Animal Abuse

I am struggling with animal abuse tendancies and extreme anger. I need help to understand why and what I can do.

I live with an older female dog. She is a good dog. She is my wife's, and she has had her since she was a puppy. She has some obedience and potty issues, but she has come a long way. Even when she is not particularly naughty, I find myself getting extremely angry and even violent with her. She shakes when she is nervous (always has) and that always sets me off because she looks so pathetic. I scream at her, punish her regularly (sometimes violently), and have no patience.

Strange thing is that I take care of her too. I spend time with her and we enjoy each others company. I just snap into this monster sometimes. Last night i flipped for no reason (other than she looked pathetic) and a whacked her with a plastic ladel in the eye.

A little bit about me. I grew up in an abusive broken home. My mother had anger issues and would get violent regularly. I turned to drugs at 16 and became a heroin addict at 20. I am 4 years clean now, but I find my anger has just recently hatched along with a controlling nature. I have never been in a physical fight in my life, and anger had never been an issue. I have been around plenty of animals and never had violent thoughts/tendencies before.

This is not to highlight how bad my life was, but to provide any relevant information to someone who might want to help me. Trust me when I say, I am not proud of this. Thanks for reading.

Hello,

big hugs.

We tend to replicate things we saw in our childhood, because the way a baby/child understands, what Mommy and Daddy do is called love. So if they are violent, or alcoholics, we internalise the idea that when you love someone you hit them, or you drink a lot, or you cheat on them.

I hated my stepfather who was a violent alcoholic and I promised myself not to ever become anything like him. So I became an alcoholic that directed violence towards himself (self-harm, etc.) It took me a decade to realise this happened, and I was extremely upset.

I think you know your dog is nervous because you scream at her and hit her. You'd be nervous too if this happened, and alternated with love and care, and I have a feeling this is what growing up with your mother might have been like. And you internalised this as "when you love and care for someone, you do those things". I might be completely talking out of my ass here -- not a professional -- this is just a feeling I have.

In my case therapy helped, but NA helped much, much more. You're clean now, this is really good! But what helped me with NA was the self-analysis and self-discovery -- not sure if you've done NA but it was and continues to be best therapy I ever had. So even though you're clean maybe it could help? Unlike most therapists it's free, too.

Big hug if wanted and I hope things get better soon.