by David
Sometimes we have to protect our loved ones from their own resentment. Imagine you are having a good day and all of a sudden something very unnatural happens. A loved one says something or does something that hurts you or makes you angry. You react and now there are two of you acting in an unnatural way. What if you were able to not react?
Some might call not reacting, turning the other cheek. A lot of people have trouble doing this. Well, this isn’t a religion lesson where you feel you must become like a monk to get along in the world by not reacting to your loved ones resentment and/or cruelty. However, if you can stop reacting, you might help them to see what is going on. It takes two to fight. If you remain neutral it doesn’t have to mean you are turning the other cheek. It means you’re not going to be drawn into a disease I call resentment.
Your loved ones don’t know how to cope with neutrality. You may not know either. but looking at it the right way may change your mind about it. The world is full of people who think their way is the right way and at the snap of a finger can become resentful, angry or even violent towards someone.
If someone takes their resentment out on you, neutralize the situation or take a break. After all, you may be wrong. If we harbor resentment we can’t see that we are sometimes wrong because we can’t see anything clearly. Take care of your little corner of the world, your friends, your loved ones…………and you. 
Archive for the ‘Anger’ Category
Protect Loved Ones From Resentment
Friday, September 26th, 2008Can We Ever Take It Back?
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
by Susan
Most of us who suffer from depression have had problems in our relationships with family members and other loved ones. Sometimes our loved ones are also depressed. I think depression causes us to be more susceptible to anger and hurt. We feel hurt by what we believe are slights……these slights may simply be others stating their opinions or living their lives. Sometimes we lash out in anger. Can we ever take it back?
We can of course, apologize and say we didn’t mean it. We can try to help the other person mend their hurt feelings. Or, if an apology isn’t in order, we can give it time. Regardless of what we do or don’t do, the loved one will probably never forget what we said or did, even after they forgive us. They may even begin to lash out at us.
In my opinion we can take back the words but we can’t take back the pain those words caused. We can only hope our loved ones forgive us and continue to have a relationship with us. We’ve seen them forgive others who caused them prolonged periods of pain, so we have hope.
Lashing out at someone because they caused you pain seems like an effort to cause them pain, even though we are really only expressing ourselves. Too much lashing out could do irreparable damage to the relationship. We can’t take back the pain. We can use caution with our words in the future even when we are depressed. Perhaps, realizing that our loved one is also depressed will help us to stop lashing out.
Taking someone else’s depression into account when we are hurting is hard to do, but knowing we can’t take back the pain we inflict, might help us think carefully before lashing out. There have been occasions when I wish I had thought carefully of the other persons’ feelings before I expressed my own. However, like others who are depressed, I have a tendency not to express my feelings until I am hurting and wishing someone could take away the pain. 
Senior Citizens and Depression
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008by Susan
As a senior citizen I can tell you that depression isn’t any easier to deal with as you get older. I’m sure that must also be true for most mental health problems. The mere fact of advancing age sometimes causes me a great deal of sadness. This past week I also felt a lot of anger due to my having to let go of some of the things I love to do.
For many years I have been an avid gardener. I loved growing roses, perennials, annuals and even some vegetables now and then. We have a big yard and I had many large flower beds. During the growing season you usually found me outside digging in the dirt planting flowers or pulling weeds. I dug the flower beds, hauled rocks to build the borders for the beds and hauled the bags of mulch. It has been one of my favorite hobbies through the years.
However, the past few years it has been more and more difficult for me to do all of the necessary work to keep my gardens looking nice. This year because of all the rain, the weeds in some areas were soon taller than I am. Last week one of my neighbors complained. So, my husband and I worked all weekend and we totally eliminated two large flower beds. My feet are still sore from digging! I plan to do the same with some of the remaining flower beds. My gardening hobby will have to be limited, but I will still enjoy it.
