I cannot stop feeling so deeply angry at someone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This person is not worth the energy you are putting into your anger.

And that anger is giving this person a prime spot, THE prime spot, in your mental real estate, OP. In essence this person is, to put it crudely, "winning" against you, even after the abuse is long over, by taking up so much of your emotional and mental time and energy.

For those reasons, this stranger is begging you to get back into therapy, or, if you're still in therapy, to tell your therapist more fully exactly what you told us here. Maybe change therapists if you have one but for some reason aren't being this frank with the therapist as you are anonymously here. We can advise all day, and you'll get posts asking you for more and more details here "so we can help you better" etc. (often these come from people who just get kicks out of all the gory details--don't feed those beasts). But you need to see a professional to evict this person from your mind. Your life is being impaired and that gives this person power over you. I won't say, "Just stop giving this person power over you" becuase it is so hard to do that on one's own. See a new therapist, or tell your current one your whole, raw, angry truth, or restart therapy if you've stopped it, but you need help to take back your life and thoughts. You deserve to have your true self back and that cannot happen with just venting to strangers online. Please, please get help.

You don't get it. My therapist knows I feel this way. Have you ever been through this? If not, you don't get it.

And yes, I'm aware that this person is winning, that they have won. That's the whole point. No matter what I do I can never get back what they took.

Also, I'm not sharing any details here, I'm not stupid.

I am not in the same boat but my therapy has only amplified my bitter feelings. I think we could both be helped by seeking healing in another outlet.

DP. You said upthread that you have learned that you must express feelings to be able to move past them but many people have the experience that expressing negative feelings increases them and is not the solution.

The way to let negative feelings go is to let them go, not to focus on them and give them more power through expression.

You are not responding to a post by the OP but I am tending to lean into what you are saying. The problem is too much baggage. It's like how hard it is to cut family off when you still have tons of ties that bind in other ways. Can you let go of bad feelings for an abusive teacher if you still see them in the hallway every school day? People often side against a victim because the victim is so upset, never mind they didn't ask for any of it in the first place. The guy that rocks the boat is annoying but the person who rocks the boat back is looked down on even more.

The issue is that when you have strong negative feelings and share them, and the response is "you need to let them go," if the person cannot let them go (which is common if you're talking about trauma), then instead what you are really saying is "bottle those feelings up and don't take about them anymore." Which is toxic AF.

There are very limited spaces in the world where you can say stuff like this. In therapy, maaaaaaybe with very close friends and family (but even that is dicy because most peopel are just not able to hold emotions like this and it will freak them out to see someone they love express this stuff, it's just really rare to have a support network that can handle this unless you are paying them), and then on an anonymous site like this. Maybe a support group IF you can find one, they are actually hard to find.

Which is why "you need to let it go" is just such useless advice. How? When you have been harmed like this, you can try to think about other things, you can exercise, meditate, whatever. At some point you are going to wind up thinking about what happened and you're going to feel how you feel.

Just where exactly is it that you folks think all these negative feelings go?

It is totally useless advice. Next comes the lecture about why do you see yourself as a victim? Well, because you were victimized. The only productive approach is to stop inviting people to take advantage of you. You were genuinely victimized. Victim has become a dirty shameful word and it’s all about not enforcing accountability for perpetrators.

+1, the comments about "you need to get out of this victim mentality" make me mad because is anyone telling the abuser, condescendingly, "you need to get out of this abuser mentality."

It's not a mentality. If someone harms you, you're a victim. I'm a believer in the power of language and embrace using the term "survivor" over victim and I totally agree we need to find ways to facilitate survivors feeling empowered to make changes and take control. But the truth is that if someone hurts you and gets away with it, you feel powerless because you have been stripped of power. Expecting someone in that situation to believe they actually are powerful when their abuser and the people who facilitated, ignored, or covered up the abuse have provided copious evidence to the contrary is not a realistic expectation. When people succeed at this, you should be wowed by them. When people fail at it, you should be understanding.

If you want to yell at someone, yell at abusers.

DP. These comments are not yelling at OP or PPs. It's a variation of the wisdom of Carolyn Hax (who, like her or not, is occasionally right). You can't change other people, you can only change yourself. And no one else can change you, not your therapist, not anyone else. Only you can change yourself. So if you want to, you will.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Something similar happened to me. It was intentional and meant to inflict deadly/physical harm. I am dying and I believe I have only lived this long because I can't die until they are legally held responsible. They are shocked I'm still here!

You know what I do, OP? Each night, I pray they lose everything, terrible things happen to not only them but their family too (because I believe their behavior is learned from bad parenting), they have an early, horrible, slow, excruciating death as I'm experiencing. This end of night ritual helps me rest. It's the only time I allow myself to think of them.

