I can't figure if I could be angry about my former Mormonism as a thing to harbor for the rest of my life?

I was sexually abused as a child and I have harbored anger about it for much of my life. Middle age has brought much of that to and end. Much like Mormonism abusing me and many many of us here I wonder if anger can become just a way of life for some? It has taken me a very long time to disentangle all the angers at being misused and abused. But I'm still on my way to not just accepting anger just always simmering under my surface as a part of my survival.

I recently saw an article critical of the book The Body Keeps The score as a dangerous book with bad science in it.

It was an ah ha moment. The book details how bad PTSD is for children and doesn't advocate a treatment but did a survey of what seems to work better. It also says I have only a 25 percent chance of recovery regardless of the method I find works.

This was revelatory because we live in a society where I think anger could just be a way to exist. Like taking that drink, that pill, or that relaxing drive, just dip into some righteous indignation for a bit and you will feel better.

Our society doesn't care about abuse but loves to get angry about it kind of like triggering itself for fun and pleasure. RIP Jerry Springer.

The Body Keeps the Score is largely an updated version of Alice Miller's books, including The Body Never Lies and Thou Shalt Not Be Aware. She of course was not a hard scientist, so she didn't go far into neuroscience.

Van der Kolk is better trained and well regarded. I don't know what review you read, but I doubt the book is that far off the mark and am amused by the possibility that subsequent research actually increases its credibility. In short, over the last decade there has been a great deal of science showing that trauma rewires, often permanently, the human brain--on a neurological and even a cellular level. Perhaps it's time for Van der Kolk to revisit the topic with the advantage of the new data.

Putting that aside, is anger always the enemy or is it, as Miller wrote, as integral a part of the sufferer's being as anything else? Does not a childhood cancer or an amputation influence one for the rest of her life? Do we blame a person for limping after such a traumatic event? Surely that would be silly.

I guess what I'm saying is that there is no external standard for what healing looks like. On the one extreme there are people who live for their pain; they are informed by it; it overshadows their personalities. But you already feel that your anger has ebbed significantly. Given what you endured, is that not a good outcome? Haven't you learned how to walk quite well--nay, run--despite the injuries you suffered as a child?

Frankly, how anyone handles his own trauma is no one else's business.

Thank you, EB.

As I read Kristen Martin's critique, I was struck first by her failure to address Van der Kolk's specific assertions; sure, Martin attacks the instruments used and mentions flaws in others research from decades and centuries back, but she doesn't even try to dismantle VdK's specific claims. Curious.

Then she started bringing up names of authors she describes as equally suspect. Imagine my surprise when I saw the work of serious academics--Lisa Feldman Barrett, who received a Guggenheim for her research; and Robert Sapolsky, who is the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant and the holder of three professorships in different Stanford departments--with a book by Oprah Winfrey. Does that make sense? Or is it an attempt to smear the real science by associating it with a maudlin TV star?

So I snooped further. I wondered who Ms. Martin is and whether she has the ability to comprehend the science she is denigrating. Here is the her biographical blurb:

"Kristen Martin is a cultural critic based in Philadelphia. Her debut narrative nonfiction book on American orphanhood is forthcoming from Bold Type Books."

"A cultural critic." Hmm.

According to her website, she has no background in science but rather "received an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University" and has taught writing at a few schools and a community center.

Why on earth would the WP publish that piece? Martin couldn't even understand Sapolsky's or Feldman Barrett's technical publications and hence has no basis for challenging the science on which Van der Kolk builds. That's why she doesn't attempt to debunk any specific scientific claims.

EB, I wholeheartedly recommend the books she denounces. Try Sapolsky's Behave: "The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst," which will blow your mind. I have not read Feldman Barrett's book but its inclusion with Sapolsky's makes me think it must be worth reading.

ETA: Here's her Goodreads biography:

Marin is "a self-made creative entrepreneur, content creator, and the Amazon bestselling indie author of personal development books."

Why anyone would take her seriously on a scientific topic is beyond me.

Maybe she means well?

