There is an old fable that tells of two Asian monks walking down a dirt road and they came to a stream. At the stream there is an imperious woman of noble birth waiting impatiently for her carriage to be freed frob the muddy bank so that she can continue on her journey. She turns to the the monks and shouts at them to carry her across the stream. The younger monk freezes in uncertainty because their vows forbid them to touch a woman. The older monk approaches the woman and offers to carry her on his back. The entire trip across the stream she is shouting orders and complaining about his efforts. When they reach the other side she turns from him, ignoring him completely and turns her attention to continuing on her way. The older monk continues on his journey and the younger monk follows. They are silent for hours, the younger monk becomes more and more enraged at their treatment by the noble woman. Finally, he says to his companion, “Aren’t you angry at that woman because of her treatment of you when you carried her across the stream?” The older monk replies without breaking his stride, “I put her down hours ago.”

Honestly, therapy. I basically had the same reaction when my coworkers, who i thought were pretty alright, would cough in my general direction and say survival of the fittest because I was wearing a mask during peak covid. I had a lung condition that put me at high risk, and I told them that… And that lead them to be even more hostile to me, openly saying they hoped I’d get covid and die off quickly.

I struggled with the fact that people can turn on you so fast, and that people couldn’t do the minimum effort to prevent someone they know from dying. We used to be cool, pretty often we went out to eat and hung out outside of work hours, then in the span of a couple months they were practically verbally assaulting me every day. I talked to a therapist and it really helped. I barely remember what they told me since it was years ago now, but it got me through it and I rarely think about it now.

All the people who are saying “therapy” are spot on. It doesn’t mean something is wrong with you, or that you weren’t wronged, or even that you shouldn’t be angry. You’ve had some upsetting shit happen to you that you’re having trouble processing.

Just getting a neutral third party who you trust (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT) to seriously listen to you and help you figure out how to break out of cycles that are distressing is a huge advantage that is hard to replicate by yourself. If you don’t click with the first one (or two or three) that you talk to, dump them until you find someone you like.

Don’t put it off and let it fester. The more time your brain spends being angry the better it gets at it. That’s not necessarily you being thin-skinned, that’s your brain doing what it thinks it needs to do to stay safe. If you aren’t careful it’s very easy to spiral into being bitter and irritable about everything.

I don’t think you can ever stop getting angry. Or should.

I think what you can do is not letting anger have power over you. The thought of these incidents can come up, you can recognize it makes you angry, but you don’t have to do anything with that anger. There’s another thought that will pop into your head in 30 seconds, that will trigger some other reaction, and so on and so forth.

This is an insight of meditation practice.

1. Acknowledging that the people who hurt you are living in your head and you’re ready to move on. A lot of folks are unable to even get this far.

2. Therapy.

3. Truly internalize the realization that the act of imagining scenarios where you get to hurt the people who hurt you is like drinking poison with the expectation that someone other than yourself will be made ill.

4. living a good life.

This journey is difficult and requires a lot of self-reflection and maturity. Best of luck to you.

I find that saying things out loud, even to just myself, can really help. I read something that tried to say you use a different part of your brain when you hear yourself vs only think inside your own head, and that it makes a difference. I don’t know if that is true, or backed by any evidence, but it works for me.

My mom is stubborn and doesn’t forgive people who have wronged her, ever.

I just had a first-hand viewing of how difficult it made her life. She’s more lonely than she should be, because she doesn’t forgive or forget. It’s also exhausting, being that angry all the time.

Once it clicked, I realized how exhausted all that anger I was also holding onto made me as well. I just didn’t want to feel exhausted anymore.

Depends on the transgression.

Most of the time I recognize what miserable pieces of shit they are and will sometimes point that out to them while laughing in their face. Other times I’ll laugh in their face and move on because I know we both know how much they suck. I do keep a shit list for the worst of them, though. The shit list is actionable and I do get very creative with it. But to be honest, I’m middle aged and there’s barely two people on that list. It’s not a priority.

Overall, my favorite thing to do is let them know they’re not hiding how terrible of a person they are. Best example was some dude and his wife came over to scream at me and I looked at his wife and said, “I’m so sorry you’re stuck with this guy. You clearly can do way better.” That shut him down so fast all he could do was walk away flustered. Get that ball rolling in dissolving that marriage. *I also had a boss blame me for something I didn’t do once and fire me. I dumped all his fuck ups on the HR exit interview and low and behold - he got canned a week later. I guess my answer is I get creative. Shrug.

Therapy. I bottle it up all week then let it loose and cry and shout for one hour on Thursday, and my therapist helps me think about it more deeply and see things more clearly. Idk how folks are out here raw dogging their mental health without a therapist.

rent free

It’s pedantic, but I dislike this phrase a lot. It applies shame of all things to whatever motives someone might have to something. It’s one of those “it sounds good to people who aren’t going through those things, let’s use it on this person who is thinking about the time her kids were taken from her” kinds of things. I for one am analytical about all of my feelings, I don’t feel sentiments just for their own sake. Or I did, back before I had anhedonia (which might explain how I personally am doing with this issue, though ironically, some of the same people who used to say we should be more passive now say I don’t feel as much as I should). I’m not some willy-nilly revenge seeker, but I don’t know how someone could say I don’t have any reason to proceed with caution around those who I might envision as still being a potential neglector to me. Though I can attest many people like us find solace in making friends with the friends of the people who wronged said people, as it’s said to create a sanction-like effect.

The quote. “Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”

It’s like you’re doubling down on what happened. Either they didn’t know/care it hurt at the time or wanted to hurt you but now you’re using your energy to extend the hurt.

When you start getting angry about it acknowledge it but then do something positive for yourself.

From my experience people like the ones you described are horrible unhappy people. Instead of trying to make the world a better place they want to make everyone else as miserable as they are. The best thing you can do is not let them drag you down. When I have a memory of someone being horrible to me, I think back to how miserable of a person they are and immediately feel better about my own life.

There is no one way that works for everyone.

You have to release the emotion.

Try taking a deep breath exhale the emotion. Try with or without a mantra such as “it doesn’t matter” or “this doesn’t define me”

Try the above when you are already in a relaxed mental state where your allow your breathe to return you to the relaxed mental state.

This is basically meditative / mindfulness.

Allow yourself to feel the emotion but while controlling when you allow the feeling to enter you mind which also requires allowing yourself to releasing it.

When you find something that works through practice, even if it helps in the slightest of way, repeat the process whenever the intrusive thought occurs.

I suggest deep breathes because they are easy to sneak into any situation. But other options might include making a fist and releasing it, basically anything where you can control the tension.

Mine is my family. Not sure I will ever really be able to let go. It’s pretty hard to let go of how badly those who were supposed to care for and protect you failed because they were more concerned about how other Christian Fascists viewed them socially than they were about their actual fucking kids.

And like all Boomers, they refuse to take responsibility for anything. Saying to a six year old “you are just a lazy bastard just like your father” is something they conveniently don’t remember happening. Probably because for me it was a formative moment in my childhood and for them it was just another fucking Tuesday of yelling at their kids.