That’s true, Anita. Patience is something I’m not able to exercise once that point of escalation is reached. Although I often try to prevent the arguments from escalating, and recently managed it with some amount of success, often it just happens without either of us actually realizing that what we’re saying actually is fueling on the argument. And then comes the issue where the emotional brain takes over and tells me, “don’t back down… fight back with all you got, if you have the guts!” It considers even assertiveness a weakness in that case, perhaps. Though my rational side knows that its wrong but I was not able to stop myself.

Another thing is Jerry told me recently (for good reason) that I have been manipulative and treated her like a disposable tool and played with her emotions. Although I could never dream of treating her like that intentionally, plain fact is that in my anger and impatience, I did things that cannot leave any doubt about the truth of her words. Like after an argument which ended with me sending some especially awful message and storming off, she kept sending me sorry messages even if its not her fault and I kept ignoring them until the anger subsided. Sometimes I did it with genuine concern hoping to be normal first instead of causing more damage… but she felt “you don’t care for me enough to control your anger instead of giving priority to it and behaving like this”? I’ve also lost how many times I said stuff like “I’m just a useless piece of *censored*, I only hurt you all, I wish I just (insert painful method of death)”. And often I sent not just one message but often many long ones.’ Often it was in genuine frustration with myself… but the effect was the same. Its a mark of her love and care that each time she forgave me quietly, putting aside her own pain and tears, trying just to make me happy. It makes me loathe myself even more, love her even more, but I can imagine few things worse than what I did. I crossed all limits with this last argument… words like “may your tongue rot” cannot be excused under any circumstances and it will take extraordinary and permanent repentance from my side to be worthy of being with her again.

Yup I agree about that, Anita. I had mentioned that I’m not half as mature as you’d expect for a 26 year old guy. A direct result of having grown up like Rapunzel, being mollycoddled and with very little exposure to others, nearly total lack of independence and being subtly told I’m weak and not able to take care of myself, spending very little time with people of my own age. Not only Jerry but that incident I mentioned on the online forum, where some people spoke against my favourite actor… the voice inside said, “If you don’t strike back, you’re a coward forever for not having defended someone you love.” Same happened now. My brain interpreted that Jerry was offending my parents (when in fact she wasn’t) and it was deja vu.

I will definitely do my best to identify such situations and practice assertiveness, try to develop more self confidence and cut down my ego. It’ll take time, I might fail to keep restraint initially before succeeding. But then, overcoming one’s natural faults from childhood days can’t happen without much effort. And future child brings the future to mind… I don’t want a future without her.

The incident with Jerry happened on March 7th. She last messaged me yesterday, the message I posted on the previous page. I replied saying I still consider her a wonderful and unique friend, and I would subdue my feelings if only to be friends with her again eventually when she agrees. I didn’t know what else to say. She hasn’t replied yet and I’m merely brooding over her message debating whether she’s left me or not. Utter emotional anguish. I want to write about the childhood things, assertive and all I learned here… but after I promised to change myself for her so many times, she has no reason to believe me now. And the wounds are clearly still raw. I really am at a loss and feeling miserable.

Yup I understand that Anita. In a way I was defending myself only, because as in case with my favourite actor, the voice in my head says, “You are weak for not being able to stand up for your loved one”. I know, can’t deny my family’s role in shaping my short temper. But its also true that whatever I have gained today, I could not have done without them either and they always gave me whatever I wanted (other than independence). So its natural to have felt defensive. As an aside, I feel the very same way for Jerry as well, if not more. A few days back, my parents noticed I was depressed and asked why. I said shortly that its due to an argument with a friend, which was my fault. And this convo occurred –

Mom: Right now, nothing is more important for you than your studies. Your “friend” is actually your greatest enemy because he/she is distracting you from studies. They are taking advantage as you are such a sweet and innocent boy. Whatever you did must’ve been for a very good reason, you can never be blamed. That “friend” is a horrible person who hurt you, clearly.
Me: Mom, please stop now. Don’t make comments on someone you don’t even know. It was my fault only and its no use denying it. My friend did nothing wrong and in fact always encourages me to not spend too much time online, and study well. I’m sure even the parents of all the criminals and terrorists out there must be feeling their sons are just misunderstood cute little boys.
Mom: No, don’t think we are biased. If you ever did anything wrong, we’d tell you at once.
Me: I know how many times you did that to this day. Please accept the truth for once.
Mom: It doesn’t matter if you’re a so-called bad person as long as you get a good job. So just forget it and study, study, study.

The best I can say is I controlled my temper because those words against Jerry (though they don’t know her) really got my temper up.

I do feel in my heart that we’ll be reunited eventually. But I do not wish such bad incidents to repeat ever again. That’s why I’ll strictly practice assertiveness and non-violence in behaviour henceforth. Until then, I am giving her time to relax and come to terms with these changes… praying for the best. Thanks a lot again. 🙂

I totally agree Anita. You have analyzed and related the two situations very well. Though nowadays I don’t care that much about possessions but it’s true that a person whom I love so much being “tainted” by someone through harsh words, intentional or perceived, elicits that violent reaction from me. It happened when my favourite actor was being targeted by haters, when Jerry said something about my parents (which I perceived wrongly) and when my mom targeted her wrongly. Funny thing is, after finding me depressed, my parents took me aside saying, “We’re your friends and not just parents. Don’t hesitate to share your feelings.” And then this happens. I don’t feel she could understand even 0.1% of my feelings if she truly considered me a friend.