Given that she writes self-help books, perhaps she's so jealous her eyes have turned green--you know, like what happened to your eyes.

My eyes are only green in the Spring Time.

They get red at Christmas...

You prevaricate!

I have it from our Dear Leader that your eyes are brown because you are so full of stuff that makes plants grow.

Don't try to deceive me, you prevaricator!

NO!  I've changed!

I'm an excavator now!!

An "excavator?"

No doubt preparing for dinner by "excavating" all that stuff that makes plants grow.

And that'll only make your eyes even browner!

Your pile driving days are over?

Thank you for your research. This helped me immensely. I'm going to check out your book recommendations.

EB, no need to thank me. You and I have similar interests and concerns.

I'd recommend Sapolsky's "Behave." He's a superb scientist and yet explains things simply and often hilariously. And the anger/depression nexus is one of his primary themes.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Frankly, how anyone handles his own trauma is no
> one else's business.


Until it is.

I know personally many self and others destructive ways to cope. If a simmering undercurrent of anger works I'm not judging. There are many more worse methods.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2023 03:45PM by Elder Berry.

Agreed.

My focus was on the healing process. How does the individual move on? My view is that trying to ignore or suppress anger and pain isn't helpful; it keeps the pain simmering, as you put it. In my view it's far better to focus on the wounds, recognize their validity, mourn them, and learn to live with them. The emotions may still simmer but at a lower temperature.

Isn't that generally better for those around the traumatized person as well? Isn't it better than living with someone in whom those simmering resentments sometimes explode in more harmful and destructive ways?

It's in that context that I recommend the Sapolsky. It's useful to know what the trauma has done and why it remains real.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> It's in that context that I recommend the
> Sapolsky. It's useful to know what the trauma has
> done and why it remains real.

I agree. The effects of trauma are real and it’s useful to know this.

On that “useful”: what’s your opinion of Sapolsky’s belief that there is no such thing as free will, that “we are the outcomes of the sheer random, good and bad biological luck that each of us has stumbled into,” that “all we are is the sum, nothing more or less, of what our biology and its interactions with the environment have been.”

My opinion?

I think he's proved that the room for free will shrinks as science proceeds. Ever more mysteries of human behavior turn out to be mechanistically explicable and hence no longer a result of volition. Essentially, it's the same argument as "the God of the Gaps." As science uncovers new facts and mechanisms, free will recedes further into the recesses of the brain.

Does the fact that science explains more and more human behavior mean that ALL human behavior is deterministic? Not necessarily. And what would the implications be if that proposition were correct? Even Sapolsky says he has "no idea."

When reading his work, furthermore, I found myself thinking there was one singular gap in his logic: what of quantum mechanics? If chance is woven into the fabric of the universe, as some theorists believe, there can be no wholly mechanistic explanation for human behavior. So if Sapolsky wants to assume the extreme position that nothing is volitional, he must extend his discussion into the quantum realm.

I was therefore excited to see that his forthcoming book, "Determined," includes a lengthy treatment of QM. I have pre-ordered it and look forward to reading it when it arrives in October.

What is your view on the matter? How much of Sapolsky's work have you perused?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2023 04:13PM by Lot's Wife.

"On that “useful”: what’s your opinion of Sapolsky’s belief that there is no such thing as free will, that “we are the outcomes of the sheer random, good and bad biological luck that each of us has stumbled into,” that “all we are is the sum, nothing more or less, of what our biology and its interactions with the environment have been.”

