yeah, my best friend in highschool. because i was jealous of her– the aftermath?
was that she died–suddenly, from a horrific infection that shut down all her organs, before i ever realized what a complete fucking ASSHOLE i was being. and she never stopped loving ME

no, you really don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone:(

Oh my God, chrispitillo. (((((hug))))))

Sorry chrispito!

chrispito – I go off on my husband fairly routinely. What happens is I hear what I hear which is not necessarily what he said or he meant and WHOOOOOOOSH.

At the time of the tirade I am 100% convinced of some horrible offense and by God, no one is going to get any sleep until I’m done yelling.

Later I figure out it was not justified and in the aftermath it is like, WTF because by then, he has also gone berserk so when we figure it out, we’re just relieved.

I think this comes from the subconscious and once that son of bitch is driving, look out.

As far as being burned down, this happens to me on a routine basis – it’s happens several hundred times in my life at least.

((((((Chrispito))))))) Talk about a cosmic slap in the face – I can’t begin to imagine what that must have been like for you, especially at such a difficult age.

I’ve been sitting here trying to dredge up some memories – I figure that since I grew up with this as a regular routine I must therefore have done it to others, but I think my psyche has dived down a hole for the moment. Denial, moi?

I know what I said to her isn’t the worst thing anyone’s ever said to anyone (far from) … but my mums reaction was what had a huge impact on me. And I’m sure I don’t need to describe that. My mum and I have a strange dynamic, I’d share juicy astro details but I’m saving that analysis for when I’m more well versed in everything.

(((((chrispito))))) So sorry to hear that…

And you are not the only one, for sure…in high school, I had one boyfriend that I tormented regularly (we dated for 15 months, give or take). I don’t know why I did what I did…truly the ugliest things, ever…he never did anything to me but love me…Afterward, he said I ruined him for all other women. I have carried that with me a very long time, and will carry it til the day I die. I’ve looked him up on the internet, and he’s doing well for himself. I would never contact him, though.

In the end, I could only conclude that what I did was driven by some sort of karmic imbalance between us. I truly hope he forgives me this time around, b/c I would hate to be on the receiving end next time. Still, it’d be only fair, and I accept that I’ve got it comin’…

I still don’t understand our big marital/martial haha blow out last year- nor know if my perceptions were justified. But we’ve both apologized.

(((everyone)))

chrispito – I’m so sorry. What a tough thing to have to deal with.

Years ago, I used to absolutely rage at my mother, pick her apart, hoping to extract from her some acknowledgement of the emotional pain she’d caused me growing up. It was occasionally very intense and very inappropriate. I wasted a lot of energy and a lot of years. Then she received the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and not long after that we were told she’d be gone within a few months. I can’t begin to describe the guilt I felt. Despite what the doctors said, she ended up lasting 4 long, brutal years, with me managing every detail of her poor, pitiful existence until the day she died — it’s very difficult to watch someone you love suffer on a daily basis and not be able to ease that suffering. The good news is that during those last years, I never spoke another unkind word to her, and I gladly let go of my bitterness. With dementia, you can’t really fake it, and it was obvious to everyone that there was a deep and loving bond between us. Even when she could no longer speak, her eyes would light up when I entered her room, and she never failed to reach out to hold my hand, as if to comfort me. I learned a lot from that experience and in a strange way, it was very healing.

(((chrispito))) That’s harsh, baby. *consoling pets*

Elsa, you just completely described my experience. When I go off half-cocked, it’s usually over something like that. Afterward, and usually not long afterward (like five minutes), I’m calm enough to sift through, find the trigger, and present it with my apology:
“What happened is X hit Y and I assumed Z and it just boiled over. It was wrong, I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”

I’ve gotten much, much better at not blowing up in the past decade, though. I can only think of three times that it happened, all directed at my ex.
One I wasn’t and still am not sorry for: it was his turn to clean the kitchen (and I wasn’t going to touch it until he did). At the time he was unemployed, and once it reached two months and I still had a dirty kitchen, I told him he could get off the computer and clean the kitchen right then or I’d break every dirty dish in the house. He basically said he wasn’t going to, so I took a practice sword and proceeded to bust up dishes.
Nope, not sorry about that.

The other two times, I was and am sorry, and they were over things just as stupid. Once I made him cry because he wouldn’t blow up an air mattress for us to sleep on that night (we were staying with friends). And I made him cry again the last time, when I ranted about lack of attention and chicken, of all things. *snort* Those two I really feel bad about.

when i’m hurt and projecting.
nowadays i’ll try to walk away when i feel it rising up in me, but some people take that as me walking out on _them_ when really i’m trying to protect them from me until i get my head together. that doesn’t always go very well.
i was bullied as a child. often. didn’t/couldn’t wouldn’t do that. but i broke someone’s heart for no good reason in ninth grade. i really cared about him, too. totally childish and immature and unaware of how much i was shooting myself in the foot. still wrestling with that one. i think i was scared to get any deeper. so after i reeled him in i blew him off.

