Bitterness

[raven123]

I am pretty sure I am bitter about all the abuse life has handed me. As much as I've tried not to be bitter, it doesn't leave. I'm also angry as can be down deep. I know I am Bipolar and have PTSD (from sexual abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse). So, I was looking it up and found this:

Post Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. Dr. Michael Linden, a German psychiatrist who labeled the behavior. "It's one step more complex than anger. They're angry plus helpless."
[DLMURL]http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/200905/bitterness-the-next-mental-disorder[/DLMURL]

Why am I bitter? Because, honestly, I don't know what the f*ck to do to fix me. And, that makes me angry because I am helpless against it. It makes sense. I'm also jealous of others. Not bad jealousy, but jealous nobody loved me like that as a kid (or an adult). Instead I was hated as a kid. Why am I so worthless that I was hated and why now so worthless I can't find help?

Honestly, I've given up on a normal life. I've suffered so much damage and can't find help for all of it I just don't see a way out. I'm sure there is counseling and stuff to help but I have no access to it. The helpless part.

Do I want some people to pay for what was done to me? YOUR DAMN RIGHT I DO! I have paid and paid and paid. About time my abusers paid.

 

[Philippa]

Bitterness is natural. I find if we allow ourselves to feel every emotion, even the difficult ones, there is a lesson that emotion has for us to learn. You just have to want to learn from it...and ask it what it has to teach you.

Accepting where you are at, and accepting that you are bitter is a positive step towards moving past it. While we fight against any emotion, it will continue to stick to us. Accept it and it will pass.

The urge for revenge is also natural and human.

 

[saffy]

Hi Raven

Bitterness and resentment can be a very harsh feeling to carry around. Sometimes when we feel bitter we need closure and sometimes we need understanding and sometimes we need to forgive. Not because they deserve to be forgiven but you do.

It is easy to feel bitter about how you were treated and bitter towards those who did.

It is very hard to heal yourself when you are carrying such angry thoughts. These are what you are a mainly focusing on.

Are you ever going to get to the point where you can punish your abusers the way you wish? I would say never.

Are you ever going to get them to say sorry? I doubt it they do not have the humanity or the integrity.

Can you say to them that after everything they tried to do to break you you are still the person with humanity, integrity, good virtues, loving, caring, considerate, brave and strong? yes you can.

Knowing that you are bitter identifies an negative emotion, but living a negative emotion is not knowing it is self abuse. You are effectively carrying on with how they want you to think about yourself.

If you look past the bitterness and look deeper at who you really are you will see they are wrong and have been wrong all along.

Philippa has made some very good points about acceptance.

Best wishes
Saffy :)

 

[Hashi]

The article you've linked to views the idea of Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder with healthy cynicism and I have to say, so do I. I don't see how the anger or the bitterness is pathological. I have a lot of sympathy for how destructive those feelings are and how hard it is to move away from them, but they are reactions that we have some choice and control over.

I think it's misleading and unhelpful to define bitterness as "angry plus helpless". I think it should at least be "angry plus viewing ourselves as helpless". We were helpless during trauma, but we're not helpless over our responses to it now. We''re not helpless over anger, bitterness or other emotions. The things that help me with those the most are Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) skills, and learning mindfulness (which is also one of the DBT skills, but covered extensively in other sources too). I do both from books from Amazon. You don't have to be in therapy to learn them enough for them to help. These approaches validate the feelings without getting stuck there.

I think mindfulness in particular is like being given a key to get out of the prison of bitterness. I missed out on a safe or decent childhood, but bitterness is only going to perpetuate the effects of that. I'm an adult now, and I want to build something better for myself. If I let my mind stay forever on the abuse done to me and what I lacked, I can't do that.

I think bitterness comes from a sense of injustice. I think the definition should really be "angry and unwilling to let go of the sense of injustice". For me, the most difficult thing has been getting beyond my belief that I was "right" to be bitter. My tendency is to see being bitter as justified. In a way that viewpoint is correct, but only according to what I can understand of the world, the way the universe works and my limiting ideas about justice. I have to accept that what I can understand is very limited. I'm judging the situation without enough knowledge. To take an inadequate example, if someone running down the street pushes me rudely out of their way, I'll probably feel angry and resentful. If I realise that they were trying to get to their child before the child stepped out in front of a car, then I'll probably feel differently.

