you can tell when an Irishman has Alzheimers. they only remember the grudges

[the_siobhan]

I'm getting really tired of carrying all this crap around all the time, but I have no idea how to put it down.

People always say, "Just let it go," but they never answer the question when I ask them how. They might as well be saying "Just flap your arms and fly".

I've always wondered why therapy is more expensive than guns.

Comments

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

with ya, babe.

so far i have found that heavy drinking, while not helping me put down the grudges, is at least distracting. and after a few years the edges wear off of it, so i just think "wow, you're a jerk" rather than "wow, you're a jerk and i'd like to hit you".

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in exploring what "how" might mean for you, if you want to try.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Sure. Do you have my email?

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

I've found what works for me is good long mental arguments where I remind myself that the people who I'm mad at don't care really care, they're going on living their own lives and being happy so the only person I'm hurting is myself and what kind of a dumbass raises their own blood pressure, ruins their own day and gives themselves unnecessary wrinkles being angry for nothing when it will never make the person I'm angry with remotely remorseful. I repeat ad nauseum until it sinks it. This is usually aided by alcohol and singing. But at the end of the day grudges are stupid and it's your choice whether to carry them or not. It really is as simple as to choose to let it go, choose to not let it bother you anymore, choose to stop giving it any more power over your life.

Rumour has it, at any rate...

[sarah-mum.livejournal.com]

I have no useful method, but the headline rings painfully true for the ex's pa.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

*heh* My mother assures me that my grudges are the last things I'll forget. I dunno; I'm a bit of a champion grudge-holder, or I used to be; these days I think I've learned to recognise the difference between burning up with hatred for someone because they've wronged me, and just not having them in my life because they've wronged me (and by "wronged me" obviously I mean "pissed me off" rather than anything poetic or whatever).

I think letting it go is partly about realising that it's onyl a big deal in my head; even if I did happen to bump into the guy that mistreated me, and I did happen to be with a fabulous new bloke, it actually wouldn't matter, because the shit-head didn't do what he did in order to hurt me because he's malicious, he did it because he's crap; he doesn't actually care whether I'm happy or not. So I may as well be happy for _my_ sake, and not to prove a point to him.

But obviously _saying_ that, and understanding it intellectually is not the same as the gut-level eiphany needed to _actually_ let it go. I've had those epiphanies, but I can't tell you how to get there.

For me, I just banish all thought of the person in question, as far as possible; I don't stalk their journal or ask for gossip about them, I don't imagine sweet revenge or reconciliation or getting closure of any sort from them (close doesn't come from other people, however much I'd like it to); if I find my mind wandering to them, I shut down that train of thought in favour of planning dinner, or spending a theoretical lottery win, or anything other than thinking about them. Difficult at first, but after a while it gets easier, and it's preferable to eating myself alive by dwelling on them.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I might as well make the choice to be invisible.

Seriously I'm not faulting you for your answer because it's the one I get every single time - and it seems to be one that makes sense to everybody else so it's obviously me who's not getting it. But nobody can ever tell me how to actually do it; what muscle to flex, what switch to pull, what magical mantra will work when no other ones have.

Maybe it's just a part of my brain that's wired differently. Like being colour-blind or something.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

No cool, I get that. But the thing is your brain is not some run away puppy that is beyond your control. It's your brain, they're your thoughts. People seem to live under this misapprehension that stuff like this is beyond their control when I swear to you it's not. It takes some time and retraining of your brain. It first takes owning that you control your attitude, you control your thoughts, etc. If you accept that then it becomes an argument you literally cannot lose with yourself.

Fuck that fucking douche who fucking fucked me!
Erm, where's the douche now? Do they care they fucked you?
No.
So how's that working out for you?
Fuck you too brain.
Do I care that you're pissed?
No.
So how's that working out for you?
FUCK!!
How's your blood pressure?
Fuck off!
What exactly are you accomplishing right now besides ruining your own mood and day?
I can't help it. They fucked me. I deserve to hate them forever.
Okay, sure. Except, once again, do they care that you're mad?
No.
Right, so what good is it doing you? Want to have a stroke? How's heart disease sound right now?
But, but, but..
But what? You want to be that stupid douchebag who can't move on? How much of your life and your power are you going to give to the people who hurt you?

