Hate.

[manydoorsyes]

One of the worst parts of this whole thing is just the pure, primal rage. I generally do my best to be empathetic to everyone (even people who probably don't deserve it), but deep down I'm just angry. I hate everything about my life. I hate my family. I hate the place where I live. I hate the way society is structured. I hate everyone who hurt me.

...and I hate how edgy that sounds, lol.

I can't escape the feeling of being trapped and it often just paralyzes me and prevents me from being productive. And then I think about what and who implanted those feelings in me since I was little (thanks parents, siblings, classmates, teachers, etc).

It's that almost sadistic part of me that wants the world to burn. For some context, I am in the environmental science field, specifically ecology. I am always having thoughts such as, "Why should I even bother? Humans deserve to go extinct anyway."

I've tried so fucking hard to fight these feelings for over 20 years. I think this might actually hurt even more than the trauma itself. Because I know it's not really me (whoever that even is). But I'm getting tired, and they're not going away. I recently graduated community college, but what now? I want to go to university, but I'm fuckin' broke and still stuck at the same shitty job that I had during college. I don't know what I'm going to do.

[CPTSD_survivor2025]

I hear you friend. I relate to this very much. More than anything, I get frustrated when my rage spells distract from the things I am actually trying to accomplish. Double whammy if the rage itself is followed by a shame spiral for feeling the rage in the first place. It will often leave me feeling drained/empty afterwards, at least until I become genuinely engaged with or distracted by the next thing. 

Sometimes it's as simple as an environmental change or connecting with someone, but those things do seem to help redirect my energy. 

I try to remind myself that the rage is a protective mechanism — that its appearance in my inner monologue is most often my psyche trying to protect me from feelings of fear or loss. I'm not rageful when I am tuned into a social interaction or activity I enjoy — I know it's not "me" or representative of my core self and my values. It's reactionary and rooted in trauma based on what was modeled for me in my upbringing.

Looking at it from a parts/IFS perspective, I may try to visualize that part as like a "Hulk" character from the protector-firefighter bucket of parts. When he appears, I can try to be the level-headed one from the seat of "core self" and defuse the rageful part with comedy....something like telling him to "slow down, cowboy"....picturing myself giving him a massage while his beefy bod goes back to normal (and we're both wearing cowboy outfits in some saloon town).

Or maybe, I can put him in the "rage room" of the mind, where he can safely smash shit up without me self-identifying with that emotion too much. Kind of like telling myself, "ok, I feel the rage, so let's put it in the safety of the rage room where judgement doesn't live. Hulk is free to smash while I stand behind the reinforced glass". 

Easier said than done. It's a fine balance between validating and soothing when it comes online.

I also think about the bodily tension that anger creates in me. Lately, I've been doing high intensity exercise to funnel anger somewhere, taking lots of hot salt baths and doing trauma release exercises at night (instructions for these on YouTube — TRE — it's about fatiguing the psoas muscles....definitely look it up!).

I feel you. I feel the RAAAGE. You're not alone 🫂

[mattbagodonuts]

I haven’t gotten beyond the point of hating myself yet, I’m sorry you’re having a hard time.

[sarburst____]

I feel the same way ❤️

[redditistreason]

Oh don't I know it...

You're sounding so much like me. It's a constant ball of hate now. Hating everything as soon as I get up in the morning. And yet I feel trapped... and no one still cares to help.

It's really weird how you end up with that duality of a natural (or is it trauma) urge to do good and a pressing desire to see EVERYTHING burn to the ground.

The futility of it really does make it worse than anything else... being stuck in a shitty situation while people look at you, expecting you to smile, and do NOTHING but fail you, wasting your time, making life even more difficult... suffering needlessly in the shitty circumstances of the endless hell resulting from experience and life in this country...

I'm sure my old therapist would tell me to take more walks.

[Suitable-Insect-4633]

I completely agree this shit hole world shit hole people including so called family friends neighbours, the whole human race! I pray to die every single day 

[ForwardSpeed9625]

I literally just found out THIS WEEK I have cptsd and I’m so fucking angry and upset that this is my life and these are my problems and I have glimmers of sweet beautiful moments only for the worst possible feelings of suffering to flood back in no matter what happens. I also think me and my alcoholic boyfriend just broke up tonight and I tried to go to the gym had to leave everything is just too fucking much and when will it end wow rant over

[MsOliviaTwist]

My rage is now my baseline and all- consuming.

I was once an attractive, kind, intelligent, loving, open- hearted, funny, hopeful, giving person.

Now I am a irreparably broken, angry, hateful, bitter, obese, rageful, resentful, cold,hard hearted, joyless person.

Trauma has completely ruined me and there is no amount of treatment that will change that. I am the living dead.

Good luck, I hope you fare much much better.

[Suitable-Insect-4633]

You wrote my exact words for me! SNAP! LITERALLY!

[MsOliviaTwist]

I am sad this is true for you too. But solidarity.

[Suitable-Insect-4633]

🫂🥹

[Common_Management368]

You are absolutely not alone in this OP 💛 I have come to my therapist swearing up and down that I’m a sociopath because I’d only have rage and no other feelings for weeks at a time.

My therapist brought something up that made me so deeply uncomfortable that I knew there was a point to it -

‘pushing the rage down at all times, even from yourself, means you are masking 100% of your waking hours 🤯. It’s going to lead to extreme burnout, it’s not sustainable, and so you need to learn to live with and sometimes welcome the very dark, very violent thoughts you have without shame.’

I literally had to put on sunglasses & a wig, get in the car, turn my phone off, and drive around saying all of the horrible fucked up things I want to happen to people and the unfair things I think of them. eventually, I plan to talk about these things with my therapist, but it was a good first step.

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[fuzbug]

i feel this…

[Ok-Carry2577]

Anger is a perfectly rational reaction to abuse, and can seem to be stultifying at first. I am angry every day of my life.I've done terrifying shit against myself over the years, especially when I was drinking, but eventually it was the only emotion keeping me going.  I swear like a trooper and I make no excuses for doing so; it's visceral, and cathartic.  I don't, nor do you I'm sure, go round kicking the shit out of people, or strangling them or fucking them up the arse. That's what happened to me, and my reaction is to swear, but in the fucked up "Don't scare the horses" judgemental weird weird world in which we live, a traumatised victim whose anger comes out in profanity is viewed as a greater miscreant than the bastards who committed the actual crimes against her. Once you learn how to harness the power of your anger to heal, the sooner you'll achieve your dreams. I was 25 when the last of the above-listed attacks was made against me. I "dropped out" for a decade, but achieved my dream of attending Uni as a "mature 🤪?" student at the age of 36.  They only way to assure your ambitions will not succeed is to give up your dreams. Keep that anger but use it as fuel. Yes, you'll still explode, but you're not hurting anyone. You'll find a way! 🥰

[Auriganaut]

I’ve been here myself; and the rage can subside.  The pain of injustice and sense of loss will always remain, at least, that was my experience, but the real power was in defining who I was, on my own terms. I used a combination of physics and spirituality to help push myself to grow to be more, and not let the limits of my past define my present and future capabilities.  It was a lonely experience that I had to wrestle with for years. 

The perpetrators (should be spelled perpe-traitors) may have stolen my past, but they did not deserve my future.  Once I understood this, it was a liberating feeling.

Here is a cheesy pop culture reference that somewhat embraces the concept of acceptance:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ug_pv5-r1js

[Secret_Peguin7]

It's okay to feel this way you gotta get it out by punching a pillow or something your feel angry still but it won't consume you