One of the most important rules I carried with me from abused child to mentally ill adult is that you should never say anything in anger that you can't take back when peace has returned. As the song says, "A word's forever, when we speak we set 'em free."
But don't think that I'm all peace & love in the face of adversity. I have Borderline Personality Disorder, which means I have intense mood swings with wild bouts of rage - yet I've always done my best not to, no matter how insanely furious I've been, unleash the torrent of of spiteful thoughts on the person I've been arguing with.
Which is probably the only reason I'm still married after nearly twenty years.
Unfortunately, people rarely (if ever) return the favour. I've bitten my tongue on comebacks that would have taken me straight to the World Snark Awards and insults that would shame the hardiest of sailors. Far too often, I've allowed the other party to berate me, put me down, and humiliate me without saying a word in retaliation, only to carry my rage to a quiet room where I unleashed it upon myself instead.
Because my fucked up sense of morality has somehow convinced me that physically hurting myself when I'm angry with other people is better than hurting their feelings.
Why?
My childhood is just a stream of not-good-enough-never-be-enough-what's-the-matter-with-you-why-can't-you-do-anything-rights, that's why. Because I've been carrying the weight of all those hateful words for almost forty years and they're fucking heavy, that's why. Because I don't ever want the people I care about to ever look in the mirror and see the type of person they've forced me to see when I look in the mirror.
That's why.
Which, for someone with extremely intense emotions amplified by BPD, American-sized opinions, and a sense of righteousness with that Scorpio sting in its tail, is harder to swallow than the mound of pills it takes to keep me almost functional.