Senior citizens have to deal with a lot of acceptance when it comes to their continually decreasing physical abilities. Even with regular exercise and good health habits we all get older and dealing with it can be depressing at times. It’s a good thing there are some perks to being a senior too. Watching my grandson grow five inches in one year can be even more fascinating than growing plants. Hearing my one year old granddaughter call me Nana cheers me up in no time.
One of my prized flower beds just a few years ago. 
Keeping Secrets in Your Relationship…….by Susan
Saturday, June 7th, 2008Yesterday I learned of yet another secret that my spouse kept from me. He has had a need for over 40 years to keep secrets about things…..lots of things. I don’t think it’s good for our relationship, but this time I was prepared mentally to not stress out about his latest secret. His secrets usually involve hoarding money but there have been plenty of other things too. I calmly told him what I thought of his latest secret and went on about my business. Today it’s bugging me…..so here I am blogging about keeping secrets in our closest relationships.
In my opinion good mental health involves having good relationships in our lives. It’s not everything but it’s pretty darned important. I think trust and openness in a relationship are vital to it’s success and yet…..how has my relationship lasted over 40 years without these key ingredients? I think it is because for the most part, I’ve accepted this person for the very private and secretive person. However, by accepting this about him, I’ve also accepted a much lower level of intimacy in our relationship and therein lies one of the reasons for the anger, stress and anxiety I often feel.
I did an Internet search on keeping secrets and found an interesting article. The article weighs the pros and cons of keeping secrets in a relationship. My conclusion is that if you want intimacy in your relationships, reveal the secrets when it feels safe to do so.
I may have a problem in revealing too much about myself and my feelings…..I’m kind of an open book, so to speak. However, it feels like a good, honest way for me to be, so I guess I’ll continue on my path while others ‘keep on’ keeping their secrets. Thanks for listening.
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Living With Male Chauvinism……….by Susan
Thursday, January 31st, 2008I have lived my life with men who practice what used to be referred to as ‘Male Chauvinism’. It began of course, with my father who was a very loving person but……..he was also a sergeant in the Army. He used to tell his six daughters and one son this: “Saturday we were going to have a G I party”. This meant we all had to clean our rooms. He was bossy and required us to live by his standards in all areas of our lives. If he came home and mom told him one of us needed a spanking, he gave it to us. He required all of us to go to confession once every two weeks, regardless of whether we felt the need to confess anything.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times my mother asked him not to talk so loud. I guess his career required a lot of yelling and he didn’t leave his job at the office. Those were the early days. Later, after he retired from the military, he changed. He changed a lot as I began my high school years. He began to drink heavily. My mother also changed and was often mean to him and her children. They fought a lot as my siblings and I tried to get as far away from it as possible. We had a large home and a large yard, thank God!
I’ve never forgotten this incident when my Dad was especially chauvinistic. I was studying accounting, shorthand, and typing in school and hoped to work in an office when I graduated. These were my Dad’s words of support: “It’s good to have a skill, in case something happens to your husband and you have to go to work“. Yesterday, while visiting with some of my female friends who are fellow Avon Representatives, they were talking about the encouragement their dads gave them. That conversation is what brought to mind the lack of encouragement I received from my dad.
I pat myself on the back daily for the progress I’ve been making in improving my self esteem. I’m happy with the desire I have to accomplish something in addition to being a wife and mother. I’ve been working hard online to promote my ozzieblackcat websites and my Avon blog and website. I’ve also been working hard to make a small income to supplement my husband’s retirement income. I still battle the attitude of some of the men in my life who continue to display an attitude of “chauvinism” or superiority. I also battle the anger I feel when my husband behaves in this manner. Many men have let go of this attitude of superiority, but there are some of us who are still living with “male chauvinism” and this someone is surviving. My happiness level continues to increase as I learn to be the best I can be.
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Why Do People Lie?
Sunday, January 20th, 2008People in general tell all kinds of lies. Some folks only tell the little social white lies such as saying, ”I can’t meet you for lunch because I have a meeting”….or the tell someone they love their hair color when they don’t mean it at all. I hate this kind of stuff and make every effort not to do these things. I do, however, accept that these things happen, a lot. What really concerns me though, are the relationship lies that many people tell.