I believe in karma, and that somehow when I die, I will have some control over what happens to them in the afterlife. They think no one cares what they did, there's no chance anyone of authority will come after them. They believe they can blame me, explain their way out of everything. They know DC is corrupt and a judicial hellhole. Just wait! It might be in their next life, the roles are reversed. I won't let up either, I'll bite down like 'The Junkyard Dog' and never loosen my grip.

OP, believe God sees all things. They will get theirs and worse!

Are you physically okay? I guess the answer is no. Do you want us to help you get revenge?

No, I'm physically very unwell. Yes, I could use help getting revenge before it's too late!

PP again. If you create a GoFundMe for your injuries, or share some other fundraising campaign for victims of specific crimes, that will get nosey people digging into whoever it was that harmed you. If you don't fear retaliation and/or have a restraining order, you could also put him/her on blast on social media. Though that might be a bad idea if there's pending ligitation.

Does this person have family/friends/neighbors who know what happened?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This person is not worth the energy you are putting into your anger.

And that anger is giving this person a prime spot, THE prime spot, in your mental real estate, OP. In essence this person is, to put it crudely, "winning" against you, even after the abuse is long over, by taking up so much of your emotional and mental time and energy.

For those reasons, this stranger is begging you to get back into therapy, or, if you're still in therapy, to tell your therapist more fully exactly what you told us here. Maybe change therapists if you have one but for some reason aren't being this frank with the therapist as you are anonymously here. We can advise all day, and you'll get posts asking you for more and more details here "so we can help you better" etc. (often these come from people who just get kicks out of all the gory details--don't feed those beasts). But you need to see a professional to evict this person from your mind. Your life is being impaired and that gives this person power over you. I won't say, "Just stop giving this person power over you" becuase it is so hard to do that on one's own. See a new therapist, or tell your current one your whole, raw, angry truth, or restart therapy if you've stopped it, but you need help to take back your life and thoughts. You deserve to have your true self back and that cannot happen with just venting to strangers online. Please, please get help.

You don't get it. My therapist knows I feel this way. Have you ever been through this? If not, you don't get it.

And yes, I'm aware that this person is winning, that they have won. That's the whole point. No matter what I do I can never get back what they took.

Also, I'm not sharing any details here, I'm not stupid.

I am not in the same boat but my therapy has only amplified my bitter feelings. I think we could both be helped by seeking healing in another outlet.

DP. You said upthread that you have learned that you must express feelings to be able to move past them but many people have the experience that expressing negative feelings increases them and is not the solution.

The way to let negative feelings go is to let them go, not to focus on them and give them more power through expression.

You are not responding to a post by the OP but I am tending to lean into what you are saying. The problem is too much baggage. It's like how hard it is to cut family off when you still have tons of ties that bind in other ways. Can you let go of bad feelings for an abusive teacher if you still see them in the hallway every school day? People often side against a victim because the victim is so upset, never mind they didn't ask for any of it in the first place. The guy that rocks the boat is annoying but the person who rocks the boat back is looked down on even more.

The issue is that when you have strong negative feelings and share them, and the response is "you need to let them go," if the person cannot let them go (which is common if you're talking about trauma), then instead what you are really saying is "bottle those feelings up and don't take about them anymore." Which is toxic AF.

There are very limited spaces in the world where you can say stuff like this. In therapy, maaaaaaybe with very close friends and family (but even that is dicy because most peopel are just not able to hold emotions like this and it will freak them out to see someone they love express this stuff, it's just really rare to have a support network that can handle this unless you are paying them), and then on an anonymous site like this. Maybe a support group IF you can find one, they are actually hard to find.

Which is why "you need to let it go" is just such useless advice. How? When you have been harmed like this, you can try to think about other things, you can exercise, meditate, whatever. At some point you are going to wind up thinking about what happened and you're going to feel how you feel.

Just where exactly is it that you folks think all these negative feelings go?

It is totally useless advice. Next comes the lecture about why do you see yourself as a victim? Well, because you were victimized. The only productive approach is to stop inviting people to take advantage of you. You were genuinely victimized. Victim has become a dirty shameful word and it’s all about not enforcing accountability for perpetrators.

+1, the comments about "you need to get out of this victim mentality" make me mad because is anyone telling the abuser, condescendingly, "you need to get out of this abuser mentality."

It's not a mentality. If someone harms you, you're a victim. I'm a believer in the power of language and embrace using the term "survivor" over victim and I totally agree we need to find ways to facilitate survivors feeling empowered to make changes and take control. But the truth is that if someone hurts you and gets away with it, you feel powerless because you have been stripped of power. Expecting someone in that situation to believe they actually are powerful when their abuser and the people who facilitated, ignored, or covered up the abuse have provided copious evidence to the contrary is not a realistic expectation. When people succeed at this, you should be wowed by them. When people fail at it, you should be understanding.

