Suffering in silence

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vash88

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This is a virtue I am sorely lacking. I have the hardest time just letting things go. It seems every time someone wrongs me, I want to give them a chance to see how they did so, with the hopes of reconciling, but it always ends up in either a passive-aggressive conversation or an outright argument. But if I don’t tell them how they wronged me, I end up lying awake at night thinking about it, as I am now.

What do I do? And please pray for me. Thank you.
 
It’s a tough job being a saint. 😇 What works for me when I’m feeling like that is the Jesus prayer: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. Repeat. Repeat. Also remembering that God loves the other guy no less and no more than He loves me. Will pray for you.
 
You’ve just gotta let some of this go. Not for them, not because it’s a sin, but for you. For you, you gotta let stuff go.
 
I will pray for you. It’s also a good idea to ask Jesus to help you, do you know the chaplet of divine mercy? it can be said on the usual rosary beads, google it if you dont and say that and offer it up for the person who is bugging you. Also confess the incident as soon as you can as that helps to get it out of your mind. Believe it or not everyone finds it hard to let things go, you have got to step one so congrats…that is. You want to let it go. I find it difficult not to judge other people which is a similar thing, so I try to feel sympathy with them thinking about what we have in common how I’ve done similar things or the same thing in the past and then the reasons I did it, I know I am not an awful person just your usual sinner who is a nice person who makes mistakes and is a bit of an idiot at times so probably they are too. It creates a shared bond with them that they know nothing about, yes maybe I am crazy lol. Quite a lot of this is advice from priests that I’ve built on, you know thinking of them as humans with real lives and thoughts and feelings and distractions just like me. Could you maybe think about why people could have done these things/ wrongs to you? Is it possible they aren’t evil, just usual people who never meant to harm you, just had other normal motives, like trying to not hurt themselves, pride, envy etc. normal human motivations. Could you then see that perhaps in your life you might have once or twice have sinned too? done things that weren’t perfect and then cut them some slack. Do you want all the people you have wronged to tell you about it? If not, then maybe try behave that way. If you feel really brave try do something nice for them… that is really hard. Otherwise just stay away from them until the feeling of hurt passes. Don’t forget to ask Jesus to help you. God bless you.
 
Say this aloud:
‘Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.’ - St Teresa of Avila
 
The thing is, in a weird way, I kinda would want people to tell me that I’ve wronged them. Having experienced the alternative too much, I hate that awkwardness of knowing something is wrong without it ever being verbalized. I would love if people told me something I did wrong so I could work on it. Them telling me might cause an argument initially but to me that’s better than letting things fester and ruin the relationship altogether.

And there are certain people who have wronged me that I can only avoid for so long (maybe a week or so). Those are the ones who bother me the most. There are some who have wronged me that I can easily get away from, and those ones I find easier to deal with to be honest, but it’s not that easy with others. And I can’t drive either by the way, which makes it difficult to stay away from certain people for too long.

Also, to give a little more context, since you brought up doing nice things for them… the whole issue I have with one of the people is that I helped them clean up their workplace after they had a fire. And they completely treated me like crap afterward. So yes, it would be nice to do something nice for them, but… that’s kinda what got me in this mess in the first place.

And yes, I do know the chaplet of divine mercy.
 
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What you speak of is very though indeed. Ask God to give you the grace to do so. Ask persistently and with confidence that He will give it to you.
 
Yes I am not saying you wouldn’t want to know if you have wronged someone, but I thought you meant you didnt want to argue or hold on to the bad feelings. I was talking about the part after you know you have upset someone and are trying to not be angry/passive aggressive and stop argument part. Also if they tell you what is wrong, it doesnt need to cause an argument, that’s the part you want to work on letting go… perhaps saying, ok, thank you and walking away… or even, I just need to think about my response or I’ll get back to you on that or whatever you style is and then answer later when you are calm…

You saying doing something nice for someone got you in to ‘this’ in the first part… but how I see it is not that, but you didnt like being treated badly, it wounded your pride. As it would anyone. But instead of moving on and letting it go - which as I understand is what you want to learn to do - as I said praying the chaplet of mercy for them and confessing to the priest your feelings of anger at them and why, so he can advise you how to forgive them and then doing something nice for them that they dont know was you. What got you in that mess (forgive me if this offends you) is your pride. I know this cos I have this same problem (pride not the same issue exactly as you - but it’s my root sin… such a pig of a thing to fight against…grrr) . Your pride was hurt cos you were loving and kind and then this person rejected you. What would Jesus do? He would turn the other cheek. So I say to you, only because He has told me as the priest in persona Christi to do something nice for them and pray for them and forgive them. I did tiny little acts for them that they never knew were me and in time it has worked . It takes time and patience but it really does help. You can let go if you want to, but you have to realise that the issue is with you as the Pope teaches us, blame yourself to learn humility. Humility is the antidote to pride.
 
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I have suffered the same thing for most of my life. The first thing I would suggest is to accept the fact that you are a very sensitive person who possibly feels things more strongly than most. The second is to begin working on the idea that by overreacting to some things, you are placing the other person in an unfair position. In my experience most folks who have irritated me or offended me had no idea they were doing so. Thus the onus is on me to overcome my emotions. It can be hard, and yes we will sometimes lie awake at night fretting over the anger and the hurt. But if we view this is a spiritual exercise and understand that God is teaching us through all sorts of adversity, then we can better see a broader picture for the life we live.
 
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