When we’re in a relationship with someone shouldn’t we treat them with respect by telling them the truth? If we lose interest in them, should we tell them? If we start having feelings for someone else, should we tell them? In my opinion, if we want to preserve the relationship we are in, we need to be truthful. So often I have heard it said that a person withheld the truth or told a lie in order to protect their partner. Since when do lies protect people?
I think most of us can handle the hurt we feel from being told the truth. We’ll suffer for a while, but hopefully, we’ll work through the problem with our loved one or another person who cares about us. Most of us have a much more difficult time handling the pain caused by lies. Finding out something hurtful and adding lies on top of it is a double whammy! Not only do we suffer the painful truth, but also the painful realization that our loved one cannot be trusted to share that truth. Since most relationships need trust to succeed, it’s my opinion that telling lies destroys relationships.
People are human and we all make mistakes but is telling a lie a mistake, or a deliberate act to protect ourselves?
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Do You Know Someone Who Behaves Aggressively? ………by Susan
Friday, January 18th, 2008Aggressive means “likely to attack”, according to the Encarta Dictionary. Do you know anyone who behaves aggressively? I have some relatives who do. In fact, my own mother was a very aggressive person who often verbally and sometimes physically attacked her husband and her children.
In my early adult years I came to realize that my mother was severely depressed. I believe it is her depression which also accounted for her aggression. I recently read an article which appears to support my belief. According to the article we can receive a dopamine release as a result of aggressive behavior, thus encouraging aggression in some individuals. It’s hard to accept that attacking her children caused my mom to feel better in some way. You can read the article from Fox News here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,323489,00.html Let me know if you reach similar conclusions to mine.
I know that relationships are important to all of us but we need to get away from those who treat us in an aggressive manner. It seems to me their brain is rewarding them for bad behavior and therefore are most unlikely to stop without the proper medical help. As children, we couldn’t protect ourselves from aggressors but as adults we can. Walk away from aggressive people and don’t let them have that dopamine reward at your expense. Hopefully the aggressors will seek help eventually and learn to receive the dopamine they need from prescription medication and a doctor’s help rather than attacking others.
Is It Time to Hibernate?…………..by Susan
Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008I started feeling very depressed the day after Christmas…..I thought. I now believe I was actually extremely tired and overloaded with too much food. I felt angry and wanted to bite people’s heads off. I wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep.
January and February are often very cold and dreary here in Missouri. These are the months my husband and I usually believe we are more depressed. I’m beginning to wonder if that’s really true. Is it normal to slow down and want to hibernate during this time of year? According to an article I recently read, many people years ago were well known to slow down in Winter. You can read the article here: http://psychcentral.com/lib/2008/post-winter-holidays-hibernation-or-depression/
I think we will all feel better about ourselves at this time of year if we tell ourselves, “it’s okay to slow down, rest, and spend time alone getting in touch again with what’s important to us.” After the hustle and bustle of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s we need to ponder on the events of the past year and make plans for the new one. Not resolutions, they are too easily broken and tossed aside. Plan new ways to enrich your life. Think of ways to make it easier, more enjoyable and meaningful for yourself and the others who touch your life.
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Feeling Hurt or Feeling Angry?………..by David
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007I think a very good thing to learn is the distinction between feeling hurt and feeling angry……….sometimes these two feelings are hard to separate from each other.
I believe depression is part anger. There is a very good likelihood that our anger is in more places than we think. Anger can cause willfulness……….thinking we can solve problems when the solution is out of our hands. When angry, we have a tendency to respond to insult with insult, for example, road rage with road rage. Are we hurt or are we angry?
Supposedly, the very first story was: hey, you can have all you want in this paradise………oranges, bananas, apples, color tv (ha), etc……….but do not eat them there apples!!! Above all things remember that I am God and you AIN’T!!
Are there people who treat you this way, as if they are God? Do you respond with hurt feelings and eventually anger? It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Susan writes:
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