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By learning the hard way that holding onto grudges just makes me an angry person and that life is far more enjoyable if I just let that shit go. You’re the only one bearing the toxic weight of that resentment, it doesn’t affect them at all, so who are you holding onto it for? It only makes your life worse.
Is therapy an option? Because dealing with resentment is a big chunk of their work.
If not, self-improvement books and podcasts. Brene Brown, Happiness Lab.
Learn about healthy boundaries. Boundaries are for you, not other people. That is, you can’t say “you can’t do that to me” because you only control yourself, not other people. So instead you can say “if you do that, I will do _____” and then do it. That’s putting you in control. Resentment can stem from lack of healthy boundaries.
Learn about mindfulness and practice it. Rumination on the past gets you stuck. Mindfulness has the benefits of helping you recognize your thoughts, giving you some distance from them, and anchoring yourself in the present. Mindfulness builds these muscles.
I don’t know your situation or what you resent so these are pretty scattershot recommendations. A trained therapist can help you identify the strategies that work for you and your situation. If you need help finding one, the directory on psychologytoday.com is great in the US.
Why do you feel resentment, towards whom?
Family, several people on the internet who justify the years of abuse I suffered, past abusers and bullies, and honestly everyone in the world because they all justify my abuse and believe I deserved it. Everyone sympathizes with my abusers and also gaslight me into believing they’re on my side. Okay, I deserved it. I also don’t deserve to be alive as everyone wants me dead but then they gaslight me into believing my life matters and I’m not a burdensome waste of organs, flesh, blood, and resources.
To what extent are you still involved with those you resent?
Honestly, it might be best to be away for a while and figure out if you even want them in your life and if so, what needs to change to help ensure there’s not gas being poured on the resentment and ongoing harm occurring.
You gotta figure out what’s best for you and to do that, you sort of need to find the rules necessary to help you stop similer behaviors and people in the future from recreating those harms and to level up the way you signal to others for how you are to be treated.
Next time you feel a reaction or unexplained intense feeling, try to figure out when it arose and what it was in response to. Try to expressit as I need x but got y and think about what can be requested or enforced to ensure it is corrected, althonyou will likely want a therapist or at least ask dispassionate audience for key issues and try to focus on just the facts so you can learn to make sense of these situations better
Its gonna be a little temporary pain and awkwardness as you find your bearings but it will improve basically every area of your life and help you more gracefully deal with relational challenges, at the end of the day tho, you have to be prepared to communicate what you need and expect and understand that some relationships that are fundamentally antithetical to that will not and shouldn’t survive you pursuing these things.
Screaming alone in a house all day while living in total isolation.
Change.