COMMENT:

If anyone is interested in seeking self-understanding, self-help, or self-control, as related to emotions or habits they deem out of control or counter-productive, it would be logically in consistent to turn to *any* book, theoretical psychologist, philosopher, or scientific professional, that denies free will. The assumption that one carries with them when turning to such self-help resources is that there is something they can actually do about the problem; that is, they can direct their *will* to addressing the problem. That assumption, of course, requires a commitment to free will. Other than clinical psychologists offering cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—who make their living convincing people that they can change their behavioral patterns—the academic community addressing the issue of free will is turning more and more in the direction of denial. The reason is remarkably simple: The science of human nature encompasses three fundamental disciplines: genetics, neuroscience, and psychology, with psychology itself being dependent on the materialist aspects of genetics and neuroscience for its underlying scientific status. Genetics is committed to the view that *at bottom* human behavior is genetically based, or more broadly based upon the processes associated with molecular biology and biochemistry. Neuroscience is based upon the structure and processes of the brain—which itself a product of genetic development. Neuroscience is committed to the view that all of human experience can be proximately explained by brain processes, without need for anything transcendent. (Crick’s Astonishing Hypothesis) Both genetics and neuroscience are classically deterministic; free will is transcendent. Ergo, free will must be an illusion.

Robert Sapolsky is representative of that trend. Here is a review of Sapolsky's 2017 book, *Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst.*

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/09/behave-by-robert-sapolsky-review

“More thorny is the point at which he comes to address the question of individual choice and responsibility. For nearly 600 pages, barring the odd mention of the “cognitive” aspects of human action, Sapolsky sidelines the question of what place conscious reasoning has in determining behaviour, among all the neurochemical, hormonal, developmental and evolutionary factors he has been discussing. Indeed, sometimes he writes as though it has no place at all, as when he asks what sensory input “triggered the nervous system to produce that behaviour”. He eventually nails his colours to the mast of strict determinism: every human action is inescapably caused by preceding events in the world, including events in the brain. So there can be no such thing as free will. (It follows, of course, that social systems such as that of criminal justice must be completely overhauled, as philosophers such as Ted Honderich have long suggested.) You think you can freely choose to do one thing or another? Forget it, Sapolsky says.”

COMMENT:

Again, if you want to understand your innate human nature, and more specifically what you *might* be able to do, as a cognitive and rational human agent, to control your anger, and other emotions, you should avoid views like the above like the plague. According to such views (as noted above), there is no YOU, as an autonomous agent able to control your own life and destiny through reason and choices, and thus no *free will* that transcends the processes of the material brain as acted upon by the environment. So, apparently you can do no more than just sit back and let your life flow in the direction that (hopefully) makes you feel more pleasure than pain; with no thought, hard choices, or moral responsibility required. You only engage in the false pretention that *you* as a conscious agent exist, and are in charge of your life.

As noted, this has now become the dominant view in psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. Back in 2007, psychologist Edward F. Kelly, and his co-writers, stated the tension between the views of William James and David Hume as follows:

“The self was absolutely central to the psychology of William James (Leary, 1990). In the *Principles* (1890b) he says: "The universal conscious fact is not 'feelings and thoughts exist' but 'I think' and 'I feel.' No psychology. . . can questions the *existence* of personal selves. The worst a psychology can do is so to interpret the nature of these selves as to rob them of their worth" (Vol. 1, p. 226). The self is something the presence of which we can feel almost constantly at the innermost subjective pole of our experience. Its ultimate origins remain mysterious . . .”

“This is essentially James' answer to Hume, who had famously declared that upon looking within he could only find particular sensations, images, feelings, and thoughts, and never his "self." But the dominant position in contemporary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy derives from Hume, not from James. Particularly with the recent rise of connectionism and dynamic systems theory, our experience of ourselves as causally effective agents has come increasingly to be portrayed as mere illusion, with consciousness itself at best a causally ineffectual by-product of the grinding of our neural machinery. There is in reality nobody in charge, no executive. We are nothing but self-organizing packs of neurons. "Subjectless processes" do all the work. Pronouncements of this general type abound, for example, in recent books and papers by prominent figures such as the Churchlands, Francis Crick, Daniel Dennett, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, Gerald Edelman, Walter Freeman, Douglas Hofstadter, Steven Pinker, and numerous others.” (Kelly & Kelly, *Irreducible Mind* (2007) p. 640]

Now, numerous others could be added to the above list, including Harvard psychologist, Daniel Wegner (*The Illusion of Free Will*), and Sapolsky. The conclusion of the Kelly book is also worth quoting:

