“You are a child. You are not allowed to be angry!”
I heard that a lot.
So, I don’t feel anger. I learned to push it down, to pack it into neat little boxes at the back of my mind.
But the boxes don’t stay quiet. Inside, it’s a storm—growing bigger and wilder, like the typhoons in the Philippines.
I don’t feel angry—I get a bad stomach, I vomit, I have seizures. The anger stays hidden, but my body knows it’s there.
And when the boxes get too full, it’s no longer anger. It’s rage, and rage has a name. She is Fury.
Fury is my protector. When she comes out, there’s going to be trouble. 😈
Rage Unleashed
What/who are survivors angry about/with?
I am angry about the consequences of what those people did.
To overcome my dignity and self-respect, they broke my mind. They didn’t just hurt me; they shattered me into pieces. Each piece became a little version of me, created to serve their needs.
Each one was designed with a purpose: to please, to obey, to endure. They made us into little compliant robots in meatsuits, stripped of thought, will, and emotion—except for total devotion and obedience to them.
I call them the Zombie Kids. They weren’t really alive. They didn’t laugh, cry, or dream. They just existed, moving through the world as if they were puppets controlled by strings.
And I’m angry—not just for myself but for them. For all the versions of me that never got to be kids, that never got to feel safe, free, or whole. They were stolen from me, and I am still fighting to bring them back.
How does a survivor channel/process their anger and rage? (both good and bad?)
I don’t feel anger—not in the usual way. Instead, it hides in my body, showing up as pain, sickness, or emptiness.
The emptiness is the worst. It’s not the soothing kind of quiet darkness, the one that feels safe and comforting. No, this is an abyss, a black hole inside me that feels like it’s pulling my insides out—my stomach, my lungs, my heart, everything. It’s the kind of emptiness that whispers death as the only relief.
My Inner Fam helps me. A soft word, a gentle “love you,” echoes in my mind. The other kids gather around me, offering what comfort they can.
Sometimes, their love can’t pull me out. But they stay with me anyway, sitting beside me in my little corner of hell. In those moments, it feels like a Dark Angel wraps its wings around me, holding me close, protecting me from the worst of it. Even in the abyss, I know I’m not alone.
And when it’s too much—when the darkness threatens to swallow me whole—Fury steps in. She is strong, fearsome, and unyielding. She used to be only brutal, a wild force of rage, but now she’s learning. She’s becoming smarter, more precise. Fury fends off the dangers I can’t face alone.
So, I process my anger and rage with help—from my Fam, from Fury, and sometimes just by enduring. And while it isn’t always pretty, it’s how I survive.
What does a survivor’s anger/rage look or feel like, how does it sit in your body?
For me, anger doesn’t come as a feeling—it’s a sensation that takes over my body. It starts as a rumble deep in my tummy, like something waking up. Then it spreads, like mutant liquid flowing through my veins. It doesn’t have a temperature, but it vibrates—electric and alive—making my whole body shake.
Sometimes, it feels like my bones are made of ice, cold and fragile, as if they could crack under the pressure. Other times, when it reaches my brain, it burns like fire.
As it grows, there’s a tight circle around the crown of my head. It squeezes tighter and tighter, and my brain starts to feel like jelly, simmering on a fire like custard in a pot. The pressure builds until it explodes, and that’s when I faint or have a seizure.
The speed of it changes. If I faint, my brain resets, and everything slows down for a while. But if the sensation keeps spreading, it accelerates, gaining momentum until it feels like I might burst.
Fury, my protector, holds my rage. She rarely comes to the campfire, but when she does, she’s sharp and clever, like Wednesday Addams—darkly funny and intense. When she’s angry, though, she stays with the other Furies, and the rage just grows and grows.
Isn’t psychology wonderful? It gives us all these neat little frameworks to help explain what trauma does to a person. Like the idea of splitting: how a traumatised person divides into an Apparently Normal Person (ANP), who carries on functioning in everyday life, and Trauma Holders, or Exiles, who are left to shoulder all the pain and memories the ANP can’t handle.
I’m one of those Exiles—or, more specifically, their Caretaker. My job in The Fam is to hold the fragmented memories and overwhelming emotions, to guard them so they don’t spill out and knock the ANPs off their feet. I’m told it’s a noble role, sure, but from where I’m crawling (and on a good day, even standing), it’s not all as precise and organised as the textbooks make it sound. Maybe therapists and ANPs like their neat little classes, categories, and explanations, but for us? It’s, well… Disordered—that’s the clinical term. But for us? It’s disheartening. Actually, it’s infuriating.