If you want to yell at someone, yell at abusers.

DP. These comments are not yelling at OP or PPs. It's a variation of the wisdom of Carolyn Hax (who, like her or not, is occasionally right). You can't change other people, you can only change yourself. And no one else can change you, not your therapist, not anyone else. Only you can change yourself. So if you want to, you will.

I think peopel who do this don't understand how trauma works. Whether they are "yelling" or not is debatable -- the truth is that is not kind to tell someone to do something that they are trying and failing to do as a form of advice. Like this is what it sounds like:

A: I was hurt very bad, I'm struggling, I want to feel better but don't
B: Do this, this and this and then you will feel better
A: I did all those things, I still don't feel better
B: Stop being a victim, you just have to change how you feel

It's just a weird brick wall of advice. It doesn't help. Maybe this works for other things, like if someone who is unhappy in their job and complains about it all the time, maybe telling them "the only person who can change this is you" will help because in that situation, they can in fact change it. But telling people with PTSD to just let go, stop being a victim, etc... it just doesn't make sense within the context of the problem. It's like telling some whose bored to go visit the moon because that would be an exciting thing to do. I mean, I guess, but that's obviously not a feasible solution to that problem.

This is what the phrase "trauma-informed" means when it comes to therapy or other forms of services designed to help people. A lot of the "common sense" advice on improving your life just doesn't make sense in the context of trauma, and can even be harmful.

[Anonymous]

The whole point of trauma is that it is soul breaking. It’s about learning to live in the aftermath and reality of that destruction not pretending you can think it away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of trauma is that it is soul breaking. It’s about learning to live in the aftermath and reality of that destruction not pretending you can think it away.

+1, succinctly put. Thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This person is not worth the energy you are putting into your anger.

And that anger is giving this person a prime spot, THE prime spot, in your mental real estate, OP. In essence this person is, to put it crudely, "winning" against you, even after the abuse is long over, by taking up so much of your emotional and mental time and energy.

For those reasons, this stranger is begging you to get back into therapy, or, if you're still in therapy, to tell your therapist more fully exactly what you told us here. Maybe change therapists if you have one but for some reason aren't being this frank with the therapist as you are anonymously here. We can advise all day, and you'll get posts asking you for more and more details here "so we can help you better" etc. (often these come from people who just get kicks out of all the gory details--don't feed those beasts). But you need to see a professional to evict this person from your mind. Your life is being impaired and that gives this person power over you. I won't say, "Just stop giving this person power over you" becuase it is so hard to do that on one's own. See a new therapist, or tell your current one your whole, raw, angry truth, or restart therapy if you've stopped it, but you need help to take back your life and thoughts. You deserve to have your true self back and that cannot happen with just venting to strangers online. Please, please get help.

You don't get it. My therapist knows I feel this way. Have you ever been through this? If not, you don't get it.

And yes, I'm aware that this person is winning, that they have won. That's the whole point. No matter what I do I can never get back what they took.

Also, I'm not sharing any details here, I'm not stupid.

I am not in the same boat but my therapy has only amplified my bitter feelings. I think we could both be helped by seeking healing in another outlet.

DP. You said upthread that you have learned that you must express feelings to be able to move past them but many people have the experience that expressing negative feelings increases them and is not the solution.

The way to let negative feelings go is to let them go, not to focus on them and give them more power through expression.

You are not responding to a post by the OP but I am tending to lean into what you are saying. The problem is too much baggage. It's like how hard it is to cut family off when you still have tons of ties that bind in other ways. Can you let go of bad feelings for an abusive teacher if you still see them in the hallway every school day? People often side against a victim because the victim is so upset, never mind they didn't ask for any of it in the first place. The guy that rocks the boat is annoying but the person who rocks the boat back is looked down on even more.

The issue is that when you have strong negative feelings and share them, and the response is "you need to let them go," if the person cannot let them go (which is common if you're talking about trauma), then instead what you are really saying is "bottle those feelings up and don't take about them anymore." Which is toxic AF.

There are very limited spaces in the world where you can say stuff like this. In therapy, maaaaaaybe with very close friends and family (but even that is dicy because most peopel are just not able to hold emotions like this and it will freak them out to see someone they love express this stuff, it's just really rare to have a support network that can handle this unless you are paying them), and then on an anonymous site like this. Maybe a support group IF you can find one, they are actually hard to find.

