Male head with bitter expression – Albin Egger Lienz (1868-1926) Wikimedia Commons.

“Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.”

Alain de Botton

Stopping oneself from feeling bitter is easier said than done; bitterness and bearing grudges are powerful and painful and can be deeply lodged inside ourselves.

As the quotation says, often the bitterness remains, but its source is lost in our memory, leaving us generally resentful and angry with the world.

However, we are never going to get rid of every trace of bitterness, some will always remain. No feelings are absolute and perhaps we need a little bitterness to enhance our joy…

“There is no pleasure without a tincture of bitterness.”

Hafez

This quotation may be referring to the fact that no feelings are ‘pure,’ that, even in times of joy, there can be some bitter feelings and memories.

It may also allude to a kind of pride about bitterness, a hanging onto it at all times, even good ones. It is as if the past difficulties are paraded as a badge of honour, maintaining a kind of self-righteousness as a ‘victim.’

Whilst there may have originally been very valid reasons for feeling angry at a real injustice, unfairness or grievance, allowing this anger to fester and putrefy into bitterness, and carrying it forward inside oneself, can only be damaging to health, happiness and wellbeing.

• Signs of bitterness

Nena B. the bitterness I felt. Flickr.

“Acrid bitterness inevitably seeps into the lives of people who harbor grudges and suppress anger, bitterness is always a poison. It keeps your pain alive instead of letting you deal with it and get beyond it. Bitterness sentences you to relive the hurt over and over.”

Lee Strobel

If we constantly harbour bitter and resentful thoughts and feelings, it is likely that we will be over-sensitive to other people’s comments, seeing ‘pinpricks’ as deep wounds; we will feel angry, indignant, critical and lacking in trust.

The brooding, agonising, bitterness will overshadow everything. It will be hard to feel joyful or happy, for a bitter person will likely be looking for revenge and chances to get even.

Bitter memories will be replayed time and again, they will be mulled over and discussed obsessively and repeatedly, with many different people, without change or alteration.

Those who are supportive of their bitter friend will, probably without realising it, exacerbate the bitterness, pushing the person deeper into the mire, giving them ‘justification’ and ‘back-up’ to continue feeling like this and making more unproductive plans to deal with it.

Such endless retelling is very different in nature and quality to sharing our stories for a while, with a real motivation to work through our own issues and to recognise the part we ourselves might have played in the story. (There is usually a flicker of awareness deep down inside that this is the case, but shame and lack of courage prevents the person from acknowledging their own part and working on it.)

This is the flip side of healthy sharing, for it shows that we are stuck in a quagmire of old resentments; the more we repeat the bitterness and the self-justification, the deeper we become embedded in it.

Dead man in the mud – Otto Dix. 1924. Wikioo

“Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things, which rotted the hands that grasped them.”

Winston Graham, Jeremy Poldark

Such stuckness prevents the person from really living and appreciating what they have in the present, as everything is pervaded by unresolved, obsessional thoughts of bitter past and present hatreds.

It also means that those with whom they are in a relationship will begin to feel strained, depleted and alienated by the interminable, predictable reiteration of the same old stories.

The bitter person may wonder why people are backing off, trying to cut their stories short, or avoiding being in contact with someone steeped in endless moral outrage. Being in the company of a person who is constantly stewing with barely-concealed resentment is stressful and disturbing.

This behaviour can also be a kind of escape from change and taking responsibility for one’s own happiness, a strangely reassuring situation where the embittered person is blaming others for feeling miserable themselves.

This may feel uncomfortable, but it offers a sort of immunity from change. We might call it an example of the ‘familiar unpleasant.’

In addition, feeling constantly bitter and becoming obsessed with it, is one way of unconsciously avoiding facing oneself. It is easier to keep condemning others than to become aware of one’s own shortcomings.

The Obsession – Rene Magritte. 1928. Wikioo.

“The obsession is a distraction; it protects you from thinking about something else.”

Irvin D. Yalom, The Schopenhauer Cure

There are no boundaries or endings to this continuing sense of injustice, and there is a constant feeling of being trapped. Eternal encouragement is offered for the ghosts of the past to come and haunt life in the present.

It is another person’s fault that they are so bitter and there is nothing they can do about it. Except there is….

“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Ghost – Eleanor Engle. 2008. Wikioo.

“If you lack the humility to go back and tie up the loose ends in your past, then be prepared to forever be haunted by her ghosts, all of whom will come into your present and your future— staining everything and everyone with their leftover emotional and mental garbage. 

C.JoyBell C.

• Moving on

I lock my door upon myself. Fernand Khnopff. 1891. Wikimedia Commons

“Bitterness is a result of clinging to negative experiences. It serves you no good, and closes the door to your future.”

