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How to stop being angry at someone

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  • April 22, 2018 at 9:30 am #203565
    Ying
    Participant

    I have a friend (M) who is my one of my flatmates and also my course mate. She is someone who always thinks she’s right and is really stubborn when she feels she’s doing the right thing. For the past 2-3 years, I have been trying my best to get along with her. I go out of my way to be nice to her, and if and when I don’t agree with her opinions, I simply say nothing, so as to minimise the tension. She isn’t a bad person; she just has rather different views and values from the rest of us, and is rarely willing to listen to views which diverge from hers.

    Just yesterday, I was having a heated discussion with another flatmate of mine (A). To be fair, it was something rather trivial; M had suggested that we have a flat dinner, and although the rest of us weren’t really keen, we decided to go along with it. However, A pulled out at the last minute without informing me, and I was annoyed at him because I had already made plans to accommodate it in my schedule. A, noticing my annoyance, asked me if I would like to get takeout instead, but M interrupted our discussion just to ask me “what I was hoping to achieve”. I didn’t understand her question, so I asked her what she meant, but she just walked away. I went after her and explained that I was trying to speak to her nicely, and that I wasn’t angry at her, but she ignored me. She refused to look at me, or to respond. I found that extremely rude.

    It makes me very angry because it was uncalled for. If she had disagreed with how I was speaking to M, I wouldn’t mind her standing up for him, but she interrupted with a question, only to ignore me afterwards.

    I am angry and sad at her. It is also the last term of the final year at school, and I am too emotionally hijacked to focus on my work. I don’t think I could accept anything less than an apology from her, but I don’t think she would ever apologise.

    How should I get over it without speaking to her?

    April 22, 2018 at 9:56 am #203573
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ying:

    You were clear and direct with M, she was and is unclear and indirect with you, something that when in conflict or in an unclear situation, is very frustrating for the one who is being clear and direct.

    Because this situation has been going on a few years, I would say, determine in your mind that your acquaintance and association with M will soon come to an end. This will not last forever.

    No solution is possible through communicating with her (it takes two). Because there is no solution, there is no  point to thinking about a solution. It is like having a thorn in your foot that you cannot take out, for now. You have an appointment to take it out in a week. For the week, you have to live with it.

    What do you do? Focus best you can on other things. The thorn will bother you again and again, tell yourself: this is unpleasant but it won’t kill me. It will pass, oh, how nice it will be in a week when I am free from this unpleasantness.

    anita

    April 22, 2018 at 11:49 am #203603
    Ying
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thanks for the advice and for responding.

    It is hard for me to me to move on from it at the moment, given that it is still raw and that I believe it was unjustified, but I will try. I feel a bit embarrassed posting about something that seems so trivial; there have been other incidents, and I have always made excuses for her behaviour, but this feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

    Thank you for the analogy though; I will remind myself and try not to be consumed by anger in her presence.

    I have many assignments and exams in the next few weeks, so I really need to focus.

    Would you by any chance, have any advice for focus and concentration? 🙂

    April 23, 2018 at 3:30 am #203715
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Ying:

    The issue you posted about does not at all seem trivial to me. I hope you feel comfortable to share more about this or about any issue at all. If it bothers you, it is not trivial.

    You wrote about that incident you described, “I believe it was unjustified”- reads unjustified to me. Notice the word justice in in “unjustified”. Injustice is a reality we all live in, has been the reality of human life throughout history. All I can do, all you can do is make your behavior just. But as you do, better expect injustice to be part of life. Accepting reality with as much peace as we can is congruent with mental well being.

    My advice “for focus and concentration”- do your best to be at peace with reality as it is, the reality you cannot change, from having the roommate you are having at the moment, to injustice in life and everything in between.

    Continue to minimize communication with the roommate, do not try at all to be nice to her. Make the communication with her truly minimal, in verbal output and emotion. No need to smile at her, for example. Do not reach out to her in any way.

    Any of the following can help, and you can do this or that at any one time: take a fast walk outside, a hot shower, exercise, yoga perhaps, a calming guided meditation, relaxing music. And post here anytime you would like, if it helps you through the assignments and exams. I will consider nothing to be trivial and will continue to reply to you, if you’d like.

    anita

     

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