((((chrispito and everybody)))))

As a kid, I was the victim of such behavior from my peers.. It lasted until I turned 15 years old and I NEVER understood why!! Every time I tried to bring it up to my still friends (because I still loved them… weirdly enough!!), they’d say that they didn’t remember!! This hurts more than the actual bullying because it made me feel even more worthless because I was somebody that you could hurt and not care about. I stopped talking to all of them when I left high school (we all went to elementary, middle and high school together) to try to put my past behind me. I reconnected with one of them and am still friends with her. She LOVES me to death now!!!!! She still says that she doesn’t remember but in the same sentence she said that she would NEVER do that to me again!!! I think she’s embarrassed about it and trying to repair the damages..

Unfortunately in my early twenties (for about a year) I became a bitch to my father, who is my only family member. My mother passed away, no brothers or sisters and the extended family all live in the US (I’m in Canada, we’re close but live far from each other so do not contact each other that often!) I don’t know why I was sooo mean.. I didn’t really say anything particularly mean but I was very irritating and rude. I didn’t apologized but I redeemed myself by being very understanding of his point of view and stopped smoking weed (which made me irritating and insensitive.. to his pain and my pain also…)

I hope to be more conscious now to not repeat this because I know how much it hurts. Thanks everybody for sharing your comments because this is an issue that I’ve been wondering about, how does it feel after the attack.

I have a tendency to do this to people on TV. (mars/neptune thing) If I’m in a mood, I take offense at tiny remarks and unload on the TV personality at hand. “You would say that, you stupid bitch! you’re whats wrong with the world, bwah!” etc.

My guy laughs at me and makes cat noises or says things like “bitter much?”

{{ram}}

Geez, I know what it’s like to annilihate the underserving. When it happens to the unsuspecting, it takes time to salvage my reputation, but I’ve proven it’s possible.

And when it happens with people I truly care about, well…let’s just say I’m grateful for that little thing they call forgiveness. There must be a reason the word “give” is sandwiched in there.

I have to say though, this lonely plutonian only really thrives when I’m with people who allow space for my flamethrowing. I don’t mean people who take my shit. I mean people who aren’t threatened by my turmoil, who rail or whatever, but who stick with it and me long enough to get to the clearing which is always on the other side.

No – I have usually been the one defending the person someone else decided was an easy target.

I have admitted I can hold a grudge forever, but it is in reaction to something that was done to me. I couldn’t imagine myself just torturing someone for the hell of it.

(((Everyone)))

I was picked on so much in elementary and middle school that I felt I had to give some of that back when I got to high school. I went to a Catholic high school, leaving behind all the kids that had bugged me.

I did it to a couple of kids, and this one girl just took it and kept on being friendly to me. That’s when I decided, no more. We actually became friends. I never did that again. My motto became and still is, live and let live.

I’m pretty sure Pluto passing over the DSC and into the 7th house for a long stay was behind this behavior.

((Ram, Crispido, pretty much everyone))
Oh wow, I’ve gone off on my mother for no reason a couple of times. Mostly though (luckily) I’ve managed to keep it to myself. Sometimes when watching TV I’ve found myself screaming at some victim of something who was being interviewed. “It’s your own fault, you stupid bitch!! You deserved it!”
*Scratches head* What the hell, self!?

While I occasionally yell at others, it’s never without reason. I relate to Dorothy best. Think I’ve been hurt too much and wouldn’t cause anyone else pain for no reason. I try not to hold a grudge (silent) but it all depends on the intention of the one who hurts me (deliberate or not, you know?). And I will stand up for the little guy.

One of my closest friends (a girl, Capricorn) took out a couple of football players at her high school because they picked on a special-needs student. They also picked on her, so she beat ‘em up like her brothers taught her how! Still makes me laugh to hear her story.

Have a great weekend, all.

I am so ashamed to admit this. When I was 19, I got involved with a much older man who was a Vietnam vet and former POW. He had a shitload of problems, but he had a daughter and the mother had left them. Of course, idealistic me thought I could come in and heal all of this. I could not have been more wrong.

He put me through literal torture, tying me up, locking me in rooms, beating me, etc. His daughter, having grown up in this environment, was mentally twisted in her own way as a defense mechanism and set me up for some situations for which I would be punished. I acted in kind.

I put this minor through some mental torture of my own. We were only a few years apart, but this does not excuse my behavior. I think we were all living in the POW camp in his head, and the normal outside rules simply do not apply. I should have simply left, but I did not want to leave her alone with this man, despite our adversarial relationship, and I was under threat of murder by him if I did leave.

