In my last post (Taken Over By Aliens) I wrote about the way I tend to catastrophize everything when I get upset, amongst other things. It doesn’t take anything for me to get upset, it seems, and I’d really like it to change. It’s exhausting to get upset and angry all the time, especially when it’s over little things. If I only got angry over big things, then maybe it wouldn’t happen so often, but it happens ALL the TIME!! And I’m SOOO TIRED of it!!
I just want it to STOP!!
When I was talking to McT about it during my FaceTime session on Tuesday, I told him how distressed it makes me feel everytime I get upset, because I feel like I must be disappointing God. Instead of trusting Him with whatever the situation is, I get upset about it and fall apart. Thankfully I’m no longer hitting myself, but I don’t want to get upset about it either. I just want to keep my peace and trust that God has the situation in hand. But somehow I can’t seem to do that, no matter what I do.
It’s SOOO ANNOYING!!
Then McT presented me with an entirely new thought about this problem, one which I had never considered before, and it completely changed my perspective on it. He suggested that maybe my responses to these situations that make me fall apart are because of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
PTSD?? PTSD?? Oh my! I had never thought of that before!! If it’s PTSD that’s driving my responses, that makes me feel like I’m not doing it on purpose!
Let me explain what I just said…
When I was a kid and I did something like spilling my milk at the dinner table, I had to act remorseful ENOUGH, otherwise my mother accused me of spilling it on purpose. Remorseful ENOUGH meant doing something like cleaning up the spilled milky mess I had just made while apologizing and crying and hitting myself. I think this was probably the genesis of the self-abuse that happened in later years. I had to act abjectly apologetic. This involved a great deal of weeping and crying and expressions of sorrow.
I never could seem to convince them (my parents) that I didn’t do it on purpose. None of my explanations or expressions of remorse and sorrow over this heinous act of spilling my milk were ever adequate to persuade them or satisfy them that I wasn’t the evil child who was trying to make things difficult for my mother.
It makes me feel frenzied inside when I think back to these situations, panic-stricken that I could never make it right, no matter how hard I tried. I can see the little ones running around frantically inside, grasping at air and screaming in terror because my mother was sitting there stone-faced, because one of us had clumsily knocked over a glass of milk by accident. And if she was sitting there stone-faced, that meant we were gonna get hit.
IMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRY!!!!
Damn, Mom!! You NEVER knocked over ANYTHING by accident??!! You were the PERFECT CHILD??
I DON’T THINK SO!!!
When I started writing out I’m sorry over and over and over again, it’s like a deep and gigantic well of tears was released, and I started to weep and sob huge gulping sobs. I think I had never really dealt with the spilt milk issue. I may have more to do. If so, God will be there with me to do it…
So the idea that PTSD could be what’s behind me getting upset all the time? Well, that generates a whole new line of thought for me. For one thing, instead of God’s judgment, which is what I’ve always felt when I’ve worried that He’s disappointed in me, all of a sudden I can feel His mercy. If it’s PTSD then I can feel His mercy and love. It’s like PTSD gives me a valid reason for why I do what I do, and I’ve never had that before.
And maybe PTSD explains why I’m angry in the first place.
Now that’s an interesting thought, and one which I’ll probably have to explore further in future posts…
I don’t want PTSD to become the catchall excuse for everything in my life, like, for example, why did you rob that store?
(I’m trying to think of an example that involves something that I would NEVER EVER do…)
Well, I robbed that store because my father hit me when I was little, so now I have PTSD. The PTSD made me rob the store.
NO!! NO!! NO!! I don’t think so!!
The PTSD that I have now as an adult is a result of the abuse inflicted on me by my parents when I was little. But now that I’m an adult, what I do with that is MY RESPONSIBILITY. I can’t blame any wrong behavior or sin that I might commit now on what they did to me as a child. I am responsible for my actions now, even if they are informed by what happened to me as a child.
Okay, so back to PTSD and my anger…
I get angry ALL the TIME, and over the littlest things, as I explained earlier. It happens a lot while I’m watching TV, and especially when I’m watching programs about true crime, and in particular while I’m watching programs about child abuse and domestic violence. I spend a lot of time yelling at the abusers in the TV programs, and telling them what jerks they are, and telling the police in these programs what they should be doing that they aren’t, and even telling everyone what they should be saying to each other. No one ever says what I think they should be saying!
It would be funny if it weren’t so indicative of what’s going on my heart. I’ve come to the realization that I’m probably yelling at Harry, and at my mother, and at everyone else in my life who didn’t protect me but should have when I was little. In other words, my anger at my parents is projected onto the people in the programs I’m watching on TV, because I don’t know the people on the TV from Adam’s housecat (if Adam had a housecat…).
I think the abuse is the iceberg that sank my Titanic anger, and as I work through my pain, I’m raising my Titanic back to the surface so it can be reassembled to sail again, hopefully this time without incident. And all the people who died when it sank are all my alters from when I was multiple who were so wounded and abused by my parents. Thankfully I was integrated back in 2003 by God, and through the efforts of a wonderful prayer team at the church I was attending at the time. So those alters have been healed and integrated into the whole that is me now.
