Good Anger, Bad Anger, Part 3. Self-Sabotage Leading to Self-Abandonment

Adrian has many friends and no regular job. He works in intense short bursts for a few days at a time, becoming mentally and physically exhausted. As he recovers he begins to hate the life style he has chosen and becomes motivated to seek a more wholesome existence. But within an hour or two of imagining the life he craves for, he acts in a contrary manner. He backs out of plans and commitments that he wanted for himself. He tries to alter arrangements at the last minute knowing that it is unlikely to work. That way he can allow himself to feel legitimately aggrieved. Adrian subsequently looses friends and business associates. He feels angry with them for not accommodating him, when he has manipulated it so that they would be unable to meet his constantly shifting schedule. This anger serves only one purpose, that of self-sabotage. By ensuring that others cannot meet his requests, he feels abandoned, and that in turn fuels even more anger.

Early in life Adrian was not encouraged to explore and fulfill his potential. He was constantly let down. As he grew up Adrian built up a massive reservoir of anger and rage. As an adult he expressed it by turning it inward. His internal voice would say," you think I am not worth anything because you always abandoned me, well, I'll show you exactly how right you are!" He lived his life attempting to prove his unworthiness. It was safer to experience the familiar feelings of abandonment than the terror of growing up and being responsible for himself. Clinging on to the rage allowed Adrian to point the finger elsewhere while feeling good himself.

Each time Adrian goes through the cycle of denying himself the good things in life that he wants, setting it up so he gets disappointed and then feeling let down, he abandons himself. In effect he did to himself what his parents did to him. He would really like to be angry with and punish his parents, but instead he punishes himself. That is a double whammy. He got let down as a child, and now he repeats the behavior.

As an adult Adrian has a choice. That would mean giving up the outrage and fury at being put aside as a child. He has to be the responsible adult that his parents couldn’t be, and give himself permission to go after the good things in life. He has to accept that he is the author of his life story and he can re-write his punishing internal dialogue. Below are some ways he could begin amending the script:

* Writing out his anger to his parents, and reading it aloud

* Asking himself what the pay off is for setting others up to let him down

* Appreciating that he is depriving himself of warm relationships and self-respect

* Awareness that taking out his anger at his parents on himself isn’t satisfying in the long term

* Realizing that punishing himself now changes nothing in the past, nor will he get reparation for it.

Copyright Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.