Leon Brown

The realisation that feeling bitter is connected to unresolved past issues can be a powerful first step in terms of potential change. If there is enough ego-strength and motivation to discover what it is in one’s past that is causing all the bitterness today, and to work this through in therapy, then there is a real chance that we can move on.

“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.”

Mitch Albom

There is now an opportunity to see the world differently and not through a screen of bitter feelings. This may involve moving forward into facing one’s own, previously unacknowledged part in the situation that caused the bitter feelings.

It is important that this is not done in a self-blaming way, but with the aim of changing feelings and behaviour and gaining a different point of view.

• Freeing ourselves

Becoming freer of bitterness does not mean that we have to be friendly with everyone or ‘forgive and forget’ some dreadful wrongs that have been done to us.

Closed Blinds – Frederick Carl Frieseke. 1924. Wikioo.

“Cutting people out of your life doesn’t mean you hate them, it simply means you respect yourself. Not everyone is meant to stay.”

Anonymous

We do not have to like everyone, forgive them, ‘forget’ what they have done to us, or have in them in our lives. We can make a decision to move on without the people who have hurt us…leaving them behind, having worked through, as far as is possible, feelings of rancour and old grudges.

“I’m not holding a grudge. I just don’t like you.”

 Brian Spellman

The aim is to try and defuse the experiences of the past, so that they do not hold us back or make us constantly resentful. The past can interfere with the present, if we are unaware of its power inside us.

If we really want to move on and change how we feel, it is crucial to face our past experiences, and to become aware of what we have taken inside ourselves as a result.

In psychotherapy, we can uncover the internal ‘ghosts’ that are interfering with how we act in the present. We also need to face our inner ‘monsters,’ the parts of our selves that feel out of control.

“Let me adapt some of Nietzsche’s words and say this to you: “To become wise, you must learn to listen to the wild dogs barking in your cellar.”

Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun

There is a wildness inside us all that needs understanding and ‘taming.’ Rageful, violent or envious feelings, if left unchecked, can run riot and ruin our lives and the lives of others.

For example, in relationships, if we tend to be impatient and short-tempered, lacking in impulse control, we need to look back and discover where we have learned this. Who was bitter and could not let go of past painful experiences, grudges and resentments? Have we unconsciously absorbed this dysfunctional behaviour into our current ways of being?

Head of a man screaming. Engraving after Michelangelo. Wellcome.L0013242.jpg. Wikimedia Commons.

Facing the painful knowledge that we are constantly repeating the actions of someone who could not jump over their own ‘shadow’ is a tough call. That is why we need an empathic other to help us through, as we become increasingly aware of the roots of such problems, which will emanate from the past.

We are likely to need professional therapeutic help to explore our inner world in an atmosphere of safety, confidentiality and empathy.

“As long as he denies his own agency, real change is unlikely because his attention will be directed toward changing his environment rather than himself.” 

 Irvin D. Yalom, The Gift of Therapy.

It is not possible to change another person; there can be some relief in the realisation that we, alone, can change things, that only we have the ‘agency’ to make life better for ourself. We do not have to wait for others to alter….phew!…. we can do it ourselves!

However, what we need in order to do this is humility and to get off any high horse we may have mounted…

Karl Johan.Flickr.

“It’s time to climb off our high horses and step into the shit.”

Brian K. Vaughan, Ex Machina, Vol. 4: March to War

In this instance, ‘stepping into the shit’ means having the ability to acknowledge that we have some serious work to be done on ourselves, instead of hiding behind our defences.

The blaming of others, the denial and obfuscation, will only frustrate and distress those around us and complicate the issues we have, instead of clarifying and healing them.

In time, with self exploration and awareness, there will be a realisation that feeling embittered leaves us in a somewhat powerless position in terms of change, for it means we do not locate the locus of control within ourselves. We cannot change the past, but we can change ourselves in the present.

Ross Bleckner. The Door to Last Year. Oil &Wax on canvas. 1981. Wikioo.

“… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.”

Irvin D. Yalom, Staring at the Sun

• Acceptance

If we had a less negative outlook on life and other people, if we could let the bitterness go, what would we be doing instead? Would we take up new interests? Would our life change from black and white to colour?

Butterflies– Stanley Lench. Wikioo.

”And when I was angry, when I was younger, I was in a cocoon. Now I’m a beautiful, black butterfly.”

Tracy Morgan

Holding onto such pain can be draining of energy and it can prevent us from experiencing joy in the present, and living a full life, engaging with others.

We will realise that letting bitterness go will release us, too, enable us to have a quiet spirit and be calmer and ‘nicer to know.’

Recognition and acceptance of our own individual responsibility to do this, of our own part in the situation and of our previous reluctance to face our personal issues, are important aspects of the process of becoming less hindered by bitterness and resentment.

A Gate – Paul Klee. 1938. Wikioo.

“As I walked out the door towards the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.”

Nelson Mandela

© Linda Berman