The Unfinished Site – A Child’s Isolation
Have you ever been to a building site that was never completed? Foundations unfinished. Crumbling walls. Neither doors nor windows—just the wind running through, whistling. Desolate.
And yet, for the ANPs in our system, that desolation is hidden. They don’t know exactly what happened to us. They live the day-to-day life, managing the tasks that keep the world turning.
But my subsystems—the Feeling People—do know. The memories are messy, fragmented, tangled in the fog of dissociation, but we know.
There are days when we scream at the ANPs: “Why don’t you know? Can’t you hear us? We hate that you’re down the pub, laughing, pretending to be a normal person with a normal life—knocking back shot after shot like you’re starring in Sia’s Chandelier video.”
“One, two, three, drink. Throw ‘em back ‘til you lose count.”
And we get it—we do. That’s their way of holding on for dear life. Refilling the glass full until morning light to keep the truth at arm’s length just long enough to survive another day.
But for us, it’s different. We’d rather jump straight into that tequila and drown. Maybe this deserves a trigger warning, but we’d choose a slow, agonising death over this slow, agonising life any day. But hey, who am I to judge?
The idea of joining a support community is daunting for us. We didn’t expect anything—no validation, no connection, no real help. After all, our experiences are so extreme and deeply buried that even we struggle to fully comprehend them. Why would anyone else?
And yet, we found that sometimes, all it takes is someone willing to hold on for you.
And that’s not all. Our experiences of abuse are buried deeply in our mind, hidden behind thick, impenetrable walls of denial, fear, and dissociation
It’s taken years of effort for me and the Feeling People to start participating in survivor spaces. Slowly and steadily, Mave and Charlie collaborated with those who were patient with us, working tirelessly to make space for us to feel safe—creating an alcove where we could begin to exist as our full selves, without dread or shame, outside the disconsolate comfort of our inner world.
The first step was acknowledgment: validating our existence and our legitimacy. That might sound simple, but for people like us, who have spent so much time hiding our presence and doubting ourselves, that kind of validation is monumental.
They worked with us to overcome our fear of humanity—an overwhelming angst that often retraumatised us and left us crashing heart, mind, body, and soul.
But they didn’t give up. They kept showing us patience and care, and we kept pushing forward, even when it seemed hopeless.
Rainbow of Hope in the Ruins
For the first time, some of us are starting to come to the front and express ourselves openly. Teo and Shade, for example, have only just begun to find their voices, braving the vulnerability of sharing their thoughts and emotions. Baby dragons breaking through their shells, tentatively starting a new life as powerful, indomitable offspring of the Universe.
Discovering our voices and telling our stories feels like stepping out of exile—tentatively, but with growing confidence. The darkness of our inner world is starting to overflow into something beautiful. Unashamedly erupting in a rainbow of oh so many grey shades, it feels like a new LGBT+ flag ostentatiously celebrating our inner heroes.
For us, this journey is one of amazement. To everyone who has created space for us to heal: thank you. To the ones who believed in us, even when they didn’t fully understand our pain: thank you. All the solidarity we’ve received has brought us to a place where we can start to see results, and for that, we are profoundly grateful.
The other side of the coin is seeing and validating others. And, honestly, that can feel like opening a can of Pandora’s boxes—challenging the safety of the walls we’ve built around ourselves.
Have you ever had a Labrador? Playful and eager to please, loving and loyal to the death. That’s their nature. And that’s why they’re trained as support dogs. But their training exploits that love, forcing them to do what comes naturally in unnatural ways.
Labyrinth of Pain and Loyalty
For us too, love was a tool—something used to manipulate and control us. We were trained to serve and obey, no matter what the personal cost, much like those Labradors.
That’s why being part of a survivor community feels complicated—a blend of connection and disconnection.
On one hand, we feel deeply driven to help and support others. Part of that comes naturally to us; we’re caring and empathetic by nature. But on the other hand, it’s tricky. Ignoring our own needs and catering to everyone else’s was a key part of our “training” as children.
Even now, when we’re around others who have real, valid needs, we often fall back into that “I’m here to help you” mode without thinking about our own boundaries. Unlearning that is not easy.
