TW: suicide
Don’t want to hurt abusers, but I do want to be able to hurt them and choose not to. I think it’d help me if I gained the ability to imagine physical vengeance. I want this to end in forgiveness.
It’s long been unsustainable for me to be a martyr. I waste my life away in maladaptive daydreaming where I imagine helping my past abusers. I’ve attempted suicide over the grief of past events, which gave me CPTSD and OCD.
I’ve had multiple physical abusers, and can barely imagine hurting them. I need to build the ability to imagine attacking. I think if I can imagine hurting my attackers and physically punishing them, including just for my own vindictive fun, then maybe I can gain the ability to actually forgive them.
Currently, I imagine giving them what they want, and then magically figuring out a compromise with them where they change their minds and stop being an abuser. (Like dating someone who sees me as a piece of meat, and using the relationship to change their mind so they’re not a shithead anymore.) I think that’s not actual forgiveness, it’s just bending to their will. I cycle through these maladaptive daydreams of self-sacrificing for the benefit of the inhumane, and waste my life in suicidal grief. I’m skipping something crucial…
…I realize cannot truly forgive without making a choice to not hurt them. I think I need to first imagine brutal vengeance. Not to act it out, but as a step to expressing myself differently before I attempt forgiveness.
A friend has also been trying to train me in MMA, but I won’t hit for real. I won’t spar with them even though I know its good for me. I just imagine stopping danger through compromises that don’t actually exist.
One session I hit a bag for real. I was down to punch after someone had attempted to assault me days earlier. Being vindictive seriously helps, and imagining torturing and annihilating the predator was a huge help.
___
deleted by creator
I would personally advise against this. I have found it very helpful to approach violence impersonally, as a tool, rather than as something pleasurable to indulge in. I find hate and anger lead people in to fights they can’t win or that won’t lead them to victory. I fight my friends for fun, for the joy of battle. When I’m fighting enemies I just want to neutralize them as efficiently as possible and move on towards victory.
I hadn’t really thought about this, but I think part of it came from being bullied. I don’t recall regarding my bullies as people that I wanted to hurt, just obstacles to be removed using overwhelming, terrifying violence, once. Hatred would mean acknowledging them as a person worth having feelings about. When you truly dehumanize someone they stop being worthy of hate, and are just an object to be manipulated to achieve your desired ends.
deleted by creator
Yeah, sounds about right. I’ve never been able to grok the “martial arts is about defense” or “martial arts is about self development”. Martial arts is about rendering your enemies unable to fight efficiently.
deleted by creator
Right. If I’m in a hate contest, the other party could easily win. Theirs is natural to them, and my hate is a spurt of energy that ends. I posted because I realize having endless compassion is unsustainable.
At the same time, hate is the only thing that got me to do real punches… But I do go back to giving them compassion again whenever I stop hating them.
Hating is energy intensive if you pair it with appeasing, which I’ve done. Rapidly switching between fantasies born of hate and fantasies born of fearful appeasing is intense. If I need to learn hate, I need to also find a way to take a calm break.
what were the reasons?
A variety of life changes including quitting my job going back to school for a bit. Some combo of maturing happened, or just aging changing up :electrochemistry: