Traumatic Brain Injury and the Grieving Process – Anger and Resentment – Part 4
Posted by secondchancetolive on May 29, 2008
Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3, Part 5, Part 6, and in conclusion Part 7
Hello and welcome back to Second Chance to Live. I am happy that you decided to stop by and visit with me. You are always welcome around my table. Over the past 3 days I have been developing a series on Traumatic Brain Injury and the Process of Grieving. Through my process I discovered that I was using huge amounts of spiritual and emotional energy in ways that undermined my creative capacity to direct my passion through my gifts, talents and abilities. In my experience I found that I needed to grieve the losses created by my traumatic brain injury.
In Part 3 of this series Traumatic Brain Injury and the Process of Grieving, the second stage in the grieving process was introduced: anger. Per my experience, as I slowly became aware of my anger I realized that I had bought into a denial system that sought to keep me in denial through shame. Because I believed that I deserved to be shamed for not being enough, I internalized my anger. Debilitating guilt and debilitating shame convinced and contained me in denial because I believed that I was the problem and thus deserved to be shamed. Shame undermined my ability to trust.
Shame set the stage for me to become a reactor rather than an actor in life. Debilitating guilt and debilitating shame left me feeling helpless. Debilitating guilt and debilitating shame sabotaged my ability to trust the process, a loving God and myself. Debilitating guilt and debilitating shame drained my spiritual and emotional energy as I attempted to overcompensate for my unknown deficits and limitations. Through my process, I also discovered that much of my anger was buried under a mountain called debilitating guilt and debilitating shame. Consequently, I needed to address my debilitating guilt and debilitating shame.
When I started to experience my anger — in my helplessness — I turned that anger inwards. For many years I unknowingly allowed my anger to fester in the realm of resentments. I had resentments toward various people, but the biggest resentment I had was toward myself. I was resentful towards myself because I was unable to prove to other people that I was not a mistake. Specifically I spent huge amounts of energy chiding and berating myself for not being able to do enough to be enough to prove that I was enough. Consequently I spent much of my life apologizing to other people for not being enough.
Through my process I found that much of the criticism that I had toward other people stemmed from self-criticism. Moreover the judgment and criticism that I showed toward other people was often in direct proportion to the judgment and criticism that I showed toward myself. I found that my relationships with other people mirrored the relationship I had with myself. I also determined that my resentments were in a way a cry for help, however no one was listening. Instead the direct opposite occurred. My judgmental attitude and criticisms of other people and myself alienated everyone and anyone who may have been willing to help.
In my process, I discovered that as I held onto my anger and my resentment I pushed people away from me. I also found that in the process of alienating other people, I was in affect alienating myself. Consequently, I became my own enemy.
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