I have the best husband ever. He dotes on me and loves me and treats me very well. That said…
I have a hard time not liking people. When I dislike someone or feel angry at them I tend to feel intense, overwhelming guilt so strong it sometimes almost chokes me. I don’t feel like it is ok for me to dislike or, worse yet, hate anyone. There are people in this world who have given me good reason to dislike/hate them and yet… when I experience those emotions I generally end up crying and feeling like I am a terrible person for feeling that way. What is interesting is that I know I have wronged people in my life–I’m no ones idea of perfect–but the people I have the strongest negative reactions to aren’t people I have seriously wronged. It seems as though the people who have given me the most reason to dislike them are people I have never done anything to or at least I don’t feel that I have done anything to them. There are always people who feel I have wronged them merely by existing. I’m never entirely sure what to do about that. Would they really feel better if I killed myself? It isn’t really an option at this point since I promised Noah I wouldn’t during a particularly bad spell a while ago.
Yet there are still these feelings. It would be easier if I could just excise these people from my life entirely, but I can’t. So here I am left with my frustration and anger and sadness that I am such a bad person that I hate other people. These negative feelings sort of seep out into other parts of my life in sucky ways. Whenever I have cause to think about the people I particularly dislike I tend to feel like I am just a terrible, awful person for hours if not days. But I can’t really make them go away. And I can’t avoid the people unless I just drop some of the people I want to have in my life.
So… yeah. Something was triggery earlier today and I haven’t been able to ditch the funk. Despite just being back from vacation with my wonderful husband where we had lots of fun and saw many friends. Despite hiding from the heat in Chevy’s with margarita’s and then watching *two* movies in one day. Sometimes I hate my brain.
Much love.
I relate, though I haven’t felt that way for quite some time, I used to. I have no magic words, no easy fixes, no guidelines to give that will make the icky feeling go away. Instead, I will just say this, and hope it helps you believe it.
It is okay to not like people. Some people just rub the wrong way, it doesn’t necessarily make them or you a bad person, sometimes it just is.
Some people say and do things that make them worthy of not liking. You are not one of this type of people, You are the type worthy of liking, no matter who you do or don’t like.
To sum up: You rock, no, you pebble. Feeling like this sucks. Some people (not you) totally suck. It’s okay not to like them.
It rather bothers me when I hate or get angry too. What I do though is try to ignore them if I can’t work shit out. Some people of course I don’t even want to work shit out with cause I dislike em so much. In those cases I look the other way and pay attention to someone or thing else.
As for anger, I sort it if I can but the best way usually is just letting it lie. Guilt over it is just a form of resistance to it. I’m human, I’m gonna feel these things and the more I resist it the worse it will get. Resistance just reinforces these things. So redirecting my attention and giving myself compassion when I can’t seem to stop thinking or feeling these things is really the only way I know to help.
Ever feel guilty for hating yourself?
I’m never very comfortable with disliking people either. Mostly that’s not a big problem, because there really aren’t all that many people that I dislike — at least, not ones that I have frequent contact with; I’ve set up my life pretty well to avoid people I don’t like.
But what makes it easier is the knowledge that an emotion is just, well, an emotion. My dislike is just a feeling; it doesn’t require that I do anything about it, or spend any more time with it than I want to. It just *is*, like the weather. If I dwell on it, I’m letting it control me; instead, I just let it pass over me and move on — I try not to give it any more real estate in my brain than it’s entitled to.