“One of the things I really struggled with in my recovery from borderline personality disorder was a sense of righteous anger. If someone hurt my feelings, I felt completely justified to lash out at them so they would feel as bad or worse than me. I thought that if I could force them to understand how I felt, then they would change their behavior. Unfortunately, that was not an effective approach. Often times people were not trying to be hurtful at all. They were completely taken back and became defensive because of the extremity of my reaction. Their lack of understanding why I lashed out just upset me more and the situation would escalate. In the cases where others were not so nice to me on purpose, they believed they were justified to act that way, so did not see any reason to change. Again, the situation would escalate because I would try to force them to see my perspective, and they simply did not care. I had to learn to have calmer approaches in my interactions with my loved ones and be willing to walk away from relationships when others have clearly demonstrated it’s not a two-way street. I still express more extreme forms of anger, but I reserve it for situations in which I am unsafe, or for the sake of my own self-respect. In those cases it’s really about knowing that I have my own back then having any kind of expectation that the other person will behave how I want them to.” ~Xannie
I agree with what you say at the end. You are perfectly right if you stand up for yourself. Also if you want to establish boundaries with that person. If what you're doing is pointing out to the person that what they did was hurtful and it's not acceptable. You can either then say I am giving a warning or you can say I'm not going to have anything to do with you anymore because of what you just did... I think all of that is very valuable. But yelling and screaming and lashing out obviously it's not going to accomplish anything. It isn't even good therapy because it's going to wind up exacerbating your own frustration. Because the other person if they intentionally hurt you, they're not going to hear you either. And when you're hurt like that you need to be heard. That's when you go to therapy or to a friend to talk about your feelings. The only reason you would talk to the person who hurt you is to establish boundaries or simply to stand up for yourself and make it clear to the other person that you are acknowledging that what they did was hurtful. And you're not allowing it to happen.
If it’s a matter of ego it’s very different than if it’s a matter of self respect, delivery definitely comes into how or if one should express their feelings 😅. And yeah, it’s always true that some people ARE NOT worth arguing with, because they aren’t here to try to be nice anyway - they might even WANT you to yell. It doesn’t mean you give them what they want, obviously; we can only control ourselves, and only when we know we can. (Being human gets confusing.) 🤔
“One of the things I really struggled with in my recovery from borderline personality disorder was a sense of righteous anger. If someone hurt my feelings, I felt completely justified to lash out at them so they would feel as bad or worse than me.
I thought that if I could force them to understand how I felt, then they would change their behavior.
Unfortunately, that was not an effective approach. Often times people were not trying to be hurtful at all. They were completely taken back and became defensive because of the extremity of my reaction. Their lack of understanding why I lashed out just upset me more and the situation would escalate.
In the cases where others were not so nice to me on purpose, they believed they were justified to act that way, so did not see any reason to change. Again, the situation would escalate because I would try to force them to see my perspective, and they simply did not care.
I had to learn to have calmer approaches in my interactions with my loved ones and be willing to walk away from relationships when others have clearly demonstrated it’s not a two-way street.
I still express more extreme forms of anger, but I reserve it for situations in which I am unsafe, or for the sake of my own self-respect. In those cases it’s really about knowing that I have my own back then having any kind of expectation that the other person will behave how I want them to.” ~Xannie
Communication is a keystone to a relationship!
I agree with what you say at the end. You are perfectly right if you stand up for yourself. Also if you want to establish boundaries with that person. If what you're doing is pointing out to the person that what they did was hurtful and it's not acceptable. You can either then say I am giving a warning or you can say I'm not going to have anything to do with you anymore because of what you just did... I think all of that is very valuable. But yelling and screaming and lashing out obviously it's not going to accomplish anything. It isn't even good therapy because it's going to wind up exacerbating your own frustration. Because the other person if they intentionally hurt you, they're not going to hear you either. And when you're hurt like that you need to be heard. That's when you go to therapy or to a friend to talk about your feelings. The only reason you would talk to the person who hurt you is to establish boundaries or simply to stand up for yourself and make it clear to the other person that you are acknowledging that what they did was hurtful. And you're not allowing it to happen.
If it’s a matter of ego it’s very different than if it’s a matter of self respect, delivery definitely comes into how or if one should express their feelings 😅. And yeah, it’s always true that some people ARE NOT worth arguing with, because they aren’t here to try to be nice anyway - they might even WANT you to yell. It doesn’t mean you give them what they want, obviously; we can only control ourselves, and only when we know we can. (Being human gets confusing.) 🤔
So confusing!
I do it for myself