“We believe that these extraordinary mainstream conclusions, so deeply at odds with the most fundamental deliverances of everyday experience, result from correctly perceiving what are in fact necessary consequences of the classical materialist-monist premises from which practically all of contemporary psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy derive. We further contend that disastrous consequences of this magnitude ought to be recognized by everybody for what they really are, a *reductio ad absurdum* of those materialist-monist premises themselves. The only possible justification for clinging to results so monstrous must be the belief that there is no alternative, no scientifically legitimate way of avoiding them. But we have clearly shown, we submit, that this belief is mistaken.” (Ibid. p. 641)

Just what Kelly & Co actually demonstrated in their book as related to the existence of a self and free will, is controversial, but certainly worth the read. (all 800 pages) I am less interested in the merits of their view (and other similar ‘dualist’ views of mind) than the lack of evidence for the dominant materialist view, and its consequences to human individuals and society.

Remember when Carl Sagan preached that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?” (Carl Sagan, *The Demon-Haunted World*) What could possibly be a more ‘extraordinary claim’ than the denial of human self, and the self’s basic free will? Both the self and free will represent the empirical reality of all our cognitive conscious experience, and represent the foundation of all deliberative human action. The assumption of our individual selfhood, and free will is what makes life meaningful (by whatever definition of meaning you choose) and provides the power in which to change for the better (or worse) one’s life, and worldview. (After all, it was our conscious will in thought and action that enabled us to get out of Mormonism, which prior to such self-reflection imprisoned us under both a cognitive and environmental stranglehold!)

It is also the basis for expressing one’s ideas, whether orally, on the internet, or even the motivation in writing provocative books denying freewill. It is also the entire basis for secular humanism, which fundamentally requires the ability to change secular society for the better by deliberative thoughts and actions embracing human rights and equality. It is the basis for all law, both legal and moral. So, denying selves and free will is serious business.

Notwithstanding, Sapolsky, and others like him, dismiss free will as an illusion to be discarded without serious thought or concern. This is the ‘scientific’ reality that is presented in virtually all standard philosophy and psychology university classes throughout the world. It might be worth pausing to ask an important question: Is this really what we want our universities to teach our impressionable 18-year-olds; that free will is an illusion and therefore that personal achievement, personal responsibility, and the commitment to improving human society should *not* be concerns of which they have any control? But that is a topic for another day.

So, with this extraordinary claim denying free will, what is the extraordinary evidence? Answer, there is none. Take note: Free will, or if you prefer, the *feeling* of free will, is a product of MIND, that is, one’s subjective mental life. As such, it relates to the cognitive *mental* capacities of each individual human being, whatever such capacities are. We might ask, 'What is the scientific theory (like Newtonian mechanics; Quantum Mechanics, or General Relativity) that systemizes, conceptually or mathematically, the rational and creative capacities and processes of the human mind (which capacities are evidenced by the scientific method itself), such that we can confidently infer free will to be an illusion?' There is none. What is the scientific theory that equates the nearly infinite rational and creative capacities of mind with some well-established systematic processes of the brain? (e.g. ‘Connectionism’) Again, there is none. There is, of course, a great deal of evidence for mind-brain correlations, such that thoughts and actions are to some extent correlated with brain events. Yet, this correlation is extremely limited, often non-specific, and highly speculative in its details. There is certainly no evidence—much less extraordinary evidence—from neuroscience and/or psychology, to infer that the overwhelmingly powerful intuition of free will is illusory. (I say this having read the philosophical, psychological, and neurological arguments in great detail.)

Thankfully, there is a minority view within modern neuroscience that is becoming more and more receptive to the idea that mind represents a genuine separate reality, often identified as an *emergent* active property of the brain. This property of mind is often said to include the capacity of recursive, mental causation in the context of a complex brain-mind ‘complex adaptive system.’ Although controversial still, such a view seems to me to be far more reasonable given the fact that our minds do cause physical events daily, for example, the movement of our bodies. Once mind is acknowledged as a reality over and above mere physical brain functions, with causal capacities in its own right, free will is much easier to accommodate, making the denial of free will on materialist grounds seem misguided, unnecessary, and in fact rather silly.