Etc, etc. These are actual conversations I have with myself to talk myself down from the killing edge when people seriously piss me off and I cannot let it go. I keep having these same mental conversations with myself until it finally sinks in. If it hasn't sunk in for you yet maybe you just haven't spent enough time convincing yourself why you should let it go, instead of spending too much mental resources on all the reasons why the grudge is legit? I don't know, I haven't talked about it with you in person and it's much easier than to keep typing here forever. But I used to be the angriest grudge carrier that ever grudged, and I finally got tired enough to stop. I'll talk with you as long as you want about all the ways I tried. But it always comes back to you really being tired enough to give it up.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

words are totally failing me here, but if this were something you were interested in doing more than once, i'd be interested.

[spitecandy.livejournal.com]

I think that goes for Italian women too.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

What do you do when both parts of your brain agree but the emotions still don't stop?

[spitecandy.livejournal.com]

I think I get maddest at people that tell me WHAT I should let go of. Some stuff Im just not done with. Other stuff, I do wish I could let go of.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

It's not like I dwell on stuff intentionally - and I am pretty good at putting aside stuff for much longer periods of time if I can cut off contact with the individual.

I think what triggered this is that I saw some of my family yesterday. It's a lot harder to just solve the problem by cutting all ties when we're talking about relatives - especially since they're different people now anyway and divorcing over soemthing that happened 30 years ago just wouldn't be fair.

But no matter how much times goes by I just can't seem to dislodge the furious.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

I keep going. I mentally keep that mantra going all night if I have to of all the reasons why anger hurts no one but me. I keep going while I"m scrubbing the bathroom floors on my hands and knees at 2 o'clock in the morning just to exhaust myself enough to sleep so I don't have to keep going for a while longer. I keep going until the emotions run their course and let the brain take over again. I stay committed to not letting the anger win. I sing angry chick music. I watch funny movies to distract myself for a while. I give myself permission to stop thinking about it altogether for a while but only if the second the thought pops back into my brain I'm willing to pick up the fight to convince myself it's not worth it. I keep going UNTIL. There is no giving up or no quitting cuz it's my life and I don't want to live it angry. Eventually it has always worked for me. Depending on the hurt and depending on the person it can take longer sometimes than others. And it's not so much that I think it always goes away entirely...more that those periods of giving myself permission not to think about it anymore get longer and longer. And every time I feel angry about something I start the same mental fight with myself to stop. There are some I'm still working towards but for the most part I don't let my brain dwell on them when I could be thinking about my family or friends or somethign better and more productive. Does that make any sense or is that just totally ghey?

[grimjim.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this is relevant.
http://www.healthleader.uthouston.edu/archive/Mind_Body_Soul/2005/soulcages-0527.html

[eveofdstruction.livejournal.com]

I have pretty specific tools I use that work for me. They aren't easy, and I have to work at it, but they do work for me. LJ feels a little too public for me to feel comfy talking about it, but I would happily share them with you if you wanted.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Ah, OK, that's harder.
Well, one thing that is sometimes somewhat effective for me is trying to understand why they did what they did; getting inside their head can help me to feel less angry at them. F'r example, many many years ago, when I was first at University, my dad and I used to have massive rows where (from my point of view at least) he was really really horrible to me; controlling and critical and all that jazz. Hurt like hell at the time, and it took a long time to let go of it. Eventually I figured out that the reason for it was that I was his little girl, and he was really frightened of me growing up, and so by trying to control what I wore, by invading my personal space, and so on, he was infantilising me, because if he could still treat me like a child, then I would still _be_ a child, and then I wouldn't be grown up and no longer his little girl, and he wouldn't be old.

Getting my head round that made it much easier for me to forgive him for being an arsehole to me, and to figure out ways for us to get along.

It's not always easy, mind you; the last person who really pissed me off did so by behaving in a way which seemed to be designed purely and simply for maximum arseholery; no benefit accrued to him, but he also wasn't actually deliberately trying to do damage. I just do not, can not, understand what motivated him, which makes it harder to reach that *click* moment of epiphany.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

Repress until the shooting spree?
It's what I do.
Though I'm not what you would call "healthy."

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

It sounds like what Lixx is advocating is something similar to CBT, which if memory serves, you've looked into. What happened with that?

[marchenland.livejournal.com]

I try to come up with a plausible reason why they acted in some way that hurt me. I pretend to get into their shoes, to see things from a position in which *I* am wrong, or at least, they are right. Occasionally, it works.

Another thing is, I'll look for a case where I did something similar, and examine my motives and feelings about it: Was I acting in good faith? Or was it self-defense? Did I just make a mistake? Did I feel bad? Reminding myself that I'm not perfect can sometimes help me forgive others.

My capacity for forgiveness, if it is requested or worked for, is about the same as my tendency to hold grudges. I feel like those should be on par. If you forgive easily, but never hold a grudge, you're gonna get walked all over. If you hold grudges easily but never forgive, you're going to have a lonely, sad life. In theory, at least.