I can't understand how the universe works. My own limited view of it isn't even consistent. If it was, my comparisons of my situation to other people's would have to go both ways. I'd be spending all day in awareness that, unlike many other people, every time I turn on the tap I have clean drinking water, that I have enough clothes and heating to keep me warm, that I have enough food, that I don't live in a war zone and so on and so on. Unfortunately, I don't spend all day in awareness of that, although mindfulness helps me get a better perspective on it.

It would serve me better to stop measuring my experiences/situation against what I see as how things should have been, and focus on healing instead.

I suppose if it's decided to see bitterness as pathological, it won't be long before the pharmaceutical companies are producing anti-bitterness medication. Does that even sound like it makes sense?

 

[Philippa]

Thankyou Hashi...your words helped me a lot. Bitterness can be experienced, but if we allow ourselves to dwell on the reasons for our bitterness then it becomes harder to move forward. I think it's important to dwell on what happened for a certain amount of time while we process our stuff and acknowledge and validate everything that happened, but once that has been done there is no need to continue carrying it.

I think sometimes it becomes a form of self-punishment when we continue to carry difficult emotions around with us, like bitterness, resentment, pain (which can be addictive). I know I have gotten caught up in being stuck and addicted to my pain, and as horrible as it was and unbearable at times, a part of me strangely did not want to give it up at the same time?

 

[Tanishq]

Sometimes I do get bitter with myself. Not sure, why. But yes, this is something I can relate with you raven.

It also comes from the time I was being bullied by some friends and other people.

 

[raven123]

I have two Dialectical Behaviour Therapy books and really don't get it. But, I did learn that an emotion is not bad. None are bad unless they dominate. I'm not pissed over what happens so much as pissed over the cost of what happened to me and I really don't know a way out. I intellectualize everything so being human like most may not be in the cards. I don't know. I do hate life and have a like-hate relationship with emotions.

 

[safenow]

Do I want some people to pay for what was done to me? YOUR DAMN RIGHT I DO! I have paid and paid and paid. About time my abusers paid.

Oh girl. I can so relate to those emotions. I wanted to scream them for years. It just wasn't fair what happened. How could anyone want me dead so bad, when I was just a baby? How could any human do to a child what was done to me? How dare that man do to me what he did when I was just a small child? Why did they allow my father to get away with what he did to my sister and what he allowed to happen to me? Why wasn't my uncle and aunt punished for what they did to so many children? Why did the courts only give those creeps 15 years, when I still suffer? Why wasn't my ex put in prison and given the gas chamber for killing so many people and molesting his own children?

Yup. I do understand. Here is what gave me relief. I am a Christian, and I read what Jesus Christ said about those who abuse children. "But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." (Matthew 18:6)

"These are they who suffer the wrath of God. . . These are they who suffer the vengeance of eternal fire. These are they who are cast down to hell and suffer the wrath of Almighty God, until the fullness of times. . . For they shall be judged according to their works, and even man shall receive according to his own works. . . " (D&C 76)

Well, as you can see, I have no doubt they will pay for what they have done. So I let it go to Him. And believe me, all eternity is a long, long, time.

So then what? I decided to find a way to be happy. I have read books, and tried various things. Each time I get knocked down, I get back up. True, there are times it takes a while to get back up, but I always do. I have started over again more times than you can shake a stick at. But the main thing is, I do get back up and try again.

Check out this book, and see if it helps. It is written in plain English. Very simple to understand. "Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal" by Belleruth Naparstek.

Hashi referred me to that book. I am really glad she did. I found it gives hope where few books do. She gives simple things to try that work.

Do I still get angry over what happened to me? You bet. Do I dwell on it? No way. I sure would not want to be with those who never paid for what they did on this earth.