But it’s time, I think, to deal with all that anger. I don’t know how that will come about, but God does, and McT is a really good shrink, probably the best I’ve ever had. He’s led by the Spirit, and he loves God and His Word.
For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image. ~ 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, NLT.
I’m grateful for the freedom that God has brought me as I’ve trusted Him more and more, and the Holy Spirit has certainly been instrumental in this. All three Persons of the Holy Trinity have, and I can’t express enough gratitude for everything they’ve done for me. Jesus went to the Cross for my salvation ~ I’d be dead if it hadn’t’ve been for that. The Holy Spirit has been guiding, and comforting, and teaching, and counseling me all these years since I got saved, because that’s His job.
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. … These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. ~ John 14:16-18, 25-27, NKJV.
I know that’s a pretty long passage of Scripture, but the Holy Spirit is a pretty vast subject, and I wanted to make sure I covered everything about Him, and what He’s done and is doing in my life, though I’m sure I could find more.
I’m so thankful and grateful and appreciative and blessed and (these are the only adjectives I could find in my thesaurus for my feelings towards God…), and… and… and…
Jesus plus nothing equals EVERYTHING!!
God's Not Through With Me Yet 
Hi Sarah,
For some reason this post to me points back to your post titled ‘Confronting evil by talking about it’. Man, there is a mountain load of evil wrapped up in that post. It would be surprising if you didn’t have PTSD. You would be a psychopath, is that the right one? But you are a warm loving gifted person who is using God’s Love and Beauty to move you forward.
It feels very humbling reading what you write. In your life, the obstacles you have hurled yourself over in order to get to the place you are now is pretty darn amazing. Think about where you are in life now, how much healing, how much love you give to those around you, how much the Lord means to you as you accept His help in overcoming. And really isn’t that what you are? An overcomer? Some of the bible translations use steadfast or conqueror, but imo, liking the word overcomers.
You know Revelations talks a lot about being an overcomer, how deeds and service still don’t lead to the proper place, as we see when reading the letters to the 7 churches. But He does get us there.
God sees our struggles, He knows how the enemy uses every trick in the book to get us to capitulate, give up, to fall on our sword or use that same weapon to lash out at others. We struggle to stay true, because darn it we want that white robe……. But in reality, He is searching through our minds, our hearts. He is knocking at the door of our souls and it is like this release of all the evil that dwells within us, like a whoosh. Yet still we struggle.
What is His answer to this? He tells us hang on, don’t get weary and keep jumping those hurdles cause the prize is worth it. Like a teacher, author and a coach for the physicality of this life, an author to whom we are His poems, He is writing us to hold us forever in His hands. All of Heaven is given to us because we overcame the pain and evil of this life. We do this through opening ourselves up to the Atonement of Jesus, the gift of the Spirit and the Love of the Father. Doesn’t it seem like this is a watermark of God, something so simple, BELIEVE and Follow ME; yet so hard and complex it require determination and dogged commitment on our parts?
So, going back to another gift, the gift the Bible calls Lamentations. We read of the suffering of a community, as Lamentations opens with the death of a city. One of the verses which strikes at the heart of our suffering for me is -our enemies are at ease- To a person who has not had their veil removed this would be a supreme truth. To those whose veil has been removed it’s a lie, yet sometimes we fall into the belief it’s a supreme truth. What a conundrum!
But together you and I and all the brothers and sisters in Christ, we can corporately share our hurt, anger, pain, disappointment before God. Doesn’t this seem like we can now start the beginning of a redemptive process? Laying it before our God , the One who suffers for and with us, who understands the pain, anger, disappointment and responds with compassion. Through our tears of frustration, our hideous anger, the never ending hurdles, can maybe we call this a very large act of faith or obedience? His people struggling to overcome.
To a person still with veil what is there to hold onto? When as Job we sit in the ashes of our life; being unveiled; hold on we do, because our faith tells us sure as the sun will rise tomorrow- God is with us, our Emmanuel. And if He is for us, what enemy can there be to prevail against us? Can this knowledge, this thread which is now being woven into the tapestry of our lives, can all the evil now be counted as beautiful? As our life tapestry is woven into the Grand Designer’s cloth. And redemption is gorgeous.
Now all the heavens see and so rejoice at the beauty of the overcomer reaching a goal.
Sarah, can we strive to overcome that anger which burns a hole in our flesh and lift it up to the Lord and receive back his Loving Kindness. Amen.
Thanks for all your words as they help us all to understand and go deeper in our own thought processes.
-K
From: God’s Not Through With Me Yet
Reply-To: God’s Not Through With Me Yet
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2021 at 10:02 PM
To: Kim Anunson
Subject: [New post] Sinking the Anger Titanic
sarahjesusnlily posted: ” In my last post (Taken Over By Aliens) I wrote about the way I tend to catastrophize everything when I get upset, amongst other things. It doesn’t take anything for me to get upset, it seems, and I’d really like that to change. It’s exhausting to get ups”
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Hey Kim,
Thanks for your comments. As always, they’re right on point.