[redbird]

Given that metaphor: is there enough good to be worth staying married to them? Not just whether it's fair to divorce over something 30 years ago, but what do you gain by not divorcing them? That is, if you could somehow put those incidents out of your mind, would the relationship and personalities that remained be enough to make you want to be with them?

I realize that doesn't answer the original question, but it might be useful to think about.

[girfan.livejournal.com]

Like sushidog, I can hold a grudge.
Luckily, there are only 2 people who have been so crap in the past few years it's been real hard to put them out of my mind.

Unfortunately, we have some friends in common, so they pop up in places that sometimes are unexpected and unwanted (online as well as physically). Plus, they act like they no longer have anything against me in public places (sort of what sushidog says she does), but stuff is said that proves this a fallicy and it's obvious others have listened to their crap and are now "on their side" or whatever you want to call it.

[missjanette.livejournal.com]

sure does.

Italian women are champs at grudgeholding. I've got grudges brewing that I've forgotten what started them.

[firecat]

I agree with redbird.

Maybe in the end letting it go is more an act of biology than an act of will. I think part of the reason I let go of grudges eventually is that I stop remembering what I was mad about in the first place.

[spikella.livejournal.com]

i dunno... then I think maybe those grudges serve purpose for the moments they crawl out and get mad again.

especially when it comes to familial complexes

that's my 2¢, for what its worth

Offering empathy, not Advice

[dali-muse.livejournal.com]

There's many reasons why I never mention my father and brother. When I visit my parents, I always say: "I'm going to visit my Mom". My parents are still married, 43 years, goddess bless them both.

With my Dad, it was his actions, or lack of action, that caused the rift between us. With my brother, it was how he was/is as a person that caused the split.

I have "gotten over"/forgiven my father. I hate my brother, can't stand him, can't be in the same room with him without wanting to ckoke him to death. Our younger sister wanted us to play nice and make up and I told her that as far as I was concerned, he didn't exist. I imagine that I will hate him until my death bed. And I'm fine with that. There is a reason why I don't live in Texas and not just because it's Texas. I don't have to deal with him when I go see my Mom, because she's in Corpus Christi, and my brother's family lives near Houston. (3 hours away)

All this stuff happened over 20 years ago. Luckily, I only have contact with the side of the family that I care about, the rest I don't deal with.

[mercy-sands.livejournal.com]

Throw paint at shit. Put on wall. Four word sentences. Marked too many essays. Seems to work.

[excess-and-oohs.livejournal.com]

acid. really. :)

i fixed a lot of stuff and came to terms with a lot using it. would only work if ya know how to werk it, to use that self help language to make this sound like sound medical advice.

[kest]

Maybe the problem is you're trying to fight the furious, when really you need to embrace the furious? If you let it wash through you like a cleansing fire, sometimes it burns itself out. Family is really hard though, because yeah, you're not gonna get rid of it easily - a lot of what you're reacting to might be not anger *at* them exactly, but anger over what might have been? There's nothing there that can be *dealt* with, exactly, because you can't change things now, so whatcha gonna do, it's just fucked (see icon). My favorite mantra for dealing with certain parts of my family is, 'I'm really well-adjusted, all things considered.'

[liz-lowlife.livejournal.com]

I want to be here for you should the need arise. I am sure I would be rubbish in that capacity, but the offer is there. You can ask me questions about all of the above. XXX

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

Cock and Ball Torture?!!









It's totally not normal that that's where my brain took that right?

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

I always think that too.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I would be absolutely fine with that. It would probably help me figure it out myself.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Nothing is ghey if it works for you.

I have to admit I've never tried the scrubbing the bathroom floor at 2 AM technique. If nothing else I'd have cleaner floors. (And the distraction of being mad about being the only one who ever seems to clean the bathroom.)

Mostly so far I've just been trying to not think about it - which kind of works but then a week later my chiropractor wants to know why I'm wearing my shoulders around my ears.

[elixxir.livejournal.com]

For me I've found you have to work through it before you can stop thinking about it. Once you've exhausted the emotion, at least temporarily, and your brain is in control again it's easy, but you have to get there. Physical activity is great for me for that. Aside from scrubbing the bathroom floors in the middle of the night I've done walking/hiking/running meditation, punching bags, I've even chopped wood which was exceptionally satisfying for some reason....

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

whoops; i meant that to be directed at wild_irises, not at you, and i'm not sure i was clear about that. because if i knew how to "just get over it", i'd be out there doing it, trust me.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

[ETA] Long flow of consciousness provoked by your question. Enter at your own risk.

