Dear Ellie
I have only recently become aware that I have a phychosomatic illness
that is caused by repressed anger. I know this because I get terrible
pains in my stomach when something makes me angry. When I ask myself
what it is that is making me angry I can usually trace back to the
source. I have always suspected that I was repressing stuff but I never
realized to the extent that I did it. It is very disturbing to realize
that I do this and I am so out of touch with my own emotions. I do not
remember when ,how or why I started doing this and I guess my body just
got to the point where it couldnt store any more anger. I have also
become "allergic to some common foods such as wheat, milk and sugar. I
noticed you mentioned these foods as having some kind of exitory effect
on the nervous system. I have tried beating on the pillow and
redirecting anger but I have a real hard time getting angry at my
parents even in the privacy of my own head. I am learning however to
allow myself to get angry at current situations and to retrain myself to
be aware when I am angry now. I know that part of the trouble is that I
have this idea that I am never justified in being angry and that if
something goes wrong or even if someone says or does something then I am
probably to blame for the situation. That sounds illogcal I know, but I
am just becoming aware of it. Anyway I hope to continue to make progress
in this area and to reconnect with my feelings, thanks for sharing
yourself with all of us.
Sincerely, Carol

Dear Carol,
It's probalby a good sign you are having problems with wheat, milk, and
sugar. It means your body is rejecting these since they are not foods
the body can use.

You are always justified in feeling angry. True, it takes two to tangle.
The other person may be misdirecting anger at you and you may be doing
the same with that person. Even if something went wrong because of your
behavior, your behavior was probably an expression of misdirected but
justifiable anger, and you are innocent of this behavior. It's anger
that needs to get out and if you turn it in and feel guilty, that's
still misdirected. It needs to be redirected to past abusers if it is
intense. These incidents are an opportunity for you to redirect anger.
Your anger in current interactions is a mix of anger at the current
person, and repressed anger from earlier trauma when you had to learn to
suppress it. It is when you feel intensely angry in a current situation
and it is out of proportion to the situation that it is most important
to do some redirecting of the anger toward past abusers. And if the
other person initiated a fight of course you have a right to be angry.
If your response is intense, again it's mixed with old anger and some
of it needs to be redirected. I hope this makes some sense. Keep
rereading the article.

I know it is hard to accept that our parents couldn't love us in healthy
ways. Remember they were innocent victims of lack of love themselves. No
parent needs to be perfect, but we were unfortunately programmed not to
have our justifiable anger when they weren't perfect, and also we were
afraid to get angry at them for fear of losing them. Have you tried
writing a brief autobiography of your childhood relationships. You don't
need to recall everything, but it might trigger some ideas of how you
were neglected. For example, I did not remember being left to cry it out
in my crib, (and I was never phsyically abused) but I remembered that a
friend of my mothers who lived with us said my mother would never allow
her to pick me up. When you do redirect anger toward your early
caretakers remember you are not hurting them...you are just getting
angry at their disease And this release and redirecting of your
repressed anger will heal you emtionally and evenetually of an
psychosomatic (better termed neurogenic) problems.
Ellie







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Self help for depression is on:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~clearpathway/depression.html
The same article entitled Self help for addictions is on:
http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/Sauna/2579
The longer version entitled Self help for emotional disorders is on:
http://pages.nyu.edu/~er26/depression.html