Which is why "you need to let it go" is just such useless advice. How? When you have been harmed like this, you can try to think about other things, you can exercise, meditate, whatever. At some point you are going to wind up thinking about what happened and you're going to feel how you feel.

Just where exactly is it that you folks think all these negative feelings go?

It is totally useless advice. Next comes the lecture about why do you see yourself as a victim? Well, because you were victimized. The only productive approach is to stop inviting people to take advantage of you. You were genuinely victimized. Victim has become a dirty shameful word and it’s all about not enforcing accountability for perpetrators.

+1, the comments about "you need to get out of this victim mentality" make me mad because is anyone telling the abuser, condescendingly, "you need to get out of this abuser mentality."

It's not a mentality. If someone harms you, you're a victim. I'm a believer in the power of language and embrace using the term "survivor" over victim and I totally agree we need to find ways to facilitate survivors feeling empowered to make changes and take control. But the truth is that if someone hurts you and gets away with it, you feel powerless because you have been stripped of power. Expecting someone in that situation to believe they actually are powerful when their abuser and the people who facilitated, ignored, or covered up the abuse have provided copious evidence to the contrary is not a realistic expectation. When people succeed at this, you should be wowed by them. When people fail at it, you should be understanding.

If you want to yell at someone, yell at abusers.

DP. These comments are not yelling at OP or PPs. It's a variation of the wisdom of Carolyn Hax (who, like her or not, is occasionally right). You can't change other people, you can only change yourself. And no one else can change you, not your therapist, not anyone else. Only you can change yourself. So if you want to, you will.

I think peopel who do this don't understand how trauma works. Whether they are "yelling" or not is debatable -- the truth is that is not kind to tell someone to do something that they are trying and failing to do as a form of advice. Like this is what it sounds like:

A: I was hurt very bad, I'm struggling, I want to feel better but don't
B: Do this, this and this and then you will feel better
A: I did all those things, I still don't feel better
B: Stop being a victim, you just have to change how you feel

It's just a weird brick wall of advice. It doesn't help. Maybe this works for other things, like if someone who is unhappy in their job and complains about it all the time, maybe telling them "the only person who can change this is you" will help because in that situation, they can in fact change it. But telling people with PTSD to just let go, stop being a victim, etc... it just doesn't make sense within the context of the problem. It's like telling some whose bored to go visit the moon because that would be an exciting thing to do. I mean, I guess, but that's obviously not a feasible solution to that problem.

This is what the phrase "trauma-informed" means when it comes to therapy or other forms of services designed to help people. A lot of the "common sense" advice on improving your life just doesn't make sense in the context of trauma, and can even be harmful.

Look, to an extent, we define our realities. If you believe everything you just wrote, that is how your life will play out. For others who choose to do whatever they can to move on and find a new identify for themselves, that is how their life will play out. No one is denying OP's feelings or suffering but only offering advice on how to mold a new identity for herself so that her life is not defined by this one event. If you look at human history, it always strikes me how much people in past centuries suffered. The women who lose child after child, the hardships, the wars, etc. But yet they persevered. All the focus on being hurt and being a victim is really quite a modern phenomenon and while useful in to some degree, can backfire and make us less resilient. Stop looking inward and focus on someone else.

OP is very mature for not wishing real harm to the perp but is angry at him "getting away." My advice would be to focus on you having done right, regardless of outcome or how others perceived the situation. You didn't do anything wrong, followed your conscience to confronted him. Can you take comfort in that? None of us are judged by the misfortunes that befall us, but by how we acted. And again, do whatever you need to distance yourself and start afresh. Move to a new location/neighborhood if possible, cut off all shared acquaintances, get a new job if job related.

[Anonymous]

OP, I had a best friend who hurt me deeply and suddenly. I held on to that hurt and anger for years, like 10-15 years. Looking back, I think I held on to all of that hurt for so long because I felt like it would only go away if I understood why it happened. Which of course wasn't going to happen. Also I felt like if I let the pain go then my friend would "win"...like I was winning, holding on to things? It made no sense but that's how it was in my head. Like she would get away with it if I moved on.

What booted me out of this circle is that another really painful thing happened. And when looking at the newer pain, I thought, am I going to hold onto this pain and anger for another 15+ years like I did with the old pain? And for whatever reason that was the jump I needed to move past things. I did have a good therapist then helping me work through a lot of stuff I was dealing with at that time. I was learning new coping skills and reframing both past and current experiences in my life. Maybe work on things like that instead of addressing the issue directly? Maybe with new coping skills you can deal with your anger and the anniversary in a healthier way which will help moving forward.

Not sure if this helps at all but good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This person is not worth the energy you are putting into your anger.