Here is a quote from neuroscientist, Paul L. Nunez:

“In scientific fields, emergence is a process whereby larger-scale entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities that themselves do not exhibit the large-scale properties. For example, life is normally perceived as an emergent property of the interacting molecules of biochemistry, which, in turn, reflect interactions among elementary particles. Higher brain functions may then be pictured as the next hierarchical step up from life. That is, most scientists view human behavior, various mental functions, and consciousness itself as properties that somehow emerge from the underlying brain networks. An essential property of brains, as opposed to some simpler versions of complex systems, is that emergent phenomena can act on lower levels, causing small-scale changes through downward causation. The top-down actions of animal brains on behavior are essentially defining features of the label "brain." Human *free will* seems to qualify as a pre-eminent example of top-down actions of large-scale systems on smaller-scale behavioral systems.”

(Paul L. Nunez, *The New Science of Consciousness: Exploring the complexity of Brain, Mind, and Self*(2016) p. 250)

We live in a time when education in the context of LGBTQ rights is front and center, not only in the lower grades, but on the high school level. Recently AP Psychology has become an issue in this same context. Although I have no qualms about high school students being taught the complexities associated with gender identity—after all, they already see this daily in their everyday lives. But, I *do* have a problem with mainstream theoretical psychology promoting in the name of science widespread falsehoods about human nature based upon loose ‘theories’ or ‘just-so stories’ involving human evolution. This includes broad, unsubstantiated statements like the following uninformed response to your query:

“I think he's [Sapolsky] proved that the room for free will shrinks as science proceeds. Ever more mysteries of human behavior turn out to be mechanistically explicable and hence no longer a result of volition. Essentially, it's the same argument as ‘the God of the Gaps.’ As science uncovers new facts and mechanisms, free will recedes further into the recesses of the brain.”

No statement could be further from the truth. One only needs to look at the failures of strong AI after many decades, and the intractable nature of the ‘frame problem,’ to see that science is NOT moving closer to explaining human cognition in solely mechanistic terms. When you see a robot performing as a human, simultaneously within multiple comparative domains of human cognition, you will know that brain science has finally arrived. So far, AI is not even close. Other than AI, all denials of free will are much more theoretical (and rhetorical) than they are scientific.

Regarding the famous ‘god of the gaps’ objection to theology, the actual situation in cognitive neuroscience is quite the reverse. Neuroscience tends to minimize the profound gaps in brain science’s ability to explain the vast complexities and capacities of human cognition, while nonetheless dogmatically announcing that free will “must be” an illusion. Since many other gaps of science have been filed, such skeptics assume and implicitly argue—as if the evidence was already in—that such gaps can already be deemed filled pursuant to a mere materialist assumption. So much for Sagan's demand for extraordinary evidence! As noted above, science has made absolutely NO genuine scientific progress in establishing the illusory nature of free will. (And that includes the famous Libet studies, and their follow-up counterparts!)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2942748/pdf/acp-06-047.pdf

“The notion that free will is an illusion has achieved such wide acceptance among philosophers and neuroscientists that it seems to be acquiring the status of dogma. Nonetheless, research in this area continues, and this review offers a new analysis of the design limitations and data interpretations of free-will experiments. This review presents 12 categories of questionable conclusions that some scholars use to promote the idea that free will is an illusion.”

Our daily human experience reveals unquestionably that whatever influences underlie our decision-making, human free will transcends the classic nature-nurture (brain-environment) dichotomy of mainstream psychology. No doubt, the cards of Gary Gilmore were stacked against him, perhaps making his fate worthy of some degree of sympathy or empathy. Notwithstanding, the choices underlying his actions were his alone, such that arguably *he could have done otherwise* just as we all did in leaving Mormonism when the cards were stacked against us.

Anyway, that is my take, for what it's worth.

I think it was about 20 minutes in to studying the free will problem when I came to the following conclusions:

1. Free will might be an illusion.
2. Regardless, it's in my best interest to play along.

After that, I lost interest...

