How do you keep focused on God and not your own anger in difficult times?

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Here is a prayer
Do not lose hope!

Mary, Undoer of Knots, pray for me.

Virgin Mary, Mother of fair love, Mother who never refuses to come to the aid of a child in need, Mother whose hands never cease to serve your beloved children because they are moved by the divine love and immense mercy that exist in your heart, cast your compassionate eyes upon me and see the snarl of knots that exists in my life. You know very well how desperate I am, my pain, and how I am bound by these knots. Mary, Mother to whom God entrusted the undoing of the knots in the lives of his children, I entrust into your hands the ribbon of my life. No one, not even the evil one himself, can take it away from your precious care. In your hands there is no knot that cannot be undone. Powerful Mother, by your grace and intercessory power with Your Son and My Liberator, Jesus, take into your hands today this knot.

[Mention your request here]

I beg you to undo it for the glory of God, once for all. You are my hope.
O my Lady, you are the only consolation God gives me, the fortification of my feeble strength, the enrichment of my destitution, and, with Christ, the freedom from my chains.
Hear my plea.
Keep me, guide me, protect me, o safe refuge
 
Darklight,

Is there a problem with alcoholism in your family? If there is, that may be the underlying cause of the fighting. I grew up with it and your family situation sounds much like my childhood. I agree, it is a nightmare.

If alcoholism is the cause, may I urge you to contact your nearest AlAnon Intergroup office (they are listed in the phone book) and attend meetings. You will meet others who have similar experiences and receive love and support from the members. It saved my life and my sanity.

I wish you every success
 
No alcohol, no non-prescription meds other than stuff you can get off the shelf at the drugstore.

If I make my guess, it’s some combination of mental illness and a background of abuse in my parents’ past. A lot of my difficulties are centered around my mother, as my father simply withdraws. If I had to make my guess, somewhere she never seems to have gotten what healthy disagreement was, and she seems to interpret any disagreement or criticism as an attack. That’s also often my problem with trying to protect myself - I’ll be told I have to be “respectful” in order to stay. But the definition of “respectful” that I’m observing precludes any useful discussion or compromise.

Unfortunately I think attending a support group would I think be difficult without being dragged into the fighting via that. I’m very much suffering from “if you acknowledge that you don’t see this conflict my way, I’m going to punish you for it.” Refusing to talk if I’m showing stress or showing that I need help also doesn’t work very well. I think it would be very hard to go to a support group without being expected to divulge to my parents what I’m doing in that group.
 
Darklight

I understand. As I said earlier, I grew up (survived describes it best) a similar situation and at the age of 67, I’m still healing from the carnage. If you think prayer could help alleviate some of the pressure,you might try praying to St Dymphna, patron saint of mental illness for your family’s healing. Wish I could be of more help to you,

Stuart
 
DarkLight said:
What I’m hitting is it’s hard to focus on anything other than how angry and frustrated I am… Trying to pray is hard because my mind is elsewhere.
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There is so much injustice in this world, and often there seems little hope of putting it right. We have the right to be angry, but anger eats away at us and harms us. The person who angers us, controls us, they have a little remote control and when they push our buttons it makes us feel mad. We really just want to be kind and caring, but they stop us from doing that.

We were in Manchester Cathedral a few years ago, and we listened to the story of a man who had been stabbed in the back. He was then paralysed from the waist down and has been in a wheelchair for 27 years. He said he fights two diseases, being
crippled, but the greater disease was the anger and hate he had for his assailant.

Afterwards we were led in worship and the topic was forgiveness, we sang a blessing several times, and each time we sang we were asked to think about those we love and care for. We sang the same blessing again several times, and then we were asked to think of all those we need to forgive, and for all the people who have hurt us. the blessing is below, and you can hear it sung on the link.

Now may the peace of the Lord be with you, be with you
Now and always

May the Lord bless you
May the Lord keep you
And may God’s face shine upon you always
And give you peace
http://www.grahamkendrick.co.uk/con...nquet/the-peace-now-may-the-peace-of-the-lord
 
Eric_Hyom said:
There is so much injustice in this world, and often there seems little hope of putting it right. We have the right to be angry, but anger eats away at us and harms us. The person who angers us, controls us, they have a little remote control and when they push our buttons it makes us feel mad. We really just want to be kind and caring, but they stop us from doing that.
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The trouble I’m having is that fundamentally, I am being controlled by my own inability to support myself. I hate it, but I’m not sure how well I can do better. I’m working full-time, but I’m spending thousands on meeting my own medical needs every year. The only solution I’ve heard is “use an HSA”, but you can only put up to about 3k into one of those and that’s nowhere near enough. So I have to put up with being controlled because I am afraid if I don’t I won’t have a place to live.