At your suggestion I went back and reread Confronting Evil By Talking About It, and I think you’re right. The situations I wrote about there are about as evil as they come, though, interestingly, I was able to recognize God’s presence with me, even in those dire circumstances. with the mention of Psalm 139:8.
It’s extremely difficult for me to understand how God could actually BE there with me in such evil, because God, being perfect and holy, can’t look on evil, much less be in the presence of such diabolical iniquity, but that’s what the verse says,
“If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” ~ Psalm 139:8, NKJV.
I guess you’re right, it would be surprising if I DIDN’T have PTSD. I’d have to have been a psychopath. Thank God I’m not! That, to me, would be an extremely unpleasant existence and way of life, though it’s not unpleasant for the psychopath. That’s part of the nature of being a psychopath, I guess.
It always feels mysterious to me when you describe me in such glowing terms ~ like you’re humbled when you read what I write, and how loving I am towards other people, etc., etc. I just don’t get how other people see me like that.
Maybe it’s because you don’t see me in my apartment, with all the clutter and mess, especially on my bedroom floor ~ which no one can find because it’s piled high with books and papers that I can’t seem to throw away. And the same is true about my livingroom, and my diningroom table. And the stairs leading up to my loft, and my loft as well.
And you don’t see me when I’m falling apart because I can’t find the pen (or whatever) that I JUST now put down on the coffee table in front of me, so I start yelling and screaming at God because why did He hide it from me!! Why is He trying to trick me!! And then five minutes later I find it right where I left it so I repent and ask God to forgive me because I shouldn’t have yelled at Him.
And all along, deep down inside I sort of knew He wasn’t trying to trick me, but I didn’t have anyone else to vent on, so He got stuck with it. Which really wasn’t fair for Him, but what was I going to do?
I’m projecting onto God all the rage and anger I feel for Harry, I think. I just haven’t gotten to the point where I can place it where it belongs. God is safe; Harry is not, which is silly. Harry is dead. He can’t hurt anyone.
________________________________________________________________________________
What I’ve just described is a big part of my daily, minute-to-minute experience. Sometimes I get to the point that I ask God to forgive me for taking up space and just BREATHING, that’s how difficult things are for me.
Granted, it’s been a lot easier since I got integrated. The above illustration is what it’s like now, post-integration. So before integration it was a thousand times worse.
Gratitude is a huge part of my daily walk-and-talk with God. Maybe that’s what you mean when you say I’m an overcomer, I don’t know. Because I am SOOO GRATEFUL to Him!!! He has done SOOO much for me, starting with the Cross, and continuing with keeping me alive from birth on so I could accept Him and His work on the Cross, etc., etc., etc. and forever onward.
I’m so grateful that He sees our struggles!! I love that about God!! There are so many things that I love about Him! I think the list is probably infinite!! And beauty!! Oh my!!
And then there’s His Word. I could go on forever and ever about His Word. I mean, don’t get me started about that!!
I guess I’ll stop here because I could go on forever about how amazing and wonderful God is…
Thank you, as always for your kindness and understanding and perceptivity towards me. I love you for it! You are someone who gets me, and there have not been very many people in my life who’ve done that, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for being there for me!!
You’re the BEST!!
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Sarah,
It always seem like there is so much to say!
With Jesus being God in the flesh. Doesn’t it make perfect sense that He was with you? Jesus confronted evil everyday.
Do you remember the story of Jesus calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee? Mark 4:35. Luke 8:25.
It seems to me there is a whole lot of story in that story. You know I am not a scholar, but what I see is Jesus confronting evil in that storm, an evil the other passengers thought would kill them.
But Jesus rebuked the storm and the howling wind and waves were forced to cease. Then what happened? The apostles were like uh oh, what wait….. He just stopped a demonic storm with his voice/words.
This power it seems, is far beyond what they had ever imagined. And they became afraid. Isn’t that interesting? These FISHERMAN, where afraid, I mean how many storms do you think they had seen in their careers?
The thing is they knew to go to Jesus, in their extreme fear, they knew He was a safe harbor -hmm didnt mean to write that so corny, it just came out- Ha.
Why write this at all, well because there is a also gentle rebuke in Jesus. Not condemnation.
‘Why are you afraid?’
A salvation, then a reminder, a lesson.
And isn’t that really why we have anger issues? We are afraid?
But the struggle is part of being loved by the Divine. In the story of Jacob and his dream we learn Jesus will wrestle with us, this is His way. The struggle is our way
God loves us enough to take us to the ground. And we learn God wont be denied.
And you described it yourself, why I think your life is heroic. Gratitude.
That is quite the lesson you picked up in your life. The remnants of your early life have left a lot of scarring and that is why it feels like your brain is against you. But man you came out of all of that with love. You write it over and over.
‘I love God’
‘I love His Word’
‘I can talk about Him on and on and on.’
And that most certainly is heroic. You and so many others tormented by this life; and when you stand in front of the Father, well He will be so proud of you all.
We all know we are all fallible humans and not trying to be a gush feast, but I really want you to see your value. Value that is beyond just the intrinsic.
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