And that anger is giving this person a prime spot, THE prime spot, in your mental real estate, OP. In essence this person is, to put it crudely, "winning" against you, even after the abuse is long over, by taking up so much of your emotional and mental time and energy.

For those reasons, this stranger is begging you to get back into therapy, or, if you're still in therapy, to tell your therapist more fully exactly what you told us here. Maybe change therapists if you have one but for some reason aren't being this frank with the therapist as you are anonymously here. We can advise all day, and you'll get posts asking you for more and more details here "so we can help you better" etc. (often these come from people who just get kicks out of all the gory details--don't feed those beasts). But you need to see a professional to evict this person from your mind. Your life is being impaired and that gives this person power over you. I won't say, "Just stop giving this person power over you" becuase it is so hard to do that on one's own. See a new therapist, or tell your current one your whole, raw, angry truth, or restart therapy if you've stopped it, but you need help to take back your life and thoughts. You deserve to have your true self back and that cannot happen with just venting to strangers online. Please, please get help.

You don't get it. My therapist knows I feel this way. Have you ever been through this? If not, you don't get it.

And yes, I'm aware that this person is winning, that they have won. That's the whole point. No matter what I do I can never get back what they took.

Also, I'm not sharing any details here, I'm not stupid.

I am not in the same boat but my therapy has only amplified my bitter feelings. I think we could both be helped by seeking healing in another outlet.

DP. You said upthread that you have learned that you must express feelings to be able to move past them but many people have the experience that expressing negative feelings increases them and is not the solution.

The way to let negative feelings go is to let them go, not to focus on them and give them more power through expression.

You are not responding to a post by the OP but I am tending to lean into what you are saying. The problem is too much baggage. It's like how hard it is to cut family off when you still have tons of ties that bind in other ways. Can you let go of bad feelings for an abusive teacher if you still see them in the hallway every school day? People often side against a victim because the victim is so upset, never mind they didn't ask for any of it in the first place. The guy that rocks the boat is annoying but the person who rocks the boat back is looked down on even more.

The issue is that when you have strong negative feelings and share them, and the response is "you need to let them go," if the person cannot let them go (which is common if you're talking about trauma), then instead what you are really saying is "bottle those feelings up and don't take about them anymore." Which is toxic AF.

There are very limited spaces in the world where you can say stuff like this. In therapy, maaaaaaybe with very close friends and family (but even that is dicy because most peopel are just not able to hold emotions like this and it will freak them out to see someone they love express this stuff, it's just really rare to have a support network that can handle this unless you are paying them), and then on an anonymous site like this. Maybe a support group IF you can find one, they are actually hard to find.

Which is why "you need to let it go" is just such useless advice. How? When you have been harmed like this, you can try to think about other things, you can exercise, meditate, whatever. At some point you are going to wind up thinking about what happened and you're going to feel how you feel.

Just where exactly is it that you folks think all these negative feelings go?

It is totally useless advice. Next comes the lecture about why do you see yourself as a victim? Well, because you were victimized. The only productive approach is to stop inviting people to take advantage of you. You were genuinely victimized. Victim has become a dirty shameful word and it’s all about not enforcing accountability for perpetrators.

+1, the comments about "you need to get out of this victim mentality" make me mad because is anyone telling the abuser, condescendingly, "you need to get out of this abuser mentality."

It's not a mentality. If someone harms you, you're a victim. I'm a believer in the power of language and embrace using the term "survivor" over victim and I totally agree we need to find ways to facilitate survivors feeling empowered to make changes and take control. But the truth is that if someone hurts you and gets away with it, you feel powerless because you have been stripped of power. Expecting someone in that situation to believe they actually are powerful when their abuser and the people who facilitated, ignored, or covered up the abuse have provided copious evidence to the contrary is not a realistic expectation. When people succeed at this, you should be wowed by them. When people fail at it, you should be understanding.

If you want to yell at someone, yell at abusers.

DP. These comments are not yelling at OP or PPs. It's a variation of the wisdom of Carolyn Hax (who, like her or not, is occasionally right). You can't change other people, you can only change yourself. And no one else can change you, not your therapist, not anyone else. Only you can change yourself. So if you want to, you will.

I think peopel who do this don't understand how trauma works. Whether they are "yelling" or not is debatable -- the truth is that is not kind to tell someone to do something that they are trying and failing to do as a form of advice. Like this is what it sounds like:

A: I was hurt very bad, I'm struggling, I want to feel better but don't
B: Do this, this and this and then you will feel better
A: I did all those things, I still don't feel better
B: Stop being a victim, you just have to change how you feel

It's just a weird brick wall of advice. It doesn't help. Maybe this works for other things, like if someone who is unhappy in their job and complains about it all the time, maybe telling them "the only person who can change this is you" will help because in that situation, they can in fact change it. But telling people with PTSD to just let go, stop being a victim, etc... it just doesn't make sense within the context of the problem. It's like telling some whose bored to go visit the moon because that would be an exciting thing to do. I mean, I guess, but that's obviously not a feasible solution to that problem.

