Truth makes me even more angry!

[Abzo Dolba]

I have been bullied pretty much my whole life.

When I try to connect with my emotions towards the bullies I sometimes feel ravaging amounts of anger. I start having torturous and murderous fantasies with them...and I feel some kind of relief and a sense of justice.

 

It feels good to think of them as sadists that are fully aware of the amount of suffering that they caused me...because in this way my murderous anger feels justified.

However...if I were to be more reasonable I would have to stop seeing them as sadists and pretend that they were empathizing with me; because to be fair I don't believe that they were able to empathize with me because if they could they might have never bullied me in the first place.

 

The problem is...this doesn't make them sadists...and if they are not sadists I feel despair and hopelessness because I don't feel that my anger is proportional to what they would really deserve.

This makes me even more angry...but this is a different kind of anger...it is a kind of anger that is combined with hopelessness, despair and I also have a feeling of being eternally doomed to frustration because of this.

 

Do you know what makes me even more angry? Trying to empathize with them...because I bet that as children they were abused and hurt a lot and when I am mentally trying to portray scenes of their childhood in which they were being abused...it kills me inside because that would mean that I have to sympathize with my bullies which is absolutely torturous. 

[Kurtis]

Thankyou for sharing and I'm very sorry to hear about your struggles with bullying.

 

This is something that I too dealt with. Could I ask you if your parents bullied you?

 

This was my case, as my abusive step father and complacent mother turned me into a very good victim who could not fight back or tell anyone. Bullies at school (also children of disastrous homes) can sense this victim mentality like a predator can pick out the wounded prey.

 

I never felt much anger to these child bullies, but I did feel murderous anger towards my step father. Something I didn't talk about our deal with for many years. It is difficult to admit these kinds of feelings and so I commend you for that.

 

These abuses are traumatizing. The anger comes from within as a defense response (the fight option in the fight or flight response mechanism of our nervous system). Trauma needs to be processed in order for our systems to know that the threat is no longer present (see the work of Peter Levine for more on this).

 

This is why the anger feels good, because if followed, it would resolve the trauma. Probably also feels good to have somebody, even if it's yourself, stand up for you. (Healthy parents would have been angry on your behalf as a protective response to your danger you experienced)

 

I would even have dreams where I would act out this murderous anger on my step father. However, in real life, acting out in this way would obviously harm many people including myself. Luckily there's a much better option which is therapy. You can process these traumas and be free from the ongoing chains of inaction against violence you experienced in your childhood. You can rewire your brain so that it can be in the "rest and digest" state the majority of the time.

 

This work can be very difficult and your anger can be a helpful ally. The goal should not be to eradicate the anger, it is there for a reason. Once you've processed the traumas, that anger will be gone from your normal state of being. However, it will be ready and available to step in to defend you should dangerous people come back around.

 

Find your self worth (often a big struggle for children who've been abused/bullied) and learn to love how your body is working to protect you.

[Abzo Dolba]

Thankyou for sharing and I'm very sorry to hear about your struggles with bullying.

 

This is something that I too dealt with. Could I ask you if your parents bullied you?

 

This was my case, as my abusive step father and complacent mother turned me into a very good victim who could not fight back or tell anyone. Bullies at school (also children of disastrous homes) can sense this victim mentality like a predator can pick out the wounded prey.

 

I never felt much anger to these child bullies, but I did feel murderous anger towards my step father. Something I didn't talk about our deal with for many years. It is difficult to admit these kinds of feelings and so I commend you for that.

 

These abuses are traumatizing. The anger comes from within as a defense response (the fight option in the fight or flight response mechanism of our nervous system). Trauma needs to be processed in order for our systems to know that the threat is no longer present (see the work of Peter Levine for more on this).

 

This is why the anger feels good, because if followed, it would resolve the trauma. Probably also feels good to have somebody, even if it's yourself, stand up for you. (Healthy parents would have been angry on your behalf as a protective response to your danger you experienced)

 

I would even have dreams where I would act out this murderous anger on my step father. However, in real life, acting out in this way would obviously harm many people including myself. Luckily there's a much better option which is therapy. You can process these traumas and be free from the ongoing chains of inaction against violence you experienced in your childhood. You can rewire your brain so that it can be in the "rest and digest" state the majority of the time.

 

This work can be very difficult and your anger can be a helpful ally. The goal should not be to eradicate the anger, it is there for a reason. Once you've processed the traumas, that anger will be gone from your normal state of being. However, it will be ready and available to step in to defend you should dangerous people come back around.

 

Find your self worth (often a big struggle for children who've been abused/bullied) and learn to love how your body is working to protect you.

Thank you for your comment!

I will make a more in-depth reply when I have time, however you did not address at all the problem that I talked about in my OP...that is the cognitive dissonance between the amounts of anger that I have and them not being sadists.

[Kurtis]

however you did not address at all the problem that I talked about in my OP...that is the cognitive dissonance between the amounts of anger that I have and them not being sadists.

I was trying to allude to that by asking about what your experience was like with your parents. I was wondering if you were being triggered by the bullies you encountered later in life.

 

When children experience abuse at the hands of their parents it can cause a very real mortal danger in the child's mind (throughout our evolution, parental abuse/neglect meant death for the child). If that trauma is then triggered by a bully years later, the threat would seem disproportionate to the feelings of fear and fight response that result.

 

Of course, this might not be the case with you, just some thoughts i had.

[Kurtis]

You may also be interested in this thread on "Is anger really healthy for you?" 

 

https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/44123-is-anger-really-healthy-for-you/

[J-William]

I have been bullied pretty much my whole life.

