I have a family member that I follow on twitter and they follow me. That person believes I made the wrong decision about something and so has spent the last week tweeting some passive aggressive stuff on a daily basis. They did this either to make me feel bad about my decision and make the one they wanted me to, or they were trying to have the last word about the situation. It has been irritating because for me twitter is mostly about tweeting the most random and odd stuff I can think of. That family member was putting up stuff that was taking away some of my tweeting fun. Today, I felt like I had enough. So my “rabid dog” mentality kicked in. I started finding all sorts of quotes, to back up my side of things, and tweeting them. For every passive aggressive thing they tweeted about I had ten quotes to back me up. Not only was I going to be right and have the last word, I was going to win and I was damn proud of myself.
That is until my brother slammed me back into reality. In a private message he said “Getting revenge is like picking up a hot coal to throw at someone. You both get burned.” That definitely sucked the fun out of my twitter war. Then he told me that he did not “want me to be consumed with resentment”
I have spent the day thinking about what he said. Seeing as this was not the first time that I have engaged in the obsessive behavior of having to be right and having to have the last word, or being so consumed with resentment about how someone acted, I decided that I needed to examine this “rabid dog” behavior.
I realized that every single time that I have behaved this way, I have always been left with a yucky feeling in the pit of my stomach. The situation never turns out how I think it should. Things usually get out of hand and either I or the other person or both of us, will eventually say more than one thing that would have been better left unsaid, resulting in hurt feelings on both sides and even more resentment. I am always embarrassed when the situation is over. Acting this way leaves me emotionally and physically exhausted, often in a bad mood, and the person I am trying to prove a point to actually takes away nothing because they are often too busy trying to respond to me to actually think about anything I have said. I also realized that the negative emotions I have at the time, (being consumed with resentment, and obsessed with being right and having the last word) actually make my depression worse. Sometimes it is only worse for a few hours but sometimes it can last for days.
I had what I call an AHA! moment. I suddenly realized that anytime I gave into the “rabid dog” mentality I was allowing someone else to have control of me, instead of me being in control of myself. I also realized I was getting in the way of my own recovery from depression by putting myself in situation where I know that outcome will involve the worsening of my depression symptoms.
I took the time to look up the words obsessed and consumed in the thesaurus. What I found was very interesting, especially given how things turn out when I am obsessed with being right and am consumed with resentment. Some words that mean consumed are ruin, destroy, eat up, devour and waste. Words for obsessed are preoccupied, and haunted. Hmm. What comes to mind is that I seriously need to figure out how to get over being consumed with resentments and stop being obsessed with being right and having the last word, or I will be eaten up by the obsession, I will continue to ruin relationships and my own mental health, and be haunted by the consequences of my actions.
I am very thankful my brother had the guts to give me an honest opinion about how I was behaving.
