My life is pretty good these days. Sure, I had to borrow a lot of money from a friend to cover a bunch of stuff, but it doesn't bother me. It's just money. I'll pay him back bit by bit, and all will be well. The fact that I have money problems no longer stresses me out.
Everything else is going well. My psychiatrist and I continue to make slow but steady progress, my depression is largely under control, and my mood is quite good. I'm actually happy a lot of the time. I'd almost forgotten what it was like to be happy. It's pretty cool. And in some other areas of my life, there's a lot of hope for the future. I've actually caught myself singing a few times lately, and not the usual "Paint It Black" stuff. There's just one thing I'm still really struggling with, and that's anger.
I'm angry at both my parents, but mostly my dad. My shrink assures me that much of the anger is legitimate. I won't bore you with the things my dad has done over the past five or six years to make me so angry, I'll just say that I'm not sure how to resolve it.
The right thing to do, of course, is to forgive him. Accept that he is a deeply flawed human being, accept that I will probably never earn his respect or approval, and then let it go and move on. I'm having tremendous trouble forgiving him, though. It would be easier if he would acknowledge, just once, that he has done me wrong and done things to hurt me, but he won't admit to anything. This is not unexpected. Not once in my entire life have I ever heard my old man admit he was wrong about anything, ever. He's often a jerk to everyone, but if you call him on it, he'll claim that he never said anything like that, or that you just didn't hear him correctly. I'm pretty sure he'll go to his grave never once admitting that he did anything wrong to anyone, but that makes it difficult to forgive him. Part of me holds out the hope that he'll say something apologetic, but the rest of me knows better.
I guess what I'm saying is that I can't seem to resolve my anger. It's impossible to punish him or get revenge, and I can't seem to find the strength to forgive him. Most of the time these days, I don't give him much thought, but when the subject comes up, I often vent about him, and friends have told me that I seem very bitter about it. The anger is rarely at the surface, but when it is, it does get kind of intense.
Like I said, the rest of my life is going pretty well, and most of the time, I'm happy, and I really want to let go of all this anger. It's a burden I've carried for too long. It would probably be good for me to just drop it and move on. How do I do it? How do I forgive someone who stubbornly insists that he never did anything wrong? How do I forgive someone who won't take responsibility for his own actions? I just don't know.
When I see my psychiatrist on Monday, I think we'll have to talk about this. I'm angry and bitter, but I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to be angry anymore. I want to let this go, I just don't know how. Hmmmmm....
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What to do with anger... good question - I'm in the same boat to a lesser extent.
I do know that anger comes from resentment, and resentment makes you miserable... you hold onto it for dear life because you feel justified in your anger, but it never effects the person you're angry at, it only effects you.
So I wonder what it would feel like to unclench from your hold on the anger and look at it from a different perspective:
What you know is, you'll never be able to control the person you're angry at - never will you be able to make him apologize, or feel remorse, or change, or behave in a certain way - that is an impossibility.
You know the person you're angry at is sick and is/was acting as a sick individual who doesn't know they're sick.
You know you're holding onto something that only makes YOU miserable, not him.
And by doing so, you're actually letting him continue to fuck up your life/well being.
By refusing to hold onto so much anger and resentment, you're basically saying:
"Sorry buddy, but you're not worth being miserable for the rest of my life over."
This makes you the victor, and him the miserable, sick individual who remains unwilling to change.
With all that said, I don't know HOW you let go of that resentment: for me, it was realizing that I played a part in things as well by allowing people to do things to me.
For you, the solution might be different. I'm willing to bet the Buddha has a good solution!
Marylin is oh so wise ;o)
*hugs*
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