Posted by fallsfall on March 19, 2004, at 14:17:27
In reply to Re: A little better, posted by emmaley on March 18, 2004, at 19:33:00
Good question. What happened if I did show anger as a child? I don't remember much anger as a child. I would assume that it would depend on who the anger was towards.
I'm sure it was never allowed to feel anger towards my dad. He had his woodworking tools (including table saw) in the basement - under my bedroom. I really hated the noise that it made - it really disturbed me. But I don't think that I ever saw that I was angry at him for making the noise, I think that I believed that I was sad or hurt - but those emotions come *towards* me, where anger would be going away from me - *towards* him. I get the feeling that I didn't consider it possible to push negative emotions towards him.
My mother would make me clean my room. I would sit for hours NOT cleaning. I think that my thoughts were "I don't want to clean my room, and I won't", I don't think I ever thought "She shouldn't be making me do this".
I have two older sisters. We were all within 3 years, so when we went on vacation to a place with bunches of kids who broke down into groups based on age, we would often all three end up falling in the same group. But they would make me go to the next younger group because they didn't want me around. I know I thought they were mean to me (and now, as adults, they agree that they were), and I'm sure I protested. But I always lost (there were two of them and they were both older than me). I don't know if I complained to my mother (I'm sure I didn't complain to my dad...) - it seems to me now that she wouldn't have done anything about it, so it wouldn't do much good.
What kinds of circumstances occur in kid's lives when they should be angry? It really is a very foreign emotion to me.
poster:fallsfall
thread:325785
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040313/msgs/326096.html