I'm glad there are people like you who take this seriously, because you'll be around to tell me when I should change my mind.

"Sapolsky, and others like him, dismiss free will as an illusion to be discarded without serious thought or concern."

LOL.

If you had read anything Sapolsky has written, either his popular books or, God forbid, his academic publications, you would know how ridiculous your statement is.

Let us know when you are prepared to debate not his conclusions but the scientific data and analysis that underlies them.

Like hate, anger is as legitimate an emotion as any other. Like all emotions, it’s the context and expression thereof that is important.

It is a mistake to wish to erase any emotion altogether. For one, it’s not possible.


For how trauma lives in the body, please try Gabor Maté’s work. Lot’s of videos on-line and has many books, the last being The Myth of Normal.

I'm not advocating feeling the emotion of anger or ridding humanity of it. It just becomes a black hole sometimes and a dark matter to deal with.

Elder Berry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It just becomes a black
> hole sometimes and a dark matter to deal with.

Yes.

Many have said the same thing about the emotions involved with falling in love.

Great point in my opinion. I see anger and love as two sides of the same coin. They both can have the effect of strong reactions to people in intrusive ways. Biology is getting us together for good or ill and in the case of love probably both.

I'm in my mid-60s, and suddenly, I'm angry a lot more than I would like to be. It isn't always something in front of me, but could be something that I'm reading about, or a memory. I really don't know how to modulate it.

I think it started during the pandemic, when so many people behaved so thoughtlessly and foolishly. It doesn't help that drivers seem to have gotten a whole lot crazier. But in the end, I am not sure where it's coming from. Just that I need to find a way to deal with it, sooner rather than later.

Ditto to all that.

I think the underlying source of my anger is the frustration that so many people do not favor or view democracy the way I had assumed.

The rise in incivility is palpable everywhere. I've seen two people yell at drivers for no reason at all in the last month in my small city.

There is the underlying worry about the environmental extremes and water availability long term.

There is the underlying anger of having been stripped of a right over my own body and the angst of random people being shot.

Social media and mainstream media seem to be encouraging people to be angry as a strategy. I could go on, but you know what I mean.

Overall, I feel sad that humanity and mother nature are so cruel. Greed and the quest for power seem to outweigh empathy lately.

So, yes, there is an underlying feeling of anger. Maybe it is simply a result of being older and noticing what has always existed.

I think your last thought was the most correct. Age is more perspective.

But the anger I'm talking about is from being used and abused. Used is awful. Abused causes PTSD. It isn't a tit for tat fight but calculated persistent harm with complete disregard or actual pleasure in those harmful effects.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/2023 02:55PM by Elder Berry.

>>But the anger I'm talking about is from being used and abused.

Yes. I agree that is above and beyond what I was talking about. What abused people have experienced is beyond compare. It's heartbreaking. I admire the efforts people have made to overcome it.

Being used and abused puts you in a hole you can never get out of. How can you trust after that? I mean, without pretending.

You have every right to be angry. The benefit of the doubt is a luxury that you can't afford because you were screwed out of it.

All of this makes us who we are. Do you want to be someone else, or do you want to be you? And why? What if the assholes who made us this way were there for a reason? This is where my hippy dippy mysticism pays off for me. I lean toward Leibniz.

If your psychology needs metaphysics to overcome what we both know feels underneath insurmountable, by all means and do no harm.

No, we don't need to forgive. I know what it says in the Bible. I don't care.

"I am happy to turn the
other cheek if it gives
me a better sight line."

      --Judic West, gun owner

I don't know what this has to do with my thread.

started out very angry at the betrayal, the loss of money, all of it, wrote blistering letters to the SLT and anywhere else I could get an audience to vent my spleen. But it slowly wore off, or I just got old or something. Now if I can just cure my RfM habit.

> Now if I can just
> cure my RfM habit.


If you could bottle it, you'd be rich ... RICH, I TELL YOU!!!!