Yes, my grandma always used to do this as well. There was an incident back in 5th standard or so, when I had found a rare foreign coin lying on the ground in school… and later when it was found out to be belong to one of my classmates, I did not want to give it back but had to after he told the teacher. When I was upset about this at home, my grandma says – “They’ll bury him one day with that useless coin. We’ll give you whatever you want, now just forget that.” OK, at that time I was just an ignorant kid and if the same had happened now, I’d have given the item back as soon as I found it. But I just wanted to show here that I was always treated as someone very delicate and innocent who is targeted by the big, bad world and therefore needs to be protected. And going by my mom’s words recently, it’s not changed at all. They don’t want me to take responsibility for my actions. They’re so obsessed with my studies that they can see nothing else. I know they have good reason to, because the exam I’ll be taking is a very crucial one for my career, but still I do feel values and personality are equally important, if not more.

This same thing happened with my other good friend who had been insecure of my love for Jerry. After the argument when I had been speaking really badly of Jerry to her, after the latter’s apology, I felt really guilty and expressed my guilt to the other friend. She initially kept saying, “It’s not your fault, you were just angry, you are a very good person with great values.” It was only after another friend frankly told me the truth – that I’m a vicious beast for having treated Jerry that way – and I told her that I’m glad he was honest to me, that she finally confessed that even she was disgusted by my behaviour and has no more to say. I just hate it when people do this, trying to defend my actions and calling me innocent just so I don’t feel bad, when my conscience knows the truth. As long as I don’t accept the truth that I no longer am a good person and have become a foul and deplorable individual, I cannot successfully change myself and prevent such incidents from happening again.

Thanks again for being here. Truly means a lot to me.

Yes, that’s why I have been doing my best to make up for what I did in the past, and make a sincere effort to correct this behaviour. But it feels truly dreadful when I do make a sincere effort and it works for a while, before happening again… sometimes even worse than the previous time. At times it even happened in front of others; I treated her so badly in front of our other friends in a group chat. At that time when we were having arguments due to our differences over the haters, she used to say, “By treating me like this, you’ve shown your priorities by your actions… those haters mean more to you than me and that’s why, owing to your obsession regarding them, you’re treating me like this. If you truly loved me, then you would’ve controlled your anger and tried to understand what I’m trying to say. Do a true brother and sister fight like this in public? Our friends have seen only our fights, will they ever believe that we share a special bond?” Later I did write poems for her and create some gifts which I posted in public for all to see, to make up for this. Now as we know, for whatever reason she’s denying that we even share a special bond. But wasn’t she totally right to feel so hurt? Why would she believe I did make sincere efforts, when the incidents happened again a million times? 🙁

Recently after one of our arguments last month, when she blocked me on our messenger app, my temper flared up again and I blocked her in return and left. Later when things cooled down, she said – “See? I knew it. Instead of trying to understand my feelings and why I had blocked you, you just blocked me in return and went away.” Remembering all this really depresses me and makes me dislike myself. After all, in a relation the male is always expected to be calm, confident and understanding, and to make her feel secure and happy. I cannot be so touchy with a huge ego and short temper. I feel it’s something I truly do need to change about myself, first of all, and think about the rest later. I’m motivating myself to change accordingly for her.

That indeed is the right choice of action. Thanks Anita. It just feels truly bad thinking how bad she felt all due to me, I cannot believe I made someone whom I love so much feel like this. All the more worse thinking the past cannot be undone. No matter how many times I told myself “patience in one moment of anger can save you from a hundred days of sorrow”, I rarely managed to prevent myself from hurting her. But yes, I will make absolutely every possible effort to do it now. At least from March 8th I’ve not used a single swear word, even by mistake. I do believe I can fully change myself, for her. I had already been keeping a diary of sorts to vent my depression; I will now use it to keep the journal of my self-change as you mentioned. A far more healthy and productive pursuit. I do hope she eventually understands I truly care for her and changed myself for her alone.

Regarding #2, I shared my views we discussed with my parents today and they agreed that keeping me subdued like this is the root of my deteriorating personality, anger and lack of self confidence. They told me that recently one of my teachers noticed this and criticized them for the same. They did agree to co-operate with me in overcoming this… let’s hope it comes out good.

Dear Anita, thanks a lot for the second post. Your analogy of the lion really rings a bell with me. In my case, as I personalized it when sharing with my friends, I consider it something like a dragon in my head. If you saw the Pixar movie Inside Out, it’s almost as if a dragon slowly took birth in my mind and convinces all the emotions to go haywire and push the wrong buttons in my head, while my rational side screams reason and sense in some corner but is unable to overcome the dragon (sort of like Joy trying to convince the other emotions in the film).

The weapon of assertiveness and practice definitely is there. As is another weapon, a much stronger driving force… my love for Jerry. I truly had nearly managed to change myself last year. After I had stormed off after a fight saying I’ll never return, she sent me such a genuinely sad and apologizing message that it melted my heart and made me feel so much for her. Even after we made up and were normal, I used to go through that sad message of hers just because it made me love her even more, feel more determined to never make her sad again.

Sadly my extreme possessiveness over her and jealousy over her love for her cousin brother made the dragon take over my mind again, stronger than before. Even now, her recent apology to me I had mentioned (“though he hurt me, I’ll always pray for him and think good for him”) makes me feel for her as much as I did last year. Before she had sent this message, the dragon was totally rooted in my head, making me think wrongly and say words I’d never imagine to say otherwise… and once I saw her message, all the negativity simply vaporized and was replaced with affection and guilt. Of course, I feel it needs to be allied with practice, reason and determination in order to succeed in changing myself.