This is what the phrase "trauma-informed" means when it comes to therapy or other forms of services designed to help people. A lot of the "common sense" advice on improving your life just doesn't make sense in the context of trauma, and can even be harmful.

Look, to an extent, we define our realities. If you believe everything you just wrote, that is how your life will play out. For others who choose to do whatever they can to move on and find a new identify for themselves, that is how their life will play out. No one is denying OP's feelings or suffering but only offering advice on how to mold a new identity for herself so that her life is not defined by this one event. If you look at human history, it always strikes me how much people in past centuries suffered. The women who lose child after child, the hardships, the wars, etc. But yet they persevered. All the focus on being hurt and being a victim is really quite a modern phenomenon and while useful in to some degree, can backfire and make us less resilient. Stop looking inward and focus on someone else.

OP is very mature for not wishing real harm to the perp but is angry at him "getting away." My advice would be to focus on you having done right, regardless of outcome or how others perceived the situation. You didn't do anything wrong, followed your conscience to confronted him. Can you take comfort in that? None of us are judged by the misfortunes that befall us, but by how we acted. And again, do whatever you need to distance yourself and start afresh. Move to a new location/neighborhood if possible, cut off all shared acquaintances, get a new job if job related.

I don't really agree with your point but I just wanted to highlight that the bolded is not true. For historical research projects, I've read a large volume of personal letters written by people in the early 19th century, and let me tell you -- those folks focused plenty on being hurt and "being a victim." People have ALWAYS struggled with these kinds of interpersonal hurts and harms, with power struggles and humiliation. We tend to put this rosy, dignified patina on portrayals of previous eras in our media, but this is not accurate. Lifelong grudges between neighbors, parents disinheriting their children, siblings who don't speak to each other for decades over childhood hurts. This is not a new thing, it's not some new weakness or vulnerability developed by modern people. It's very old and probably just part of the human condition. Since people started forming societal groups for safety and comfort, the betrayal of social bonds has been among the hardest things for people to recover from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This person is not worth the energy you are putting into your anger.

And that anger is giving this person a prime spot, THE prime spot, in your mental real estate, OP. In essence this person is, to put it crudely, "winning" against you, even after the abuse is long over, by taking up so much of your emotional and mental time and energy.

For those reasons, this stranger is begging you to get back into therapy, or, if you're still in therapy, to tell your therapist more fully exactly what you told us here. Maybe change therapists if you have one but for some reason aren't being this frank with the therapist as you are anonymously here. We can advise all day, and you'll get posts asking you for more and more details here "so we can help you better" etc. (often these come from people who just get kicks out of all the gory details--don't feed those beasts). But you need to see a professional to evict this person from your mind. Your life is being impaired and that gives this person power over you. I won't say, "Just stop giving this person power over you" becuase it is so hard to do that on one's own. See a new therapist, or tell your current one your whole, raw, angry truth, or restart therapy if you've stopped it, but you need help to take back your life and thoughts. You deserve to have your true self back and that cannot happen with just venting to strangers online. Please, please get help.

You don't get it. My therapist knows I feel this way. Have you ever been through this? If not, you don't get it.

And yes, I'm aware that this person is winning, that they have won. That's the whole point. No matter what I do I can never get back what they took.

Also, I'm not sharing any details here, I'm not stupid.

I am not in the same boat but my therapy has only amplified my bitter feelings. I think we could both be helped by seeking healing in another outlet.

DP. You said upthread that you have learned that you must express feelings to be able to move past them but many people have the experience that expressing negative feelings increases them and is not the solution.

The way to let negative feelings go is to let them go, not to focus on them and give them more power through expression.

You are not responding to a post by the OP but I am tending to lean into what you are saying. The problem is too much baggage. It's like how hard it is to cut family off when you still have tons of ties that bind in other ways. Can you let go of bad feelings for an abusive teacher if you still see them in the hallway every school day? People often side against a victim because the victim is so upset, never mind they didn't ask for any of it in the first place. The guy that rocks the boat is annoying but the person who rocks the boat back is looked down on even more.

The issue is that when you have strong negative feelings and share them, and the response is "you need to let them go," if the person cannot let them go (which is common if you're talking about trauma), then instead what you are really saying is "bottle those feelings up and don't take about them anymore." Which is toxic AF.