It took a couple of years of plotting and planning, and I did leave him, though the stalking and harassment on his part did not end for years.

I hear she ended up a messed-up adult. I live with the guilt of what I put her through in that house all these years later, but now I have my own daughter, and I hope that how I’ve raised her – in a peaceful, loving, non-violent home – might make up for those years, at least somewhat.

I would like to make amends to this woman, but 1) I cannot locate her; 2) I fear opening my life up to her father again; and 3) Is it better for HER to let the past remain in the past? It’s a very complex situation. All I know is, I have seen the dark side and I have BEEN the dark side. If anything, it has given me insight into the shadow side of the human condition. Pretty much nothing could shock me anymore.

(((del)))

ram it’s interesting you brought up bulimia–i was bulimic for many years. i have moon-pluto and i definitely see a link: moon/emotions-pluto/purging.
now i wonder if you have moon-pluto or moon-mars too??
people tried to tell me it was a society thing “oh girls think they’re fat blah blah”
if there’s truth to that, i have no idea, but for me i forced my emotions out of me.

i’m sure happy to be a grown up now:)

((Dorothy and Deb))

Not a flame thrower, but on the receiving end of it all my life – school, family, friends, work, relationships. Pluto in 4th. Like Sweethiez mentioned above, the worst part is feeling like “somebody that you could hurt and not care about”. It is beyond painful when other people cannot even remember the horrible things they’ve done to you. I still don’t understand why these events happened to me in life, and the people who did it have conveniently denied/forgotten/erased it like it never happened. But I have not, because I have the scars. In almost every scenario I ended up removing my energy and support from these people, even if they could not see it at the time, and it has not gone back. The one good thing that has come of it is that I staunchly support the little guy every chance I get.

Jessica – I’ve a younger sister that treats me like that. Pluto/Mercury in her 3rd. People can and do “leave”, even if they are family. Though I have not severed my sibling, I avoid her as much as possible.

Shame is so demonized these days in pop psych, but I think it has its place. It’s a reaction of the conscience that says, hey, this isn’t right.

In my situation, it meant that what happened should not have happened, if good were in charge; it dictated that I acknowledge, regret and mourn those grave, grave consequences; it forced me to come to terms with and atone for my role in it; it showed me that it can never be undone. Without that shame, without that depth of regret, I wouldn’t have learned a goddamned thing. Shame has, in a way, become my salvation.

Out of curiosity, what about those of us who don’t go out of our way to make others upset, frightened, etc? What if we’ve been on the receiving end of some serious stuff and we’ve painstakingly come up out of it and wouldn’t dream of hurting others because of those experiences? Because we know what it feels like to be savagely burnt? What if we’re classified as ‘mean’ any ol’ time we retaliate or defend ourselves? And what if we are repeatedly treated like a who-do-you-think-you-are, goodie-goodie minority as a result?

I ask because all of that.. stuff… blows just as many chunks.

I think it’s a natural tendency of human beings to repress others in the same way they were once repressed. And sometimes those urges get twisted into something different, like passive aggressiveness. I think it’s a trick our unconscious (or subconscious) plays to make us feel more powerful than we really are. Sometimes those energies are unacknowledged (and we project them), and sometimes we’re very aware of what we’re doing. And sometimes we’re on the receiving end, and aren’t projecting at all, we’re just being scapegoated or bullied by opportunistic people; once we learn to recognize those energies, we become more sensitized to them and we may take on the role of protector when we see others being similarly victimized. And I hear what you’re saying, chrispito: We also learn to deflect, defend, or remove ourselves in unhealthy situations.

We may not always have a choice when it comes to how others behave, but we do have choice (and even the responsibility) of how we behave — I agree with Del that this is the blessing of conscience. We’re faced with the choice of continuing to repeat the same patterns of abuse, or making a conscious decision to rise above those old experiences and be transformed by them. Guilt can be a good thing if helps us to become more mindful.

Elsa,

Boy, can I relate to this! I always thought it was due to a “Hot Italian temper.”

Pat

oops! i meant everyone has reacted to it in a different way, not similar way.

I also feel a certain amount of shame is quite healthy. I would be ashamed (of myself) to break the law, so I don’t break the law, etc…

Chrispito – you’re right about that. It is a projection based on personal experience, and I don’t know Jessica or her sisters, or their experience. Just the description triggered my own experience, and I wrote based off that. Her comment about family and not being able to “leave” each other struck a chord with me because that’s exactly how I felt on the other side of the equation. My sibling doesn’t really believe I can leave either, and so the bad behavior doesn’t stop.

Yes, I know, no hard feelings here Chrispito