Surviving Psychopathic Parenting (Part 12) Turning off the Anger switch

What did ‘Anger’ look like for you as a child?

Were you an angry child? How did it reveal itself?

What ‘relationship’ do you have with the emotion of anger?

In this 12th part of my survival story, I am going to talk about switching off my anger. (For the previous parts, do look up the menu above)

I remember once the TFI Friday host Chris Evans tried to explain his relationship with Anger after being berated in the press for his frequent explosions. He tied up a small fuse to a small chocolate cake and blew it up, making a small mess. Then he compared it to a very very long fuse that led to a very large cake and then lit the fuse. It created a large mess. He was making the point that a small fuse and a small cake made a small mess, that holding onto anger could lead to a large explosive mess.

I watched that sometime in the late 1990’s, in my late teens. I remember then thinking that I had neither. Neither fuse, nor cake. Maybe fuse, but no cake. At that time I couldn’t ever recall there being a cake, at 19 I couldnt recall being angry, but thought that was a good thing at the time.

I wasn’t angry when I was mistreated by people.

I wasnt angry when I was bullied in workplaces

I wasnt angry when I was bullied in relationships.

That was something I had learned since being a child.

I cannot remember when it was, when was the last time I got angry for the sake of my own cause?

not the cause of others and injustice, but for something relating to myself?

At some point in my childhood I gave up being angry.

Maybe more to the point, I realised it was pointless. The dominant emotions of my childhood revolved around self -loathing, guilt and shame, I wasnt angry. I had given up on that a very long time ago.

You can’t be angry and try and navigate a psychopathic parents eggshells at the same time. You’ll make them explode.

I was told not to raise my voice to them. Not to talk back to them.

Not to make them angry. Not to have or express needs.

So where might there be any space to be angry.

It was just survival.

There isn’t space in a home with an emotional, emotionally immature parent for more than one person to have the emotions.

I just cant remember ever being angry.

Im trying to think, was I angry elsewhere. Probably not, I was the quiet one on the football pitch, hated raising my voice, didn’t shout when the team lost a goal, just couldn’t show it.

But.

I know that I was told that I was spoiled. I know that as a toddler I held my breath and turned myself blue, I was told this was because I didnt get ‘what I wanted’. Maybe it wasnt this. Maybe it was emotionally unsafe and I knew it then. Maybe I wasnt heard or listened to, and I needed to control the space at the time.

But I was told I was spoiled, and so ‘how dare I’ try that again. Maybe that was the last time I was angry to defend myself. Aged 2.

Because I internalised the responsibility of rescuing the psychopath parent, what would there be that I was angry about? Anger was pointless.

I gave up being angry. At the same time I gave up on myself.

Switched off that emotional brain.

Closed up. Went into the survival zone.

As a result, closed off all the emotions. The happy positive ones too. Thats what happens when walking on emotional eggshells all the time.

Wasnt my real, my inner self.

I know now that its ok to be angry. But that doesn’t mean I am able to express it. I know now that getting angry can mean so many things, from unmet needs, grief and boundaries being crossed. But that still doesn’t mean that I am able to feel it.

I know that I have something to defend, protect and value, myself, in a way that I haven’t ever before, so just maybe I will be able to express healthy anger.

Switching off the anger switch may well have been something I had to do to survive psychopathic parenting, and switching anger off has affected me in many ways ever since. Through being in a safe emotional place, and the healing journey through therapy maybe I am more likely to have moments of being angry, for the reasons above, then before. But its definitely something thats not a natural thing.

And if it emerges its likely to be a medium to long fuse and a small cake.

Surviving meant switching off the anger switch.