Some habits are fun!
RfM is about as wild as I can stand nowadays.

In my youth, I was bullied, spit on, hit, pushed, lied to, used, unrinated on, kicked, punched, and told I was worthless to name a few. I was angry, all the time. I could fly into a rage, and clear a room that did not want to be around me. My first wife was verbally abusive as was my mother.

Then one day a smart and kind co-worker looked at me and told me to go away, in that I was nothing but what one would call a grumpy old man. It made me think, I decided to let go of the anger, and took back my life. Thus a phrase I coined: "Anger is a mind killer!"

I can still get angry, but nothing like my youth. Today many refer to me as one of the nicest people they know, but they also know I do not take crap or allow myself to be manipulated. I remember what made me angry so it will never happen to me again. I instead control the anger, and do not let it control me. I see to many stupid things done, when one allows anger to control the situation.

Thank you for your sharing. Using anger is risky often because it is a weapon that can do more damage to me than to where it is directed. I would sometimes like to be disarmed of my anger completely but then my childhood survival instincts prove stronger.

Hey EB

You taking a break?

Haven't heard from you in awhile.

Hope all is well.

-MG

More than a break. I'm at a point where this site unfortunately is now more a liability than a benefit to me personally.

My wife and children know I come here. They know how I feel about the church. They accept me. I'm working on accepting myself. Like mentioned my anger has become an autoimmune response and I ache for my family to leave the church.

I need to focus on reducing my anger, inflammation, and emotional response to the church. This is why I posted this thread. Could I just live with it?

I don't think I'm able to be as helpful. Maybe in the future I'll return. For now and in the near and far future I don't think I can find peace coming here.

It has been an amazing ride. This site singlehandedly helped me pull myself up from my bootstraps when my celestial dreams were crushed. I will always be grateful for many people here living and dead. And this is the way of humans coming and going as we do.

I hope messy that you have a great rest of your life. I've read your struggles and loved your stories of the insensitive and misguided violent and abusive very elect. I hope your mother is doing well and that she has the Mormon end of life that will be good for her and you.

Take care and take care RfM. You will be missed by a soul so divided.

P.S. we are moving to Utah in the near future and my youngest is getting married in the temple later this year. These challenges without RfM will be hercluian but I think with less anger I might be able to do them on my own. Wish me luck! Love and kindness to you all even the cat in the box.

that I don't have to forgive and "forget." There are things I don't feel I should forgive. Sets me up for more abuse.

Someone was talking to me about forgiving not so long ago and I remembered an old boss I had. He made my life MISERABLE for a while when he started having an affair with the secretary to his supervisor. He wanted her in my job. I never forgave him and I don't think of him very often. My ex's old boyfriend, who I am really good friends with, was talking one day and come to find out he knew my old boss and his family as they grew up next to each other. I hadn't even thought about him for a long while. He had died and this guy brought me a funeral whatever it is. The program. That's it. I kept it. He can't hurt me anymore.

My therapist gets a big kick out of the life we lead--ex and I. He said when I first met you I could have never predicted it would work out this well. We get along great. We share the house so we can take care of our son. He does all the work now--the ex does. We almost lost him a while back and my brother said my ex looked scared to death of losing him.

I can't save I've completely forgiven my ex. I will never forgive the leaders in the lds church. I don't think of them unless I come here. I guess I should just keep working and not take breaks and read on line.

Oh, I remember when I had my son's girlfriend living here, eventual wife. 15 years ago. People asked me why I didn't get angry at my son and her when they did certain things. My therapist said anger is good. They told us it is not. It has a purpose. He said not to let people just walk all over me, which I tend to do.

Mormon context is to deal with the perpetrator, not victim(s), that hurts.

MeThinks in a 'pure world' (non-existent, for sure) Repentance & Forgiving are the optimum resolution.

However, as the GAs have pointed out, how can one repay a violation of a person's being?

$ & other property can be restored, but how can a violation of bodily abuse such as rape?

I'm trying to be realistic here, not always possible.

