Discussion Managing resentment

[Forever Sleep]

Do you feel resentment? I feel so much resentment at just being alive and being expected to deal with being alive. Most of it is (predictably) directed at my parents. My Mum's dead so, that just leaves my Dad.

I also don't want to be unkind towards him though because I do actually love him. Plus, it's not like I think my parents had children maliciously to make them suffer. Still, I can't help but look around and think- What were you thinking?!! Perhaps things were slightly better back then but even then, it was clear it wasn't great.

It's actually horrible to live with this resentment. Ironically, the feeling itself just generates more of it. As in- if I wasn't alive, I wouldn't have to feel this.

I suppose the way to get over it is to accept life but, I don't feel like I can. All I can do to not actually express it is to say to myself: My parents didn't know any better. They did this with the best of intentions at least and they are or were good people.

If you feel this, how do you manage it? Are you open with your parents about wishing you hadn't been born? (If you feel that.)

 

[Electra]

I'm starting to be more open and honest with my parents about how I feel. Honestly at first, I thought it was a bad idea, but I couldn't pretend or hold it in anymore and I just decided to tell them (little by little in tiny segments, I did not want to overwhelm them). I think it's better for them to know how I feel rather than pretend. I honestly thought their reaction would be dismissive, but thankfully I was wrong. I still think they might have their doubts or not accept it fully - but that is okay too. You gotta give them time and yourself time. At least that's how I'm trying to think atm.

 

[Namelesa]

I don't really mange it honestly. I have opened expressed to my parents how I wished to not be born and how I want to die as I find it very difficult to hide it due to how emotional I am but they still continue to trap me. I hate them for this and don't feel any remorse with the resentment I express at them as I think they immoral for creating me and even more awful for not allowing their mistake to be fixed by allowing me to die so they are purely selfish and deserve to be punished.

 

[hhtroc]

I don't feel much resentment tbh, all the people that did me truly wrong have been abused themselves, besides one guy who is just evil. I thought about harming him before but I won't, I'll get captured and I won't honor him this way. But I'll make sure to call him out specifically in my note. I hope he suffers from this because he has confessed truly drunk that he sometimes actually regrets stuff so somewhere there is a heart.

 

[Menilunai]

I think it's fine to harbor a bit of resentment, you'd have to be a saint to not have any negative feelings towards anyone.
I just try not to let it consume me and cloud my judgement, leading to me becoming a vindictive asshole.
Because at the end of the day resentment takes up head space and if I do decide to act on it what does that accomplish? It gets me nowhere and is it really worth the effort?

 

[galaxid]

I have BPD! That means I get to resent the people I love to the point that I hate them in brief periods~ And same with myself. On the bright side, it flips right on over. And the time in between is sometimes halfway decent. :')

 

[saturn1402]

I had this exact conversation with my parents.

"I know it is my father's first time on this Earth, too. And I know He had it worse when he was little. But I was little too" . this summaries my thoughts.

Most days I am doing well in terms of resentment, other days I am just sad cause i know things could have been very different if only my parents made different choices… but i am not mad at them. It's just very sad

 

[Pluto]

 

[footballseason]

TL;DR the people who hurt you and you, the person who harbors resent against those people, are both human beings that cannot help what their brains make them do. In the big picture, they could not stop themselves from feeling the urge to hurt you, and you can't stop yourself from feeling the urge to resent them. Maybe the best we can do is to try to resist our harmful urges and give everyone (ourselves and others) some grace.

I'm taking some very complicated concepts and making them very short here, but I wrestle with two things:

One is my belief that free will does not exist, and that while people absolutely can do harmful or helpful things, it's illogical to hate any of them for it, because none of us get to choose the conditions that make us who we are.

I'm saying "them" and switching tenses but, of course, I'm human too, and I'm subject to these same principles every bit as much as anyone else

Which makes it even harder to let go of all the resentment, because my human brain is adapted to manage my suffering by displacing it onto someone else. I'm intelligent enough to not give into this urge, and to recognize it's simply a chemical signal that has nothing to do with morals, but none of that changes the fact that my human brain still feels the urge to blame and resent.

So the best I've been able to do is to try to give all humans- both myself and others -a bit of forgiveness for the harmful things we've done, and some compassion for the fact that none of us chose to have the brains that made us to those harmful things. That, and to try to resist any further urges as much as possible. And if any of us are overcome by our urges, to remember all of the above.

Humans create cycles of doing harm and harboring hate for those responsible, which leads to us doing harm to them, thus repeating the cycle. If we can't prevent the harm, maybe we can at least to prevent the hate.

I hope you can find freedom from such painful cycles.

 

[MercenariesofMidgar]

I am only negative things. My wrath, resentment, sadness, regret, guilt. That is what defines me. For the little time I will be known after death, that is what my life will be marked and sorted by.

 

[WhySoSad55555]

I don't really mange it honestly. I have opened expressed to my parents how I wished to not be born and how I want to die as I find it very difficult to hide it due to how emotional I am but they still continue to trap me. I hate them for this and don't feel any remorse with the resentment I express at them as I think they immoral for creating me and even more awful for not allowing their mistake to be fixed by allowing me to die so they are purely selfish and deserve to be punished.

I agree with this a lot. Not to sound mean or anything, but I rlly do resentment my parents for bringing me here. My resentment isn't as strong anymore now though, maybe because I've gotten used to or have accepted the fact that I can't do anything about it, lol.

 

[platypus77]

I used to resent my parents a lot until my early 20s. But with time I came to realize all the sacrifices they've done for me.

I have never wanted children since I can remember, but once I found myself deeply in love with a woman I almost married. My career was sky-rocketing, I was planning to propose with all kinds of plans, I was in a really good place, and with that out nothing my feelings about having children changed.

That's when I realized why I was brought here, because of two people in a very good place where the world is filled with hope and love decided it was worth it.

I still think they screwed me up a little on way, but now at least I acknowledge they did the best they could to raise me and provide me with everything they didn't had. For that I will be forever thankful, thinking this way make it easier.