I cannot stop feeling so deeply angry at someone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy. Even if you just did a few sessions, you could learn some techniques to help. It's not about forgiving this person, but just getting to a place where your feelings don't feel overwhelming or like they are controlling you. And, if that doesn't help maybe EDMR?

It sounds like this person is deserving of all the anger you feel and you are right to feel anger, but also your anger is diminishing your quality of life.

Yes. I have done all the therapies: talk therapy, CBT, DBT, EMDR, tapping, meditation, mindfulness training. I have put more effort into this than you understand. That's a big part of why I am so angry. I have had to dedicate an enormous amount of energy to therapy and healing to get over something that, quite honestly, this person should just be punished and publicly scorned for.

That's the waste. People telling to go outside and enjoy the nice weather with my kids? I do that ish all the time and this garbage, these feelings, follow me there. BECAUSE THIS PERSON BROKE ME. And there are no consequences. All of the consequences are mine.

The world is garbage, I'm sorry if this is news for you.

[Anonymous]

Write a letter
Burn it
Prehaps even do a ritual to release anger, you can google it.

[Anonymous]

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.

OP here. I wouldn't say therapy amplifies my bitter feelings. It does feel good to express my feelings and to have someone who will say to me "yes, this was unfair, yes this was wrong, yes you deserve better." I have gotten something out of therapy.

But this idea that you can be treated like this and then go to therapy and one day be healed... I just don't believe that any more. It follows you forever. There's all this research on the impact of abuse on your central nervous system, and I believe it. It just lives in you. I'll never be unmarked by this. I sometimes think if I could just go live in a monastery in silence and nature and meditate 12 hours a day I could find some kind of peace or acceptance. But I can't do that, I have live in this world where I have responsibilities and obligations. I can't even move away from the city where this all happened, I can't even move out of the house I was living in at the time. There is no escaping it, I will always have to carry this and it sucks.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Have you tried cognitive behavioral therapy. Even if you just did a few sessions, you could learn some techniques to help. It's not about forgiving this person, but just getting to a place where your feelings don't feel overwhelming or like they are controlling you. And, if that doesn't help maybe EDMR?

It sounds like this person is deserving of all the anger you feel and you are right to feel anger, but also your anger is diminishing your quality of life.

Yes. I have done all the therapies: talk therapy, CBT, DBT, EMDR, tapping, meditation, mindfulness training. I have put more effort into this than you understand. That's a big part of why I am so angry. I have had to dedicate an enormous amount of energy to therapy and healing to get over something that, quite honestly, this person should just be punished and publicly scorned for.

That's the waste. People telling to go outside and enjoy the nice weather with my kids? I do that ish all the time and this garbage, these feelings, follow me there. BECAUSE THIS PERSON BROKE ME. And there are no consequences. All of the consequences are mine.

The world is garbage, I'm sorry if this is news for you.

Oh, I did CBT after my spouse cheated on me, used mutual friends who all knew as cover, and then left me with a toddler. I get righteous anger. At a certain point I realized I've survived too much in my life to let this person ruin me and I need to make a choice to move on. And I did.

[Anonymous]

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 say this like it's fact but (1) it's just your opinion and as far as I know it's based on literally nothing, and (2) there's actually a lot of evidence to the contrary.

If you can't sit with these uncomfortable feelings then get out of the thread. In this thread I am expressing my "negative feelings" today.

[Anonymous]

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 say this like it's fact but (1) it's just your opinion and as far as I know it's based on literally nothing, and (2) there's actually a lot of evidence to the contrary.

If you can't sit with these uncomfortable feelings then get out of the thread. In this thread I am expressing my "negative feelings" today.

Okay.

[Anonymous]

I understand what’s it’s like to be made to feel worthless. Especially if that plays on your insecurities (as is the case with me), it stings and a lot of people just don’t get it. I am unable to afford therapy but there are two things that have helped me: 1) detect the pattern in the bullying and abuse that has targeted me, which was that I come across as excitable and I overshare too much and 2) I simply think about something else every time my mind goes to the people who have made me feel worthless—I will literally say to myself, we are not thinking about that right now, we will think about weekend plans, dinner, career goals, etc.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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 say this like it's fact but (1) it's just your opinion and as far as I know it's based on literally nothing, and (2) there's actually a lot of evidence to the contrary.

If you can't sit with these uncomfortable feelings then get out of the thread. In this thread I am expressing my "negative feelings" today.

It's good that you are using this as an outlet but it can be helpful to see these reactions as they reflect those of the people around you. How can you counter someone who tells you you're crazy for having these feelings in a way to shut them down. How can you free yourself from carrying that fallout as your burden?

[Anonymous]

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?

[Anonymous]

I absolutely understand, OP. I am in a similar situation though it is less personal. I struggle most days with it occupying a place in my mind I know it doesn't deserve.

I see clearly now that this person is very damaged but I am still triggered by the fact that so many others don't see it.

Additionally, I have done a few petty and vindictive things towards this person that have brought me some satisfaction.

[Anonymous]

I understand OP. I have had a similar experience and a similarly very difficult time moving past it. My question is how long ago did this happen? Because in my experience time does heal. While there are triggers to my literal PTSD regarding the situation, for the most part I go about my day no longer affected by the terrible terrible awful upsetting humiliating thing and the unjust community rejection I experienced as a result of it. But this took years. Sending you validation and solidarity.

[Anonymous]

YOu should tell on them!

I think thats the problem, you are keeping their secret - and why?

Write a letter, see a lawyer, sue them.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes when something is really triggering, it's because it is causing you to need to look at an aspect of yourself that you don't want to examine.

I feel bad that you feel so bad, but could it be that this other person brought forth something with a kernel of truth that you would rather avoid? I say this, because this is true for me. When I am maddest, it's often because I don't want to examine the whole picture.