It’s like those Labradors—even if allowed to go back to a natural state, the learned behaviour would persist. It’s hard to tell what is done out of love and what because of conditioning.
We’re like that. We want to help and engage, but because we can’t always separate our natural, loving behaviour from our coerced one, we end up pushing past our boundaries. We get compassion fatigue. And sometimes, we allow others to exploit our kindness.
This is something we’re working on. Slowly, we’re learning to appreciate the difference between intentional sharing and trauma dumping—how to share our truths without overwhelming others or ourselves. This newfound knowledge is teaching us to connect in ways that feel more balanced and sustainable.
Being part of a survivor community is triggering for us. And yet, it’s also a place where we can witness resilience and strength in others, which is inspiring.
We’re trying to find that balance. Every shared experience and conversation feels like a small step toward understanding ourselves better. And maybe, just maybe, it’s teaching us how to move forward—together, as a stronger and more connected system.
When it all comes together, we can’t deny that we’re complicated.Even our name doesn’t belong to just one person—it belongs to a community. That alone limits how many people are willing to involve themselves with us. But there are some who do, and they appreciate all of us.
And what we offer is ourselves, as many and as One.
We care. Behavioural biologists say it’s just the inescapable consequence of biology, so we won’t take the credit. We’re like the Labrador we mentioned earlier—instinctively caring, even when it comes at our own expense.
We don’t like to see others struggle, but we know struggles are inevitable. Sometimes, as we walk our life journey, other people’s paths cross ours, and for a while, we walk with them.
Some say, “misery likes company,” but ableists twist that into something else—like struggling people want others to suffer alongside them. For people like us, that is blasphemous.
Desolate people, like every living being, need connections. Sure, “never cry alone” is a good motto, but it’s more than that.
It’s about sharing that dark humour that scares the average person—laughing together at misadventures. It’s about understanding each other’s struggles and feelings, and sharing solutions.
It’s about finding hope in one another, feeling less alone, and being truly seen and heard.
It’s about appreciating each other’s strengths, unrelenting determination, and obstinate defiance; celebrating survival.
Because “you do you” is just an ideal in society—nobody really does it. Except your tribe.
So, “misery likes company” simply means creating new memories with our tribe. Only people like us, who have had a lugubriously tenebrous past, would consider those happy memories. And they are happy—because having a tribe fills the heart and the Soul.
Together Among the Ruins
People come and go. Eventually, everyone will continue their journey on their own. Everyone’s voyage is different. But each will have something new and positive to store in their resilience arsenal—and maybe even find new pathways open to them.
So, I guess this is what we can offer: both the good and the bad. Take it or leave it—your choice. Either way, our Selves are no longer exiled.
All we can do is be authentic and available. What we must do is learn to establish and maintain boundaries.
The journey continues, and we’ll be writing more about community, connection, and what it means to belong. What about you? What’s your experience? Leave a comment, or, if you’d like to share your story in a post, simply use the contact form to get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
Memories soar, uninvited, taunting me with shaded truths. They shatter through walls that once were unbreakable.
A feral hunger snarls for vengeance, consuming, implacable thoughts.
Brain stumbles on life—revenge is hopeless— it begins to bargain: “Justice … the law …” Empty promises weave delusions of hope. The law is a ghost; beyond a veil.
The stomach churns, bleeding and heaving, trying to expel the poisonous seed. But there’s no relief—only bile and despair.
Through the blur of my tears, the world bends and warps. But in that distortion, I see the truth: There’s love in me—this hate isn’t mine.
It was given to me; I was gifted a curse, a poison they planted to rot what was whole. But my true Self—loving, untwisted— endures beneath the borrowed darkness, a cloak that shields the light within, resisting the shadows they left behind.
I don’t see love—just hate, unyielding, First them for their deeds, then me for submitting. I am Uroboros, devouring my Self, craving reprieve, choking on the bitterness they left behind.
One day by chance, I forgot to hate, and I felt the love of my inner Self. It was quiet and patient, warmly embracing, a hand on my shoulder, a rock to lean on.
Revenge is not me, justice’s not mine. The love I have for my Self, for my Selves, is both.
It brings me peace, not by erasing the pain, but by holding it gently and showing me I am more.
It’s in that knowing— love myself through the storm. I’m at peace with myself.
Smile through the pain. Self-love is the way. Let healing begin. Begin.
