Dear Ravi:

Like you wrote from your own experience, a professional counselor can be impatient and not understanding… professionals of all fields are often enough, unfortunately, not competent and/ or not consistently competent. They have their moments… Can’t trust a person because of a certificate they hold, a financial or social status… and so forth.

The way you help me, Ravi, is by being honest and sincere and assertive as you have been with me. You help me by being yourself, as you are, not here to please me or anyone, but in search of being mentally healthy and your authentic self. Communicating with a person such as yourself, these characteristics I just listed, is not common and in so, it is helpful to me. It is through our interactions that I learn more and more.

Regarding what you wrote, very meaningful, and please pay attention to this: you wrote: “in the heat of anger… this voice inside me telling me, ‘don’t be a coward, just say it or you’ll blame yourself … for not having the guts to fight back.”

If there is anything I can teach you, or you can learn from me, more than anything, it is the following point: You have to fight back. Not by abusing another in the heat of anger, but you have to fight!

This is the valid message in your anger each and every time: fight back! Fight back! This is the valid message.

If you don’t listen to this message, you lose. Lose a whole lot.

Remember the presumed dangerous neighbor and how you wanted, in your way then, to fight and your parents told you to be quiet and say nothing? Remember the anger then? This is the anger still, the same anger. If you remain silent, the anger will persist and grow.

Only in the heat of the moment, you fight the wrong person for the wrong aim. But fight you must.

What do you think about the message of fighting? Fighting what? Take your time with that…

anita

Dear Ravi:

How about aiming then for Ravi to no longer be a wimp, and instead be Ravi the Fighter. Fighting hardly ever will mean physically fighting. I hope not. It means talking about yourself respectfully (not saying you are a “detestable person”- that is attacking yourself and as Ravi the Fighter, rule number one is : do not attack yourself!) and when someone is disrespecting you, attacking you with words, you verbally assert yourself right there and then. No longer being quiet. No longer accepting aggression from another passively.

Over time, as you practice being assertive, your anger will lose its explosiveness and it will not take you by surprise at inappropriate times.

What says you…?

anita

Dear Ravi:

I can read your feelings of despair, great regret. And I read how intensely you disapprove of your behavior toward her when you were angry, when you automatically reacted to your rage. I understand loathing what you said to her, wishing you could take those words back. You would do a whole lot if there was something to do, so to take those words back.

Did you tell (write) her this, how much you regret those things you wrote to her and about her (what the psych student “friend” shared with her)? Did you tell her that you felt out of control when you said those words? Did you tell her it comes, this rage (intense anger) comes from a lifetime of you having been trained to be passive, to take abuse quietly?

Not as an excuse because abusing her cannot be justified by the reasons for your rage, as understandable and valid as they are, but so that she understands the depth of your regret?

And then, did you, or will you communicate with her that until you deal with your rage, rage built in you from way, way before you ever met her, you will do the right thing and have no contact with her. And then ask her if it would be okay, once you process your rage enough, once you build enough assertiveness with the people in your life, if it would be okay with her that you contact her again?

You can write to her that because your expressions of rage were so automatic and felt out of your control that you have to heal from that rage first, before you attempt to be friends with her again. Tell her how much you value her and her brotherly love for you. Tell her you value her so much that you will do everything you can to heal from your rage so to be worthy of her friendship?

Waiting for your answer.

anita

Dear Ravi:

I understand now the part your “friend” shared with her some time ago, that the communication shared was not you being angry, but you having feelings for Jerry beyond brother-sister feelings.

There are a few issues here that need to be separated.
1) Your uncontrolled, abusive expressions of anger toward her (and to her about others)
2) The fact that this relationship with Jerry, as a hoped for romantic relationship, or girlfriend/ boyfriend relationship has been, from the beginning, very unlikely and remains unlikely… even if #1 did not exist as a problem! The most you could have had with Jerry was a sisterly- brotherly relationship, that is what it was. And even though it seems to me that there was more, much more, what was is all she has ever felt willing and capable of having with you.

In other words, no matter how calm and loving you would have been, no matter if you were never expressed anger at her inappropriately… no matter, there could not be a relationship with her beyond what was. I write that because she told you so. She told you the consequences for her would be terrible. She didn’t even want to talk to you on the phone, saying the reason she talked to you on the phone was that it was costing you money.

So all hoped for relationship with her can only be online/ through texting.