There are very limited spaces in the world where you can say stuff like this. In therapy, maaaaaaybe with very close friends and family (but even that is dicy because most peopel are just not able to hold emotions like this and it will freak them out to see someone they love express this stuff, it's just really rare to have a support network that can handle this unless you are paying them), and then on an anonymous site like this. Maybe a support group IF you can find one, they are actually hard to find.

Which is why "you need to let it go" is just such useless advice. How? When you have been harmed like this, you can try to think about other things, you can exercise, meditate, whatever. At some point you are going to wind up thinking about what happened and you're going to feel how you feel.

Just where exactly is it that you folks think all these negative feelings go?

It is totally useless advice. Next comes the lecture about why do you see yourself as a victim? Well, because you were victimized. The only productive approach is to stop inviting people to take advantage of you. You were genuinely victimized. Victim has become a dirty shameful word and it’s all about not enforcing accountability for perpetrators.

+1, the comments about "you need to get out of this victim mentality" make me mad because is anyone telling the abuser, condescendingly, "you need to get out of this abuser mentality."

It's not a mentality. If someone harms you, you're a victim. I'm a believer in the power of language and embrace using the term "survivor" over victim and I totally agree we need to find ways to facilitate survivors feeling empowered to make changes and take control. But the truth is that if someone hurts you and gets away with it, you feel powerless because you have been stripped of power. Expecting someone in that situation to believe they actually are powerful when their abuser and the people who facilitated, ignored, or covered up the abuse have provided copious evidence to the contrary is not a realistic expectation. When people succeed at this, you should be wowed by them. When people fail at it, you should be understanding.

If you want to yell at someone, yell at abusers.

DP. These comments are not yelling at OP or PPs. It's a variation of the wisdom of Carolyn Hax (who, like her or not, is occasionally right). You can't change other people, you can only change yourself. And no one else can change you, not your therapist, not anyone else. Only you can change yourself. So if you want to, you will.

I think peopel who do this don't understand how trauma works. Whether they are "yelling" or not is debatable -- the truth is that is not kind to tell someone to do something that they are trying and failing to do as a form of advice. Like this is what it sounds like:

A: I was hurt very bad, I'm struggling, I want to feel better but don't
B: Do this, this and this and then you will feel better
A: I did all those things, I still don't feel better
B: Stop being a victim, you just have to change how you feel

It's just a weird brick wall of advice. It doesn't help. Maybe this works for other things, like if someone who is unhappy in their job and complains about it all the time, maybe telling them "the only person who can change this is you" will help because in that situation, they can in fact change it. But telling people with PTSD to just let go, stop being a victim, etc... it just doesn't make sense within the context of the problem. It's like telling some whose bored to go visit the moon because that would be an exciting thing to do. I mean, I guess, but that's obviously not a feasible solution to that problem.

This is what the phrase "trauma-informed" means when it comes to therapy or other forms of services designed to help people. A lot of the "common sense" advice on improving your life just doesn't make sense in the context of trauma, and can even be harmful.

Look, to an extent, we define our realities. If you believe everything you just wrote, that is how your life will play out. For others who choose to do whatever they can to move on and find a new identify for themselves, that is how their life will play out. No one is denying OP's feelings or suffering but only offering advice on how to mold a new identity for herself so that her life is not defined by this one event. If you look at human history, it always strikes me how much people in past centuries suffered. The women who lose child after child, the hardships, the wars, etc. But yet they persevered. All the focus on being hurt and being a victim is really quite a modern phenomenon and while useful in to some degree, can backfire and make us less resilient. Stop looking inward and focus on someone else.

OP is very mature for not wishing real harm to the perp but is angry at him "getting away." My advice would be to focus on you having done right, regardless of outcome or how others perceived the situation. You didn't do anything wrong, followed your conscience to confronted him. Can you take comfort in that? None of us are judged by the misfortunes that befall us, but by how we acted. And again, do whatever you need to distance yourself and start afresh. Move to a new location/neighborhood if possible, cut off all shared acquaintances, get a new job if job related.

I don't really agree with your point but I just wanted to highlight that the bolded is not true. For historical research projects, I've read a large volume of personal letters written by people in the early 19th century, and let me tell you -- those folks focused plenty on being hurt and "being a victim." People have ALWAYS struggled with these kinds of interpersonal hurts and harms, with power struggles and humiliation. We tend to put this rosy, dignified patina on portrayals of previous eras in our media, but this is not accurate. Lifelong grudges between neighbors, parents disinheriting their children, siblings who don't speak to each other for decades over childhood hurts. This is not a new thing, it's not some new weakness or vulnerability developed by modern people. It's very old and probably just part of the human condition. Since people started forming societal groups for safety and comfort, the betrayal of social bonds has been among the hardest things for people to recover from.