Hrm. Maybe that's where the disconnect is happening. I did find CBT beneficial in dealing with depression because it helped me identify some of the internal dialogues that were contributing to the problem.

I perceive a couple of differences between the depression problem and the anger problem. One is that the internal monologue I was getting during my depression was self-defeating bullshit and it was pretty easy for me to identify it as self-defeating bullshit and replace it with something more positive. Whereas with the anger stuff, people really did do bad things to me, sometimes intentionally so the dialogue doesn't change. I'm already at, "Yeah they were a dick, they can't change it now even if they want to, now what?"

The other factor - and I think the more major one - is that the CBT exercises during the depression were a form of intellectual exercise. They changed what I was thinking. The anger I'm trying to figure out what to do with now is pure emotion, I can think however I want but the feeling won't go away.

That seems to be the crux of my difficulty with the "how" - other people seem to be capable of changing their emotions at will and I have never had the experience of having any power to change my emotions at all, ever. I've always been fascinated - and a little spooked - by people who can just stop being mad because the argument is over. I get emotional hangovers that last for days. Gods forbid I have one of those horrible "everybody I care about dies" dreams.

I think as a result of that I'm probably better than the average person at being able to isolate my emotions intellectually - I'm usually pretty good at deciding how much weight to give an emotional reaction when making a decision about something for example. But that doesn't make the emotion go away.

Most of the techniques people advise me to use to deal with emotions seem to translate into "just convince yourself you can't feel them any more." Which kind of works but then I end up getting ulcers and stuff.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

other people seem to be capable of changing their emotions at will
See, I wonder if they're just really good at hiding it. I do that a lot. A LOT.
What I read from your post and your responses, is not that there is anything particularly wrong with your anger (and yes, it's justified, because yes, those people really did do those things to you), but that you want to be like other people somehow. That you're looking at the world like other people aren't dealing with this stuff, when they probably are. Perhaps it's time to give yourself a break already?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

I don't want to walk away from the current relationships, if that's what you're asking. They are very different people now than they were when they were in their 20's.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Maybe I need to paint it on a wall, then take a sledgehammer to it.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it's time to give yourself a break already?

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Obviously I need that punching bag I'm always on about.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

Ah, my apologies. I mistook.

[panic-girl.livejournal.com]

:P

Also, and this is total armchairshrink stuff, if you're focusing on the anger itself (why you have it, how long you've had it, when it pops up, etc) you don't have to focus on the actual reasons behind the anger. Because those would actually make you angrier! Weird feedback loop there.

[(Anonymous)]

I have the same problem. I'll end up feeling the sting of being fucked over for days after. When people tell me to let it go, I ask "how?" They say "I dunno, you just let it go."

"Yah, but how? What is the process required to let it go?"

"You just stop thinking about it."

"How do you do that?"

And then the person, or people end up staring at me like I'm from another dimension. So I'm not sure if they can actually hide it better, I really think some people function differently. I can think positive thoughts all I want, and meditate, but it only takes me so far. The next day it will come back. I find in order for me to deal with a debilitating emotional problem is to compliment the meditation and positive thoughts with some sort of corresponding creative action. For example, in the past few years I've developed into an access worrier. I worry about the most stupid shit. Logically I know there is no point to it, and it is hurting my health. So I made a worry doll to do the worrying for me. This was a month ago, and I'm still feeling alright. Also, when it comes to past aggressions that are too far into the past to do anything about, forgiveness takes a load off.

Jenn

[(Anonymous)]

Makes sense. That's what hallucinogenic drugs have been traditionally used for in indigenous cultures. Pot can make or break me in a horribly stressful time. If I have a strong will to resolve the problem, I can work it with drugs, otherwise I can bring myself to more anxiety and paranoia...

Not that pot is really that hallucinogenic, it's just a preference.

Jenn

[nadyalec.livejournal.com]

yeah. this is really fucking hard. i'm trying to figure it out. cause carrying around rage is fucking up my body.

trying to overcome my squicks and check out meditation and cognitive therapy and massage. :/ (all 3 make my eyes itch.) trying to work with the techniques in _feeling good_ and these meditation techniques from thicht nacht hahn. they seem to help some, when i do them.

but i don't want to do them. the inertial hump is huge; my instinct is to sit and brood instead.

[the_axel]

I know I'm really good at making emotions go away.

To the extent that I don't understand the_siobhan's problem at all. In this regard she might as well be from a different planet to me.

As to why the_siobhan would like to get rid of some of that anger, my understanding is that it isn't fun to have, and if it went away she would have more space for fun stuff.