I’m letting people who hurt me in the past live rent free in my mind.
One episode involves a former landlord that tried to run me over in an intersection with no traffic cameras.
Another one involves a manager that fired me for informing that one of his favorites yelled during night shift and ignored alarms to talk. He fired me the next day, used the exit interview to tell me everything I didn’t do right (but kept quiet about his favorites, even though I did the job like them), still had the utmost confidence on his favorites, accused me of being lazy and instead of simply firing me and keeping neutral he chose to take it personal, proceeded to try to scare me insinuating I wouldn’t work for his system again, when that failed, tried to humiliate me and then fired me. This was in an non union hospital.
When I think about it I get angry. Id like not to be so thin skinned, but here I am.
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Your life, physical and then professional were both threatened. The things you mentioned aren’t little oopsies. These are well beyond normal. You describe being assaulted and abused. Those aren’t suck it up and learn situations. That isn’t a regular kind of problem. You should seek trauma counseling.
I really struggle with this, too. If I have a nasty confrontation with someone, it can eat at me for days. Sometimes weeks. Logically I know I’m being foolish. Emotions are tough, though, and not logical.
Sometimes venting about it with a supportive friend or family member can really help. Hearing someone else validate your feelings can help you move on.
Distraction also works. I try to immerse myself in a book, movie, game, whatever. If I can forget the incident for a while, it has far less power the next time I think about it. Laughing about how dumb and petty it was can totally disarm it. Once you get to that place.
Therapy can help with this sort of stuff, too. But therapy is expensive. And I think most therapists have better things to tackle than some petty dispute I had with a coworker or neighbor.
The worst ones for me are the situations where I was the bad guy. Or I was the idiot who ended up getting myself hurt through my own bad decisions. One of those still haunts me, over 30 years later. I can forget about it, sometimes for years, but then it will pop back up in some way. I think it’s just, unfortunately, part of being human.
Try not to beat yourself up over these lingering thoughts. Everyone has them to some degree. Learning to let go of such baggage is a life skill that takes constant practice.
Revenge usually does the trick.
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Write a long thorough letter that you don’t send. It worked for me with a friend who was awful to me for a year. Beauty think about him anymore.
Experience all the emotions dude
You’re allowed to let those emotions flow through you. Yell and hit something inanimate if your mad. Cry if your sad. Let those thoughts come. And then let those emotions go
All those bad times were lessons you had to learn one way or another. Those lessons should hopefully help you never make those same mistakes or hang around those types of people. Life teaches the hard way unfortunately
But yeah, I used to repress my emotions cause that’s what a big football player is supposed to do. I had to be a rock and no matter what just bottle it all up. But I’ve been able to be a better rock for others by letting myself cry it out when I need to.
Lastly, I wouldn’t say I forgave all those who have wronged me. Nor have I forgotten. But I guess it’s like a really good song I just heard. The first dozen or so times I listen to it I’m completely focused and the song just sounds diffrent cause it’s fresh in my mind or whatever. But then I let the song play a bunch, maybe even twice in a row here and there cause I’m so focused on it. But then one day the song just isn’t a good for some reason. It’s kinda like that but with shitty situations.
Idk I’m not a therapist lol
From “Verissimus”, a comic about the Stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius: https://imgur.com/a/FlvGJGT (my apologies for the first two pages being out of order).
There is a section about the Greek philosopher, Epictetus’, teachings about anger. My favorite two are “Being unlike your enemies is the best form of revenge,” and “Goodwill is a virtue, the opposite of revenge, the desire to help rather than harm our fellow man. So replace your anger with its antidote: kindness.”
Didn’t know there is a comic version of his meditations, that is cool! Thanks for the tip, have to check that one out.
Those are pretty awesome! Thanks, I think I can get a lot of benefit from them.
Thinking about what hurt them. Being glad I am not them. That’s about it, really. I guess also in these particular situations you can be glad you don’t work/live there anymore, would you really want to be there if the boss was treating your coworker that way?
