Letting go

[Traveller85]

I realized I’m trying to make my traumas, my experiences real by trying to make other people believe them, by holding onto them. All this time I was made to feel as if they were not real or exaggerated. A lot of times there were no witnesses. Only some people sympathized with me most people didn’t. But I realized today that no matter how hard I try my traumas and my experiences will only be real to me, and I can’t make them real for other people. I can’t go back and win in situations that have passed and I already lost, I can’t go back and change what happened, I can’t get back what I lost, I can’t punish those responsible or those who hurt me in the past. I can’t change people’s opinions. If I keep trying and keep holding on I keep suffering and hurting myself, because no one else cares about this, and time keeps moving forward .

[Traveller85]

And I want to punish them, but I will never be able to punish them. I want justice, but I will never get justice. I want others to dislike them and sympathize with me, but that will never happen either. It’s been 2 1/2 years and I’m still dealing with these people, but all these feelings are destroying me .

[Waiting4themoon]

Hi Amit,

It seems like you have taken a very valuable step. You have taken ownership of your feelings. In general, no one can make us feel anything. People can behave in whichever way they want but it is up to us to respond. I think that once we recognise that, it is then a lot easier to let things go, bit by bit. If the problem is out there with others and we want to see them change, we want to see them punished or owning up their misbehaviour we will only be constantly disappointed.

You are a lovely, special person. You know that, if not openly then deep down. Try to focus on telling yourself that despite everything you are beautiful and deserving of love.

Try and let the hurt and angry feelings go, bit by bit.

Wishing you only lots of love,

[Starrlight]

I was just going over some of my traumas accidentally you know they just pop up and I really do need to let go too but they seem so horrific I would like to do something for closure so it will be easier to move on. Maybe I’ll write about it and burn it. I made it through just like you. I think we need to give ourselves credit for being strong and for loving ourselves enough to want to move forward.

[Calm_mama]

Hi Amit,

I'm so sorry you have been struggling. What you describe sounds so familiar to me, and maybe what I say will apply and might possibly be of help?

I read a fantastic book 10 years ago, by Dr. George K Simon, called "In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and dealing with Manipulative People". I then read the author's more difficult book, geared more for clinicians, but readable by anyone, "Character Disturbance". Perhaps these books may help you. Understanding the concepts in Dr. Simon's books allowed me to eventually forgive (in my heart) some people who had harmed me, and for whom I held such bitterness and disdain for so long. I have no doubt that my interactions with these people contributed almost 100% to a feeling of complete powerlessness and despair at the time. Dr. Simon asserts that people in these kinds of relationships regularly end up horribly depressed as they struggle to understand what is going on and how to reset the balance. The books shed light on the disturbed character's tactics of aggression, some which are overt and obvious, but many which are so subtle and surreptitious that the target has no idea for a long time why they feel so horribly. When and if they ever figure things out, they have already been "taken for a ride" and left feeling like quite an empty shell. He explains so perfectly how this all happens, what the more "neurotic" person's contribution to the problem is, and how and why the disturbed character behaves the way he does. In traditional psychology these character disturbed individuals would be labeled something like "Sociopaths", etc. Dr. Simon sees character disturbance on a spectrum, describes subtypes of character-disturbed people, and seems to feel that labels like "Sociopath" are too black and white. He perfectly describes the victim- a "Neurotic". This is a person who is naturally in a less powerful position (ie a child-parent relationship, an employee-boss relationship, etc) or isn't in a less powerful position, but tends to take others at face-value, tries to see the good in people, ascribes poor behavior to deeply troubled pasts rather than assign blame, has high levels of empathy, and tends to have a capacity for incredible guilt and shame.

The "therapy" to recover from being victimized for me was really understanding how the minds of character-disturbed people work. Then reassigning blame where it was due, and THEN letting it go. Kind of a long process (years) but incredibly freeing. The depression lifted about half-way through the process. When I was suffering, people would tell me, "just let it go" but I could not. I spent hours of every day ruminating, feeling confused, angry, bewildered. I know many people CAN somehow find a way to let these kinds of things go, but me- I really, really needed to understand things better first. I hope this somehow helps...

[Traveller85]

Incredibly insightful, I’ve already saved the book names and plan to read them, thank you 😄