At Bethesda one of the aims we have for our clients and their families is to offer them ‘empowerment through understanding’.  We are dealing with some clients from very high-functioning backgrounds.  Men and women with very high academic levels, trapped in addictions, depressions and eating disorders, simply because they are emotionally and spiritually dysfunctional.

They have very little self-awareness when it comes to understanding and managing their feelings and reactions.  One of the main areas of misunderstanding is in the area of anger. People seem to believe that anger is a feeling in and of itself; they therefore never truly resolve anything, and they end up in addictive isolation.  Anger is not a feeling.  It is always a ‘reaction to a feeling or feelings’.

We get many clients at Bethesda who simply lack the ability to appropriately express their feelings of anger.  There seems to be an in-built belief system that tells them their anger is a ’wrong’ feeling.  We are working with a lady at the moment - another one - coming from extreme abuse as a child.

In the last few days, let me call her Anne, has been storming around the unit, fed-up with everyone.  The mood seemed to creep over her like a cloud coming in; she very slowly turned very solemn.  Eventually we approached her and on enquiring, “what are you working on at the moment?” we found out that she was starting to look at how her ‘daddy’ molested her as a child.

We have been dealing with her heroin addiction and her eating disorder for five weeks by simply loving her with what is known as ‘unconditional positive regard.’ During that time she developed an inner sense of safety and started to see that we are trustworthy; this in turn allowed her to get in touch with something she has hidden for over twenty years.

Looking at it this way, one can actually see that her anger was quite normal. However, her aiming it at anyone and everyone turned it into inappropriate anger. Our approach is to simply allow it, but not be controlled by it. Out in society, where we are told ‘don’t be angry at me’, we inwardly believe our feelings are wrong, creating an unsafe atmosphere. Once again the safe environment that we offer at Bethesda has contributed to another prisoner’s freedom. 

Anger is a major source of many problems in the lives of adults who grew up in chaotic homes. It is a feeling that we often suppress, because admitting to it makes us – and, we believe, everyone around us - uncomfortable. In our chaotic homes the turmoil was so intense that we either denied our anger, or we expressed it inappropriately. We felt it safer to protect ourselves and simply hoped the feeling would go away. We were not aware that suppressed anger could lead to serious resentment and depression.
It causes physical complications that can develop into stress-related illnesses. Denying anger and/or expressing it inappropriately causes problems in relationships, because we cannot be truthful about our feelings, and this in turn keeps addictions alive.

What we try to practice at Bethesda is allowing our friends to be angry, believing that angry is exactly what they need to feel, irrespective of how appropriate it might or might not be. Eventually, we get to the root, and then our relationships are all enhanced. To truly love someone must also include allowing them to hurt us from time to time if we can see that it is a part of their healing process.
I know that my wife loves me, even when she does not actually like me very much,  … for richer for poorer, for better for worse, and it is from within that safe arena that we, in our home and at Bethesda, are witnessing growth.

Colin Garnett.
Storms River Village