Working out anger boomeranged(?)

[Meggy]

I typed this once but erased it so an overview: 3 years ago I was raped/sodomized/severely beaten by 7 men. They also made me watch them nearly kill my dog. In fact I thought they had until 3 days later when I was in the hospital. Since then I have had extreme problems with anger, rage, and hatred at times of some people in my life. I've felt like they failed me. They could have helped me which in some cases is true, but chose to ignore cardinal signs something was very wrong in my home. I have grouped my husband as one of these people. Instead of talking, I've been punishing. I thought I was talking but I was lecturing, not listening. I got help, but he hasn't. I saw no reason why he should either, it didn't happen to him.

But now I'm getting better help which has forced me to sit down with him over a series of conversations and hear how all of this impacted him because there are many facets to this debacle. I can barely believe the things I'm hearing him say because how could I have not intuitively known these things? It's so obvious. His reasons for not helping are undeniably believable. I just so badly minute by minute waited for him to rescue me for hours maybe I wonder I counted on that fantasy so much it became my only hope, a potential "reality" that couldn't have existed. He had no idea. Now I'm also finding out how traumatic it was for him to come home at the end of the day and find me gone, blood everywhere, our dog half dead and our house trashed. The hospital staff told him almost nothing so when he picked me up and saw how banged up I was he had to sit down, he nearly collapsed. I saw NONE of this until we just talked, and talked. It is such a relief to know all he told me, much more than I could put in here. I asked him why he never told me all this before tho. I was always so angry. I'd outshout anyone at the beginning. Get extremely agitated plus he had so much guilt and still confusion about some things but I've become such a firecracker about the last thing anyone in my family wants to happen is have the topic brought up. For 3 days I've been asking myself how in the world I couldn't see this. I would have before, I know it.

I feel such a load off of me. I'm still angry at some but after seeing all this from his point of view, seeing he was wounded too, he's been grappling with this, each of us in our own corners, I've realized those who really did fail me are creeps. They were before, still are, always will be but it was easier to put up with it because they weren't dangerous creeps - just creeps. And then they became dangerous to me, they could have helped me and didn't. I can actually understand that a lot and blow them off, today anyway.

But now that we've been going thru all of this? I've become immobilized. I'm not cooking, I'm dragging myself to do the wash, I feel innert and I should be feeling I think great, wonderful but I feel oddly let down in a way. I wonder if anyone knows why or has felt like this. I get relieving information and feel worse! If that's true I don't want to hear anymore "good" information. I'll wallow in the misery I was in, this is horrid. Any auggestions/information?

Meggy

[Daisybun]

Meggy, I think it is probably shock, you have had one idea in your head for 3 years and you have just found out that it was not what you thought, this has made you question what you have believed for so long to be true. Just give it time to sink in and let your mind and body adjust to this information, I'm sure that you will start to feel better when you have had the time to readjust. I hope that you feel better soon, you have been through an awful time and it is only natural that you are reacting in this way, even to 'good' information.

Take care
Daisybun

'This too will pass'

[Meggy]

Thank you Daiseybun-
I think you're right. I read your post yesterday and have been thinking about it a lot. Physically I do feel shocked, emotionally for sure. I have all this towering anger at him over this, have for over 3 years and now I don't know where to put it. I totally believe him but that anger I've had is still there, it comes and goes like it doesn't know where to sit. We built a different, confrontive relationship in the last 3 years. We've been seeing a couple's counselor but I made it real clear - the rape is OUT of this counseling. I have my own counselor for that. He went along with it. Now I'm seeing it's a huge part of the problems we had. But to me, he created the problem and I wasn't going to help him makes excuses because I knew I'd erupt. I wanted couple's counseling, suggested it and it's been very helpful to a point, the point where I would absolutely not go into why I won't sleep with him, I don't want to be physically close to him and nearly refuse to go anywhere with him. I keep thinking this one thought all the time: things I taught my children when they were small were true, and those little lessons are coming back to me now to listen and heed but it's not hard not to do them always but to want to stop detrimental thoughts and behaviors, that's my problem. Like blaming. I've blamed him in every creative way I can and I knew I was right. I wasn't and now I'm stuck with all this rage, anger and I'm told it was a dysfunctional protective device and I buy that in theory, but it's falling apart emotionally on me at least in one corner and I feel so flat, really I'm depressed.

What happened briefly is that some men came to our house acting very strange. I wasn't frightened at first, just confused what was going on, which right there was a very odd reaction on my part. I'll never understand why I spent so much time trying to rationalize irrationale behavior. They started tearing my house up, I got frantic then and that's when I was first hit, hard. Then my dog growled at them and they started kicking and kicking her. Smashing her little paws. They handcuffed me and made me watch. I threw myself on her to take her kicks. I remember wondering who else would do this. All 7 are now in prison. They had a forensic pathologist go over all my wounds and he counted 17 kicks I took for my dog. They were grouped with a distinctive triangular pattern. I'm so proud of that but also I think, no one else would have done that. He wouldn't have. Really? He would have done something. I had a cell phone though deep in a pants pocket, on the leg of overall cargo type pants, they didn't see it. I have epilepsy, had a seizure so I was unconscious, didn't know they raped me then. They let me go to the bathroom at some point and I frantically called him in a print press shop with all the loud print presses. He has some hearing loss. Press's are very loud and he's done this a long time. He couldn't hear me. I was whispering. It would be the only chance I knew I could call him. He kept asking me "what, what" but I couldn't talk louder. He thought it was a wrong extension or number and hung up. But I just knew he knew it was me, I was in trouble, he needed to get home. I waited 14 hours for him. They took me later to two other places. Left my doggy. I thought she was dead. I love her with all I have. She is okay now. She has arthritis in her spine and PTSD. My gentle dog never came home. But it never ever went thru my mind that it'd be totally unlike him not to respond, at least call back. He had no idea it was me. He couldn't hear anything. When he got home and saw all that carnage he couldn't figure it out, thought I was just out, meanwhile someone broke in he thought, but saw our dog and got her help immediately. The hospital never said the words rape or sodomy to him. They called him to say I was there, in surgery, for "repair of injuries". I called and talked to my psych there today to ask why no one brought him into this. He wants to know, he's mad about it now