And then, being the scared 20 year old very young woman that she is, her parents will probably want her to get married soon enough and she will accommodate. She is too scared and too obedient to refuse such.

Again, I do believe there was real love on her part toward you for a long time, and that it was- for her (!) beyond a sister- brother love: it was simply love. But at the same time, there is no future for this love beyond online and texting and that may stop- even if you were a perfect human being- when she gets married to whom her parents want her to marry.

Isn’t it so?

anita

Dear Ravi:

From reading your posts I get the feeling that you are correct in your understanding that she loved or loves you too, no doubt in my mind, best I can tell. And I can see why she would deny- or not even be aware of the nature of her feelings to you, being too scared and cautious.

I also believe that what you wrote, “her family …code”, is more powerful than anything. After all, see how your own family code is powerful in your life! One of your family codes is to be quietly submissive and not assert yourself, not with grandmother, and not with the bully in school. And you followed that code to your own detriment and as a result, a natural result of your anger having nowhere to go, it expresses itself in the wrong places, wrong times, wrong people as you continue to be passive with ex. grandmother. It is fear that is keeping you passive with grandmother… and parents, perhaps. You were… trained that way. Even though it hurts you, you are too afraid to do something (be assertive) because you were trained to be passive.

In a similar way, she was trained to follow her own family code, and part of that code is to be obedient to her parents about her love life, and if you don’t fit that code, you are out. It would be too scary for her to defy the code of her family, just as it is scary for you to assert yourself with your grandmother.

I will be focusing now on another thread and will be back after a while.

anita

Dear Ravi:

Then for her sake, for the sake of your love for her, you are willing to take the difficult path. You are willing to fight, to confront obstacles… Well, you have your path available to you right where you are: to learn a new way of being: asserting yourself with your grandmother and with your parents. This would be very difficult and scary for you. This is the almost “impossible odds and never giving up” that you are willing to do, for your love for her. Isn’t it?

Nothing more difficult than standing up to the people you submitted to all your life, since childhood. Nothing more difficult. As you assert yourself with them, respectfully but forcefully; verbally and not physically, your anger will get aimed where it belongs and as you get into the habit of asserting yourself with them, it will diminish in intensity and no longer boil under the surface, ready to explode when triggered.

The message in your explosive anger is that you are not supposed to be submissive to anyone, not to your grandmother, not to your parents, not to the (ex) bully at school, not to the neighbor. So assert yourself in every way available to you, at any time. Nothing too small to be worthy of your assertion. The more you practice, the better you get at it. The more you practice, the less scary and more of a habit it becomes… and the more mentally healthy you will be!

And mentally healthy and assertive will make you non explosive with jerry. It is the only way that will make it so that you will not fear exploding.

Can you do that, starting small, taking every opportunity to assert yourself appropriately (not abusively) with the people you live with now?

anita

Dear Ravi:

I am not suggesting you use profanity and “do you want XYZ…” kind of talk with your grandmother or anyone. Learning to be assertive and practicing it is a skill and an art. It does not involve profanity and violent talk. It is respectful but forceful, strong. You can say to your grandmother: “Respectfully, I need some privacy right now. I will be closing the door (to your room, if there is one) and need you to not talk to me through the door. Do not enter the room unless you knock first and unless I say ‘come in'”- this is an example. Being assertive is not being aggressive as in using profanity and threatening physical violence and it is not being passive as in letting someone talk to you whenever they feel like talking to you and enter your room whenever they want.

Maybe you can read more about Assertiveness. It is a set of skills to learn and practice. And that will take care of the explosive anger, channel it into effective and appropriate (assertive) expressions.

It is not enough to use will power as to control yourself to never use profanity. You have to practice being assertive every day with the people who violate your boundaries and who hurt you. You have to practice both: control AND assertiveness.

Please do so and let me know how it works out for you. I am very curious!

anita

Dear Ravi:

You wrote above that you are assertive with your parents but arguments escalate. If there are arguments between you and your parents, and those arguments escalate, there is lack of assertiveness. When you are assertive, you don’t argue. You state what you need with strength. If you argue it means they did not respect your assertiveness. Doesn’t it?

I think you missed, in your last post, your real need (and the second part of the solution to your sometimes explosive anger, second to self control) to be assertive: with your parents. And with your grandmother ! And with every single person, family, friend, stranger… everyone!

Both: assertiveness and control. And patience, of course. Always patience.

anita