When I try to connect with my emotions towards the bullies I sometimes feel ravaging amounts of anger. I start having torturous and murderous fantasies with them...and I feel some kind of relief and a sense of justice.

 

It feels good to think of them as sadists that are fully aware of the amount of suffering that they caused me...because in this way my murderous anger feels justified.

However...if I were to be more reasonable I would have to stop seeing them as sadists and pretend that they were empathizing with me; because to be fair I don't believe that they were able to empathize with me because if they could they might have never bullied me in the first place.

 

The problem is...this doesn't make them sadists...and if they are not sadists I feel despair and hopelessness because I don't feel that my anger is proportional to what they would really deserve.

This makes me even more angry...but this is a different kind of anger...it is a kind of anger that is combined with hopelessness, despair and I also have a feeling of being eternally doomed to frustration because of this.

 

Do you know what makes me even more angry? Trying to empathize with them...because I bet that as children they were abused and hurt a lot and when I am mentally trying to portray scenes of their childhood in which they were being abused...it kills me inside because that would mean that I have to sympathize with my bullies which is absolutely torturous.

I don't know the answer to your dilemma, but I had a similar experience of bullying. Perhaps we can find some common ground.

 

I remember being bullied from first grade up until eighth grade (it changed significantly around the time my parents decided to move and mostly stopped).

Around eighth grade one of the boys who had been bullying me joined in a school play at the same time as me. I had previously gotten into fights with him at least twice. In art class he had been picking on me and I hit him and another time he was messing with me and as I recall tossing rocks at me on the way back after recess, that time I turned and grabbed him and wanted to punch him but decided against it.

Anyhow he was not very intelligent and was from a lower middle class or poor family, and had a history of behavior problems so that when I fought with him the teachers understood that he had caused it and didn't punish me.

 

There were other bullies, but I go into detail on this one because later when we were in this play he changed his attitude and became friendly. He mentioned his reasoning for the change one day and it was basically that I wasn't actually the quiet nerdy kid, but actually kinda cool... My part in the play was comedic and I think I made him laugh.

 

The smarter bullies that I encountered in the gifted program my school had were a good deal more cruel and sadistic. They did not decide that I was cool and stop picking on me, they kept on being cruel and later when we moved I spent my time around lower middle class and poor kids who thought I was cool because I could make them laugh and avoided the more intelligent sadists.

 

I can in some way empathize with the less intelligent bully since he is more of a product of his environment and doesn't have the same intelligence to understand and control what he is doing.

I have boundless contempt and hatred for the more intelligent kids. I spent much of my high school years contemplating how awful the school system is because it packs kids in with sadistic assholes and they can't leave and in college my fantasy was to make lotsa money and start a gifted school that would kick out bullies.

[Darknecrosforte]

I think I see what you were trying to ask. "What is the ethical way for me to treat these bullies because I feel like my natural inclinations will not be following the non-aggression principle?" Is this close? The first part concerns your curiosity in fully understanding your own feelings of blind rage. As a former military member, I have become familiar with dissociated rage and may be able to help you a bit.

 

From a neurological function, this level of rage is triggering the physiological mechanisms required to make a desperate final strike against a bear with your stick. Or to fight off 4 wolves in the tundra. Are you actually expending this much physical energy? I highly doubt it.

 

What happens over even a few months of sympathetic activation a few times a week? Hormones, receptors, effector muscles, and other physical factors will adjust to deal with the perceived threat to your life. What makes it worse is not "releasing" the chemical cascade. This makes it much harder for your body to degrade circulating neurotransmitters because they may stay in the muscles that aren't moving to fight or flee. Not good stuff.

 

I took up boxing (randomly hitting stuff with gloves) and violin to express myself. Automatically way less rage.

[Spenc]

I would like to put forward a theory about why youre struggling with your anger, if you'll indulge me.

 

You know that your anger is misplaced.  You had parents who molded you into a target for bullies and didnt consequently protect you from those bullies..  it troubles you to consider these bullies being on the wrong end of abuse at the hands of their parents because it is too close to home for you:  it makes it difficult for you to avoid empathizing with yourself in the relationships you had with your mother and father.  this is why you have unmanageable anger when you attempt to empathize with your attackers, because you are throwing up fog at yourself to keep you from connecting the dots to your own childhood self that is similarly looking for empathy for his own parents.

 

again, this is just a lawn dart hurled through the air.   i have no evidence for it and you should not accept it without examining your won circumstances.  it was just the immediate feeling that i had and i wanted to share with you in case it could be helpful.

[Magnetic Synthesizer]

Disconnected sadists. Their pleasur ein yoru suffering might not be it or be secondary.

I would attribute it to power-play entertainement or status or coping with their own insecurities.

Not an expert in this.

[Magnetic Synthesizer]

I used to have resentment for the masses (brief due to my frenetic evolution).

The solution wasn't obvious. I knew it was caused by a few rationalization.I debunked them away from my core morality. I didn't commit time, cured it passively with periodic short progress/trials.

 

I think this is caused by unconsistencies in morality and natural evolutionary reactions. I could give you many tricks, but I choose to give you 1 best trick, I think is rare.

 

If you can't find the full origin of sometimes of your self such as an emotion:

1. Look at what desires the emotion causes.

2.The desires are closely related with an imagined cure.

3. What does the cure remedy?

4. The cure remedies the cause of your emotion.

5. Now you know the some or all cause of your emotion.

 

Negative emotions are nearly always undesirable. Emerge from internal errors or outside trauma.