20/10/2026
🐴🌿 What happens to the anger we were never allowed to express?
Today has been one of those days in therapeutic work that stays with you.
Much of our work has centred around childhood sexual abuse, particularly when the people responsible were adults in positions of trust and authority.
And the complicated feelings that can follow someone into adulthood.
Anger towards the people who should have kept them safe.
Fear of expressing that anger.
Confusion about why they didn’t feel able to blame the person who hurt them.
And sometimes, a complete emotional disconnection from what happened.
Something that has really stood out today is how children learn to survive situations they cannot escape or make sense of.
Dissociation can become a protective response. A way of separating from feelings, memories or experiences that were simply too overwhelming for a child to process.
And when those experiences happen within environments that should have been safe, the confusion can be enormous.
A child can fear an adult, want their approval, feel attached to them and be harmed by them. All at the same time.
That doesn’t make the child responsible. It shows just how complex survival can be.
We also explored how these experiences can connect with addiction later in life.
For some people, alcohol or drugs become a way to numb painful feelings, escape memories or temporarily access emotions they’ve spent years suppressing.
Sometimes anger only feels possible when inhibitions are lowered.
But underneath the substance use may be years of hurt, fear, shame and feelings that have never had a safe place to go.
Another important part of today’s work has been learning to slow down.
To pause.
To notice what happens in the body when there’s nothing to distract us.
Because for someone who has lived with trauma, stillness isn’t always calming. Sometimes keeping busy has been part of how they’ve survived.
Working alongside the horses gives us opportunities to explore these responses without needing to rush into painful memories.
To notice discomfort, practise grounding, recognise boundaries and begin to understand what safety might feel like.
And perhaps most importantly, to recognise that anger is not a bad emotion.
Anger can tell us that something was wrong.
That a boundary was crossed.
That someone failed to protect us.
And that the child who couldn’t speak up then deserved to be heard.
Recovery isn’t about forcing someone to relive their past or suddenly confront everything they’ve carried.
Sometimes it begins with helping them recognise that they are allowed to feel, allowed to pause and allowed to have a voice.
The responsibility for childhood abuse always belongs to the person who caused the harm. Never the child.
A powerful reminder today of the importance of safety, trust and allowing people to work through their experiences at their own pace. 💙
The Next Steps Forward
Equine Facilitated Learning & Animal Assisted Therapeutic Support