No, it's not always possible. I think that it's *sometimes* possible when the offending party sincerely regrets his or her actions, and makes an effort to repair the relationship and do better. But sometimes the betrayal and/or damage is just too great.

...elicit a certain positive and well-deserved response.

I don't wish to give you a big head, nor cast myself as a flatterer, so I shall say nothing more.

It's just a topic that interests me. EB and I have explored it from time to time and this is another opportunity to think things through a bit more.

At the risk of going too far, there's another angle. EB is a distant relative of Gary Gilmore, who is written about by his brother Mikal in the book "Shot in the Heart." Either in that book or in an NPR interview he did in the 1990s (yes, it made that deep an impression), Mikal said that of the four brothers two were the criminal father Frank's biological children and two were not. Two were severely and constantly beaten and two were born when Frank was older and less abusive. All four suffered seriously emotional harm and had difficult lives. But only one was both Frank's biological son and extremely brutalized: Gary.

Compare Sapolsky--this is from his 25-lecture class that Stanford posted on the internet--who shows that extreme aggression is both genetic and environmental. There is a single gene that appears in two variants, which we can call "good" and "bad." Given a good childhood, people with either gene will become normal and exhibit normal levels of aggression. But if reared in a physically abusive environment, the child with the "bad" variant stands a seven-fold greater likelihood of ending up in prison for violent offenses.

I acknowledge up front that this is sheer speculation on my part, but if Mikal Gilmore is right about his family's paternal genetics, Gary Gilmore may well be that unlikely child who suffered the combination of his father's genetic predisposition to extreme violence and the brutal environment that would activate that predisposition.

Again, just supposition. But the story and the science appear compatible and, retreating from half-understood science to common sense, it is intuitively reasonable that the combination of genetics and environment exercise a very significant effect on behavior.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/07/2023 12:53AM by Lot's Wife.

From having worked with violent youth for many years of my career, what you say makes sense to me.

I sometimes look at anger as an immune response. Someone does something offensive. I don't like it. I get angry.

The next time I'm near that person, I have less tolerance for nonsense.

There is a point where anger outlives its utility for me. Resentment. Holding a resentment is like drinking poison expecting the poison to hurt the person I'm angry with.

It's a fine line. It's up to the individual to determine where that line is.

I just this evening dismissed a former friend from my life for hanging on to a petty resentment from forty-five years ago. Forty-five years! He just couldn't let it go. I don't have the time for that.

I see it in a similar way. Anger is often an emotional response to a threat, physical or emotional.

If you're exposed to too many threats, there's the risk of an "autoimmune" response, wherein the anger becomes a recurring problem apart from the threats themselves.

I'm tired of angry people identifying me as angry, and telling me that I need to quit being angry. But we all react to life's great jollies in different ways. I have a son with brain cancer, and another son who has lost his teaching position, as well as an über-Mormon sister (my only living sibling) who says rude and careless things about my abilities to judge now that I have left the church. Yes, it makes me angry. I can't say I'm sorry for it. Look at how some angry people life a long, long life, their anger keeping them going.

It would be nice, I suppose, to have more pleasure in life, but I don't. I never have. I was born into a dysfunctional life, and at 15 was placed into a foster home. It made me angry to see what a smooth ride other kids were having. It made me angry whenever my foster father would physically or emotionally abuse me. It has become an important defense mechanism to me.

People have always told me I look angry all the time since my college years. I've had some huge blows in my life and it seems that just when I get myself pulled back together, I get hit again.

I didn't have your life and I can't imagine having the life you've had. I remember another thing that happened to you that you've posted before. I've wondered how your son is doing. I'd just like life to be LEVEL. No ups, no downs. Just level. I won't go in to the rest of the stuff that has been happening in my life lately. I just try to keep moving. Some days it is really tough to do so. I stay home mostly and don't do much but work, clean, and watch TV these days. BUT my daughter will be home from Alaska in about 2 months and that will be nice, though she is having her own problems. She's had four miscarriages. All her friends have kids that are 14 and 15. There is something wrong with everyone in my family and myself.

I ask why quite often.