I talked to my parents yesterday about the whole situation.
My stepdad said that as long as I remained saddened that the guy is out of my life, I’ll remain his victim.
He said it was time for me to get angry and remind myself of all the times he wronged me.
What good is anger?
I don’t remember who it was, but I once read a quote that said “holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die”
How is getting angry gonna help me move on? What good is it to carry ill feelings towards another person?
I don’t want revenge. I don’t want to hate anyone.
Or holding onto anger is like holding onto a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else, you are the one who gets burned… i think you right … anger does not help anyone
Sometimes you can’t forgive people, but the anger disappears or fades. That’s how I feel about my father. I don’t forgive him but I don’t really feel angry either.
For me, anger was a step in getting away from my abusive family member. First, I felt residual guilt and blamed myself, and kept debating giving him another chance. Then I moved into the anger stage and finally had the strength to feel good about my decision to stay away. Then I moved into just accepting that he is a deeply flawed person, and it will never be safe for me to be around him, but I can still hope he finds help. From afar.
Maybe this is what your dad means? The anger step isn’t necessary, by any means. But it did help me to allow myself to grieve over the injustices that were done to me, and for the pain it caused me. After a certain point though, I felt like staying angry kept me from healing. Because in a weird way, the pain I felt was the only evidence of the things he had done. I felt almost afraid that if I let go of the pain, I wouldn’t be able to prove he hurt me. That was when anger crossed into being damaging for me, and that is when I decided I had to let it go.
There’s several threads. But the gist of it is I’ve been best friends with a guy who slowly became more and more controlling and manipulating, especially after we moved in together.
I finally had enough when he pinned me against the wall in a semi chokehold twice in 2 days and emptied my bank accounts, so I’ve moved out and blocked him everywhere.
He was my best friend for so long and I literally wouldn’t be alive today if it wasn’t for him, so it’s gonna take some healing although I know the relationship was unhealthy
Oh sorry I didn’t suspect anything of the sort.
Glad you got out of it unscathed. Who knows what else he might have tried to do to you. Sounds like a manipulator.
Anger can come up if someone crosses a line with you and it upsets you. You are right, you can’t just hold onto it, you need to take action in some way and set a boundary so the situation doesn’t happen again.
If you hold onto it it will cause all sorts of problems, like outbursts to other people.
Also, sadness and anger are very close to each other.