know the truth and that is what galls them.
Anger is an emotion we have every right to feel. I don’t care what other people think or say. There are a lot of people who get up everyday and suck at the jobs or professions they do. I only try to find the good ones.
That is what’s worst for them. When a Narc looks into our eyes and sees the Truth rather than a reflection of his idealized self he’s found there for years, it is unbearable for him.
Dammit. I want my anger! I sit here gleefully cackling over YOUR anger but I want some of my own. I get plenty mad on all of your behalves but not for myself. Why is that?
I don’t know, Daisy, but it took me some time to access my anger appropriately, too. I could get angry about dumbass things for years in my marriage or in general. But I spent so many years being told that my appropriate anger was somehow wrong that I could no longer access it even months after dday.
After awhile, I found if I acted angry, sometimes I could access it. Like by punching a punching bag. And when I allowed myself to swear and call him names. The actions came before the feelings, though.
this is an incredible thread. goddess diane, thank you for starting it. and goddess-sisters, my love for you is one of the things that balances towards the light the shitty life choices i have now…
i believe our anger is so scary to SAs and therapists because it moves us towards resistance. to movement. to protect ourselves. and away from compliance and acceptance of the unacceptable.
anger allows us to know we’ve been violated. and channelled, it allows us to enforce what we know is right and true.
that is scary to an SA. because it offers to them the unknown. it takes away their control of us.
it is scary to an insecure or not so intelligent therapist. it presents a doubt of their theories. the possibility that there is an ancient and undeniable wisdom in us that cannot be refuted. that they should be flexible and open in their dogma and that linear, hard lined thinking is not the way to the truth. that they don’t have all the answers.
our anger is intrinsic. essential. an innate instinct that will allow us to survive. it is older than therapy. deeper than theories. it is the human soul lifting the wounded out of desperation into the light. it is the righteous (in the good sense of the word) opposing evil.
and that is terribly scary to anyone who has any evil in them.
Daisy, I think the betrayal is so severe it is unfathomable. The insidious way they corrupt our lives and the lives of our children is almost impossible to wrap our heads around. If we try to stay with them, there’s a limit to how much of that anger we can access, because to feel the full extent of it means a return of our self respect. And no self-respecting woman can live with what they’ve done. Once we let them go, we are rushed with the full force of it–all of the pain and anger of wasted years, wasted youth, wasted sexuality. Every kind deed and thought we had, wasted. Every plan made, every occasion celebrated. Lie after lie, blame after blame. All the ways we twisted ourselves to accommodate them, to make things right, to accept responsibility. It is horrendous.
daisy, perhaps picture your younger self. the girl you were. think of an emotion or attitude – pain sadness, feeling the need to be a good girl, what ever is one of your strongest. ask your self how old you were when you felt that.
protect that little girl. with your anger. it doesn’t mean you attack anyone or need to be ‘mean’. it can be that you put a shield around that little girl. a bright angry impenetrable boundary that will keep her safe. maybe that will help to think of anger in terms of protection rather than an offensive or defensive maneuver?
march, you are absolutely right. and IMO another reason the anger is so scary to them. it means they have to face the horrendous.
and these little boys these 4 year olds or 10 year olds or however mature they are, are pathetic when they have to face anything real. they create the horror. then they can’t face it.
cocksuking whorefucking fuckers. i hate them for that.I think you’re right March. I also think that perhaps I’m still in denial on some level. I don’t think I’ve fully grasped what happened to me. Like you said, the betrayal is so severe. Maybe I haven’t really processed it yet? I think there’s a little part of me that is STILL hoping I will wake up and find that this was a hideously long, detailed nightmare. Maybe that’s what disclosure will do for me. Finally wake me up – grab me by the shoulders and give me a shake and push me to get on with things whatever those things may be. Someone else said it and I think it’s true – I’m in limbo right now.
go easy on yourself sister, you are exactly where you need to be right now. and you will get to another place when you are ready. you are asking questions, and noticing. that is brave and strong. xoxoxo
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