I had to do cognitive behavioral therapy to defeat cycles much like that. Fortunately, if you’re not in a position to have a professional help you with that, it can be self practiced. The biggest take away is allowing yourself time to process it, so it doesn’t occupy your mind when you’re trying to do something important like driving or sleeping. Write out the angry thoughts and reflect on them, why its impractical and how you’re putting yourself at risk for little to no gain. Match each negative thought with something positive if you can help it. Sure this person fucked you over, but you got to play a cool game with a buddy. They don’t need to be connected but try to force yourself to spend equal or greater time on good experiences as much as your mind is trying to drag you into the gutters. Regret is one of the more powerful emotions you’ll experience and you don’t need to cause yourself unnecessary burdens. If you feel you’re a risk to yourself or others, please seek out professional help. This isn’t medical advice, just myself reflecting on my own experiences. I’m told this service is pretty decent. https://www.betterhelp.com/
Just be sure to spell out “cognitive behavioral therapy” if you search it. Other results for getting started with CBT might bring you somewhere other than where you intend to go.
This would be my advice. The books “Feeling Great” or “When Panic Attacks” by David Burns are the go to resources for CBT. Honestly I never got much out of years of (on and off) professional CBT, but books make the whole thing a lot more digestible.
For OOP, CBT might help to really understand why these particular experiences are so meaningful to them.
It’s quite rational for you to feel angry towards people who seemingly went out of their way to wrong you. One thing that helps me is contemplating the inner existence of that type of person. It must be awful to walk around without a teaspoon of empathy. To walk around disconnected from basic humanity. To find pleasure in hurting others. What a cold existence.
Do you have a release for emotions period? Burn out the anger with a crazy workout and intense playlist. Write about it poetry style or otherwise. Buy a punching bag.
Although I am an atheist, if I am wrong, I am fairly certain they are going to hell.
I got revenge for them having fucked with me. Unfortunately, once I calmed down I realized that as a result of my actions I had burned a bridge that in retrospect, I’d have rather not burned.
So now I try to think really hard about whether someone deserves the way I treat them.
Also keep in mind that sometimes you can burn bridges you didn’t intend to burn in the process of burning the one you did intend to.
Others can observe and judge without having their own pony in the race. Hell, sometimes they would even be on your side if they knew all of the information but they don’t and might not care to hear it or believe it once they’ve passed their initial judgment on the revenge act. Or you might never even know that they’ve burned your bridge because of that and it just looks like they’ve grown more distant over time.
What instance of needing a burned bridge to be intact can you describe?
An ex was going out of their way to humiliate me, presumably because they were hurting. I revealed one of their secrets and effectively ruined their social life. Years later after going through shitloads of therapy I realized that despite what they did to me, I still wanted to be friends with them. Unfortunately, due to my actions they no longer want to be friends with me.
Years later after going through shitloads of therapy I realized that despite what they did to me, I still wanted to be friends with them.
Was the therapist religious? That sounds too much like “the other cheek” to me…
I think they are? But I am extremely anti-religion so we haven’t discussed it much.
I came to that conclusion on my own though. Our breakup was bad enough to get me diagnosed with PTSD, so I tended to think about her a lot, and come up with my own ideas which i run by my therapist to make sure they’re not monumentally stupid.
I’d encourage you to think about these events as you would a physical injury. A physical injury can hurt for a long time and no amount of recognition or “processing” or “getting over it” can short-cut the all-too-slow healing that needs to take place. It’s no fun and there’s no way to just make it go away.
That said, you can do things that care for the injury while it is healing. I don’t know what these are for you, but for me, I needed to recognize that the people I was angry at were also instrumental in helping me advance.
For example, I had a string of terrible jobs with bad bosses, but that string of terrible jobs led me to someplace that I am very happy to work. Once I realized this, it started getting easier to recognize both that the way I was treated was wrong and that I was also glad that these people were essential to me get to where I am. Even so, it was a long process and physically painful. My anger towards these people did nothing to hurt them, but it was terrible on my health.
I’m sorry you had to experience these things, but I hope they eventually lead you to someplace better.
