Rage Writing Is Therapy, Lifting Is Revenge

Cognitive Shifter

June 9, 2025

2–4 minutes

anger management, emotional abuse, emotional regulation, fitness mindset, gym mental health, gym rage, gym therapy, healing through lifting, lifting therapy, mental resilience, narcissistic abuse recovery, psychological abuse, rage writing, reactive abuse, self empowerment, strength training benefits, trauma coping, weightlifting motivation, writing as therapy

Have you ever felt so mentally fucking violated after dealing with a reactive/emotional abuser that you start questioning reality? One moment you’re just trying to express a simple fact, and the next you’re getting blamed for global warming, their childhood trauma, and why the chicken crossed the road. Congratulations… you’ve just danced with a Grade-A emotional terrorist. And if you’re anything like me, you need a goddamn purge afterward.

That’s where rage writing and lifting heavy shit come in. Not your yoga journal, not your self-help podcast… actual weaponized coping. Let me break this down for the overthinkers, the angry, quiet types, and anyone trying to stay sane in a world run by narcissists, influencers, and other parasites.

When you rage-write, you’re not just venting, you’re performing cognitive fucking alchemy.

You’re converting that red-hot emotional sewage into something with structure. It’s called affect labeling, and yeah, scientists studied this with fMRIs and found that writing down your rage turns down your amygdala (your primal “oh fuck” center) and lights up your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain that handles calm, logic, and “I’m better than this circus.”

In raw terms: You rage-write, your brain shuts the hell up. The nonsense gets dumped on the page instead of being dumped on your mental health. And once it’s written? You own the story. You become the narrator, not the character getting gaslit.

You’re not screaming in the void, you’re carving your pain into stone and then slapping a blog title on it like “Fuck This, and Fuck That Too.”

But here’s where shit gets real… Ever noticed that no amount of thinking or talking makes you feel better, but ten minutes of lifting a fucking iron chunk off the floor suddenly makes life tolerable again?

That’s not a coincidence. You’ve got cortisol and adrenaline rotting your internals every time someone disrespects you, manipulates you, or blames you for their own fucking incompetence. And guess what burns that chemical sludge off your system?

Lifting. Fucking. Weights.

And while you’re at it, your body releases dopamine and endorphins… those sweet little feel-good chemicals. Not the fake Instagram high. The real primal “I just picked up 200 pounds and didn’t die” kind of high.

Even better… Lifting forces your brain into present-moment awareness. You can’t spiral about that text message or that psycho Karen when you’re trying not to drop 80 fucking pounds on your fucking face.

It’s mindfulness with testosterone.

Here’s the truth no therapist wants to say out loud because it would bankrupt the entire scam-ridden self-help industry:

You don’t need peace. You need power. And writing and lifting give it to you. One lets you dominate your own mind. The other lets you dominate your body. And both let you say “fuck you” to the chaos around you, without needing a single apology from the assholes who caused it.

Reactive and emotional abusers want you to be tired, confused, and doubting yourself. But every time you rage-write or hit a PR, you’re reminding your nervous system:

“I’m still here. I’m still dangerous. And I’m not fucking broken.”

Rage writing is the therapy they can’t take away from you. Lifting is the revenge they’ll never see coming. Use both. Rebuild yourself. And next time they try to pull the same bullshit?

Let them dig their own grave. You’ve got pages to proofread and sets to finish.

2 responses to “Rage Writing Is Therapy, Lifting Is Revenge”

Zeno

January 3, 2026 at 12:14 pm

Yes, back in 2018 when I first started my blog, I did a lot of rage writing. It seemed to bring about a catharsis, get it out of my system. It’s a terrible world and most of us are terrible people. That’s just the way it is, just what evolution dealt us. For me, the only way to deal with has been to opt out, to bury my head in the sand. To realise the world has always been thus and probably always will be. So I have resigned. I loathe what so many people are doing but I just have to accept it. These days most of my rage has blown out.

As to exercise, yes, exactly. Today I walked for 2 1/2 hours round the river here in London and then I did an hour and a half of yoga and pilates.

I can actually physically feel my mood lifting as I continue throughout the day. As you say it’s effect is real, it’s chemical. And it’s the way to get through life.

As you say the self help industry is a ludicrous scam. So is most business, so is capitalism itself. But again, it’s what we’ve got and these days I tend to lift two fingers to Musk and his ghastly ilk and say “fuck it”.

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1. Cognitive Shifter
  
  January 3, 2026 at 12:26 pm
  
  Since 2018!! I’m only about a year into writing and finally feeling level-headed enough to start commenting and interacting with others… as of today I was just a lurker who’s only screaming into the void and oddly enjoying not attracting any level of attention for my brain-droppings lol
  
  I genuinely respect the ‘opting out’ strategy. That 2.5 hr walk along the river sounds like the only real thing left in a world full of plastic. I do something similar every day with my dog.
  
  And you are dead right about the scam. It’s not just business; it’s the whole structure. We are living under a fake as fuck ‘democracy’… just a theatrical distraction to keep us fighting each other while the top 0.1% (basically whatever Lysol doesn’t kill) loot the treasury.
  
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