Me again. While from a fictional work, one of my favorite moments in the recent adaptation of Little Women was this exchange between Jo and and Marmee that is in the original book but never included in a film adaptation before:

“But you’re never angry,” Jo presses.

“I’m angry nearly every day of my life.”

“You are?”

“I’m not patient by nature. But with nearly 40 years of effort I’m learning not to let it get the better of me.”

Little Women was written in the 1860s and is about personal trials and tribulations of a family during a time of war and great upheaval. The idea that people living in "harder" times somehow didn't struggle with these things because they didn't have indoor plumbing or modern medicine is silly. This is life.

[Anonymous]

For me, at some point I just asked myself what the point of hanging on to the hurt and anger was. It made me miserable and it was ruining my life. Nothing was going to change on the perpetrators side. She was still going to get away with it. Some people who I thought were my friends were still going to choose her side. So why was I going to let my life be ruled by her and her actions? I deserved to be happy. I deserved not to have my life ruled by this trauma. I deserved better for myself. So I really did the work in therapy instead of passively going. It sucked and was hard a lot of the time. But I'm happy now. I have a great DH. I have a small but close group of friends. I actually trust people again. Trauma takes a big part of you away, but at some point you have to let it be part of who you are and your past, instead of letting it define who you are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have clearly been a victim of narcissistic abuse and your reaction makes sense. One thing I have learned is that we don’t always see the consequences because we aren’t in their inner orbit so we assume they are just living a hunky dory life. I’ve also learned that other people figure this stuff out eventually- it just takes time. I don’t think karma always happens but I do think justice does have its way of coming back around in certain cases (think R Kelly, Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein, Bernie Madoff etc etc). I bet you the person who harmed you has a lot of issues and strife you don’t know about. Not that this fixes things but I find it helpful not to think of this stuff in black and white.

+1

If it helps, OP - I guarantee not only do they have a LOT of strife in their life, but that karma is indeed real. Know that. If you think they are doing great, they are not. Just do what you can to distance yourself. Distance yourself from the narcissism, negativity and toxicity. People absolutely know the truth, they are just too chickensh&t to say it out loud. But they know. They absolutely know. I can think of more than one situation like this. Believe me when I say it will work out in your favor.

Narcissists don’t have a lot of strife. That’s what makes it so maddening. But that is how the abuse perpetrates. Narcissistics are basically able to trick people into abusing themselves. Rather than learning from them.

How powerful cane we be if we can stop wasting energy being angry about what they are doing wrong and instead channel our energy into being right?

Trust me, I get it’s not easy. That’s the spell that certain people naturally have and we want them to share. We feel ashamed that they won’t give it to us. But when we learn to own our shame and humiliation then we step into our power. Narcissists don’t ever truly do this, they are just clever magicians who hiding their true, insecure selves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of trauma is that it is soul breaking. It’s about learning to live in the aftermath and reality of that destruction not pretending you can think it away.

+1, succinctly put. Thank you.

We aren’t anything but our thoughts.

I bet OP knows exactly what she needs to do to release the anger, she just doesn’t want to yet. There’s a thought that’s still too painful to bear and so the anger is more comforting.

She’ll get there, but isn’t ready yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of trauma is that it is soul breaking. It’s about learning to live in the aftermath and reality of that destruction not pretending you can think it away.

+1, succinctly put. Thank you.

We aren’t anything but our thoughts.

I bet OP knows exactly what she needs to do to release the anger, she just doesn’t want to yet. There’s a thought that’s still too painful to bear and so the anger is more comforting.

She’ll get there, but isn’t ready yet.

This is deeply condescending.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is evil in this world. When I met my now husband, through some friends, a friend of a friend, who was dating someone else, told my future DH that I was a horrible, easy young woman!
I invited him to a birthday party through these friends, and she told him that I specifically said that HE is not invited. Like I would say, all are invited but he is NOT!
In fact, DH is the only man and always was the only one in my life, I was innocent completely.
I also encountered an abusive narc in the workplace and the way he lies and lies and yells and is a horrible person might seem farfetched to those who never experienced such behavior.

I have moved on from these experiences and now I am wary of people.

Lol okay Hester Gray. OP if this is the level of humiliation and trauma you've experience move on. No revenge needed.

[Anonymous]

I wish I'd seen this post sooner. OP, I can relate 100%. For so many years not a day went by when I didn't wake up thinking about what they did to me, and a day still doesn't go by when I don't think about it at all. I imagine all kinds of revenge, but won't do anything. I do hope they all burn in hell, though. The worst part is that I doubt they ever think of me at all. So no helpful advice or anything, but here's hoping your tormentor and mine all get their due somehow some way, hopefully involving fire and pitchforks.