Quote:
Originally Posted by mordant
I have an ambivalent relationship with anger. My father had a lot of vague floating annoyance and anger in him and as a child I avoided him and filed him under "dangerous to be around". When I grew up and he got old, though, particularly after he retired, a softer side of him leaked out and I was able to have compassion for him. The truth is he was very emotionally sensitive and grew up in a world that didn't give him permission to be himself. In his final years he took to writing letters and sending cards regularly to everyone he knew, and people came to look forward to those communications, and loved him for it. It allowed them to know him in ways he would never have been comfortable expressing face to face.
This has allowed me to have compassion on myself. Predictably, I tend to be annoyed and frustrated with the obstacles life constantly throws at me. I need more personal space than the world is generally willing to give me without also denying me meaningful companionship. People are complex and inscrutable and unstable and unreliable to me.
At least I am self-aware about it and can work on it, but I don't like anger or being around anger and especially don't like having it directed at me, as it seems to be deliberate disregard for the fact that I'm doing my darnedest to live well and be good to and for people. The amount of rage in the world is distressing and sad to me. The amount of it in ME is distressing and sad.
Empathic personalities like myself have to train ourselves not to take all that upon ourselves and not to put our own unhappiness on the world around us. It helps me to recognize that just as I don't want to hear everyone else's whining, they don't want to hear mine. I try to be the change I want to see in the world. It kinda-sorta works.
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This is an incredibly insightful post! There is much to be explored here.
I am in a similar situation and I think we made different choices. While I do please my companions a lot, I do require a lot of space from them. Before I decided this, I was willing to experience the fallout of creating my space, that is, the risk of having less meaningful relationships. That did come true for some people but for others, we developed a more meaningful relationship as a result. I came to the conclusion about why this happened. In order to have meaningful relationships, people on both sides have to be willing to compromise and communicate their expectations better.