It makes me want to cry when my mother talks about how good our relationship is.
 
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Thank you.

I’m honestly not sure how much of this is anger and how much is just plain old fear. I’m miserable at home and I feel like I’m walking on eggshells all the time, but I’m concerned about my ability to actually take care of both my medical bills and my other needs on my own. And the trouble with being poor is there are a lot of different things that cost money that someone better off might not even notice, or might be able to avoid.

I also feel like it’s very hard to reach out for help because I feel like the stereotypes are against me. I get a lot of people whose idea seems to be that, since my parents are graciously helping me out as an adult, I therefore can’t possibly have any reason to complain or it can’t really be that bad. I find there’s often a dichotomy in people’s minds with parents in general - either they’re bad parents who don’t care about their children at all or they’re good parents who only have minor flaws that you should just overlook. I do appreciate the financial support, but at the same time I feel that it’s being used to put a crushing emotional burden on me.
 
Part of the difficulty as well is separating out what’s necessary to be dealt with now, with what has happened in the past, especially when they all blend together.

For example, my mother will tell me, I knew how to be respectful as a teenager, it shouldn’t be too hard as an adult. What I remember of teenager is a combination of a lot of lying and of some very harmful coping methods (self-harm) that she never caught on to. That was just the price of being respectful. And that’s certainly not a strategy that I want to go back to.

I want to rip that off. I want to tell her that it was never this great time that she remembers. I want to tell her that I had hoped with coming home, maybe we could patch some things up, redo things now that I’m an adult and she’s out of that idiotic church (which really didn’t help anything at the time). I want to tell her that she’s built up a fantasy of what’s been previously. I also want to tell her that it’s not ok to talk badly about my father, and frankly given how she reacts to me I’m highly skeptical of her claims of mistreatment anyway.

I’m well enough aware that what I want to tell her, and what it would be prudent to tell her, aren’t the same thing. I’d like to tell her and have her actually see what’s going on and how much I’m hurting and actually work on our relationship. I doubt that’s ever going to happen. I know I need to focus on what’s going on now and not what’s past, but it’s all tied up in a big mess.
 
Other than Prozac and Xanax…
(jk)

Can you run off to church and do some Holy Hours?

And / or what about getting a rosary in when you get up or sometime / anytime during the day?

Daily Mass??
 
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DarkLight said:
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Tis_Bearself:
You have to learn to just put your parents on “ignore” when they start calling you “immature and irresponsible” for not wanting to take a side in their disagreement.
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The trouble is “immature and irresponsible” ends in “and if you’re going to be so rude and immature you have to get out of the house for the night.” I’ve had to sleep in a hotel for a few nights because my mother decided I was being too rude and disrespectful - and unfortunately it rather seems to me that anything that challenges her behavior is deemed such.

That or just plain old following me around the house for hours yelling at me no matter what I say. But the ultimate problem is I’m afraid if I stand up for myself it’s just going to lead to me being thrown out of the house.
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Wow, how did you say you maintain your sanity again??

😱
 
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I’m trying, but it really works very poorly with my work schedule. Either daily Mass is held at a time when I’m working, or it would require me significantly shorting myself on sleep to get there. And my parents are already complaining that I try to say a rosary and such but I just can’t focus at all lately. I’m definitely noticing my stress level is through the roof and I don’t think it’s helping my health at all.

I would rather not end up back on mental health meds if I can help it, so I’m hoping I can get out before it gets that bad. Of course, there’s going to be a whole nother challenge when it hits that point.
 
Any where nearby that has perpetual adoration? For me, it’s the next best thing than going to mass, and don’t tell anyone here, but I think for me sometimes, it’s even more essential than just going to mass. It has a settling effect on me, spiritually and mentally speaking.
 
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Nope. There’s one that goes from 3pm-8pm once a week that I’m trying to get to, although I have to be ready to go straight from there to work.
 
Sounds rough !! I’ll try and remember to pray for you at my Adoration.

You could have your hearing removed, at least while you’re at home, but that seems like a drastic measure at this point.
 
I find Adoration to have amazing effects on me. If I have to go out of town and miss Adoration, it really really really bothers me.

To keep focused on God, I would have to agree. Hard to beat.

Blessings,
Stephie
 
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