Life can become what you make of it. So, find out what you want in life, then make it happen. You can do that.

 

[Hashi]

I have two Dialectical Behaviour Therapy books and really don't get it.

Maybe you could ask about it on the forum, if you wanted to. In the Therapy section there's already a thread about DBT generally, and one about one of the workbooks in particular, but of course you could always start a new one if it was about a different aspect.

I think DBT skills, in their DBT form or in their original form (since DBT brings in other existing skills like mindfulness), are key to getting past the bitterness and obstacles to recovery. I've found it very hard to shift from my previous mindset to something different, but my previous mindset was what was causing me so much misery. It wasn't the effects of what happened that was causing me to hate life, it was the effects of what happened in combination with how I was persistently viewing it.

raven, I'm sorry but I just don't buy that you aren't like other people. Many people intellectualise everything and have to get past that. Many people have had severe emotional disruption/deprivation from an early age. I didn't even really know what an emotion was until three years ago. It doesn't prevent us from healing, it's one of the things that needs to be worked on and healed.

You are human like everyone else. I think stopping yourself from thinking you're not would be the first step... cue the DBT (or other) skills. :)

 

[raven123]

I'm not sure what to do. :(

 

[raven123]

Hashi & Safenow,

I just have come to understand that until I find a therapist, who knows what they are doing in my case, and I can afford one there isn't much hope I'll get past this stuff. The DBT thing, from the self-help workbooks I have, just ask me to confront too much bad stuff without a guide through it. I don't know what to feel or really how to. Or, I feel way to much and can't figure out how to shut it off. Probably the later since I learned how to just numb or face going insane. My first serious contemplation of suicide (and/or wish I was dead) was 8 years old I recently uncovered. I know, somehow, there was a lot more of those (one at age 6--memory flash) unless I numbed. I do know I was lonely the whole time.

Hashi, those imagery things talk about going to a "safe place". I don't have one to draw from emotionally or physically. As a kid, I lived in fear and totally denied my needs as a human being the whole time. My only safe place was sex or my imagination or learning. Sex was the only realistic one after 10/11 years old.

I always kept my mind occupied to deny any emotional needs. If I ever exhibited being human, I was yelled at, devalued, threatened, hit, etc.

I also found I was spiritually abused by my sperm donor and the whacked out churches I had to attend. So, now, I hate it. I get a panic attack even just considering reading the Bible. I talk to God and that's it. I have no idea who God really is. I hope God really is the God of love. But, I can't trust it yet. All the stuff I did believe in was a lie or half-truth I found. So, I have to start over there.

I just don't think I'll ever be capable of finding romantic love. I'm poor anyway and nobody wants that. Of course, they didn't want me when I had money. Life gives me the finger no matter what. Damned if I do, damned if I don't. So, I really have little to live for. I don't see it changing. I really don't. I know I'm f*cked up, but can't find the help I need.

All I know to rely on really is using my imagination and intelligence (intellectualizing). I will NOT be a doormat for anyf*ckingbody again though. I have worth somewhere even if just by myself. My needs do and will come first. I will be damn selfish. Life never gave me one f*cking thing. It just took and took and took till I'm broke financially, emotionally, physically and spiritually. Yeah, I hate life. I never had a life. I was just used and used and used by just about everyone.

 

[Valentino]

How about a slightly different approach... Why not allow bitterness, anger and resentment to be there? Stop trying to get over it so quickly.... There's nothing wrong with being angry, resentful or bitter. Based on your story, sounds like you have every right to feel that way... and I'd also include frustration, hatred, jealousy, overwhelm, depression, helpless, hopeless, etc..

Emotions and traumatic energy can take a lot of time to sort through, process, and resolve through. A good start is to make a safe place and time for you to allow your feelings and emotions to come up and get felt. Numbing works well to operate in the real world, but making time to de-numb and feel is necessary at some point, before any healing or recovery can even start.

And eventually... Bitterness and anger will naturally leave after you process and resolve your various emotional issues.

Just my 2 cents.. simply an opinion, one particular strategy that worked for me.