when something someone else does makes you feel a certain way, do you feel your reaction is your responsibility, or theirs? do you tend to wait for them to help you resolve it, or do you do it yourself? do you find you can resolve issues alone if they involve other people?

i take responsibility for other people "making me feel" a certain way.
i've been in lots of therapy and this point is forever being reiterated.

i think it's healthy to think that way, even if it sort of ignores how things really are. does your therapist disagree?

i wish i more often didn't wait for other people or involve them. i'd like to just go 'ok that looks like a personal thing' and fix it.

healthy to think what way?

sorry. healthy to think 'this is on me' about your reaction, even when it's a reaction to something someone else did or said.

the only way i can deal with it is to realise it's up to me to decide how i'm going to feel about it.

so i turn to the bottle. usually. and then the clove lyrics get txted.
it's probably much more healthy for me to not do it this way. but it's always been my thing to be like oh fuckkkk what have i done.

If someone is a bitch to me, I won't take the wrap for my negative reaction. Unfortunately, this also happens with authority figures, which has given me a bad name at my school.

but but but

if you decide it's just you, and you're alone with your reaction, then aren't you free? you don't have to feel bad or wait for anyone. you can just get on with sorting it out.

unless booze &clovetexts are sorting it out. i don't know that it doesn't make you feel better. but it wouldnt; make me feel better.

i think this is much healthier, but i'm western therapy programmed.

the more responsibility one can take for anything the better, i feel. things i can't control: weather, acts of god, other people, death. all other areas i should be able to handle solo.

i'm not sure how this all sounds; i just try to be a healthy and mature grown up.

do you feel you have a choice about how you react? do you wish you had more control? or do you feel liberated to have shit fits? do you enjoy them?

yeah that makes sense, but my head doesn't work like that. i need people to work it out for me - to tell me how i should be feeling, or how i should deal with it.
so i try on my own, get a sore head/heart, and run to friends with questions. after this i still have to revert back to myself and how i'm gonna deal with it.
so i guess i have this freedom which i don't use.

or maybe you're just not the kind of person who can leave things be with other people. i think some people really are like that - they can't rest unless they find a solution that all parties can live with. but i think there are individual bits of that, too.

i just think generosity is so fucking important.

I was put in therapy two and a half years ago for communication issues.
My shit fits -do- make me feel liberated, and it's actually a wonderful feeling. I mean.. I know I have a choice about how I react. But. If I hold in my anger, it will more than likely come out in a self destructive way later on. Realizing that, I don't even think before I react. If something upsets me, I let it out. Last time I -really- tried to hold it in, regulate my breathing, et cetera et cetera, I wound up flipping out in a matter of seconds and needed to be sedated with Valium.

Sometimes and sometimes not, it depends on the situation. I'd like to think I am slowly recognising the difference between "their problem" and "my" problem (being my reaction to them). Its a hard thing to give an absolute answer for. Yes its our responsibility, if they've made us feel a certain way, then that *is* our responsibility and *our* reaction. The other person is just doing what they're doing possibly deliberately or oblviously and its not their fault that you feel a certain reaction to what they've done.

However at the same time whilst that person needs to take some resbonsilbility on their part as to what its done to someone, if they think they're right and have done nothing wrong, then ultimately the only person affected is oneself and thats when you deicde if (its a friendship./relationship) if the issue is that important to you and ergo you will no longer be friends or if its minor and you'll just agree to disagree even though its important to you and you were feeling X Y or Z about it.

How about a complicated scenario:

Person A is annoyed by something Person B does. They just put it aside for a while and then slowly it builds up to a point where something stupid happens or is done/said by Person B, makes Person A explode and then become very angry at Person B..

Person B had no idea that Person A felt this way, but after being blown up at starts to get just as annoyed at Person A for not rationally talking/communicating to them about Person A's issues with them and exploding at them causing Person B to feel rather upset and, at the same time, pissed off because the explosion brought about a litany of things at Person B about Person B that they did not think they were consciously doing.

Does Person B take responsibility for feeling upset at Person A for exploding at them? Can they put aside their own upsetness for being exploded at? Or should Person A, who is since feeling guilty and upset they blew up at Person B (and in doing so geting annoyed at themself/Person B for Person B doing things that upsets them in the first place) also take responsibility for their actions and how they have let their reactions to Person B build up into a big ball?

nat i'm sorry to dumb down this thread but all i can think is that persons a and b need to smoke a joint, but seperately.

i dont take responsibility for anything. that could be part of my issue.

Not always, no.

HAHAHA Funny I was thinking the same thing.

Problem ANNNNNDDDD solution. Always always always.

maybe a little from column a, column b.

i realise it's my responsibility to deal with the way other people make me feel. they are MY feelings. i can't expect other people to make me ok with myself, the world, etc. that doesn't mean i find it easy though. i am a social little creature, and quite a bit (maybe too much) of my sense of "ok-ness" comes from the people around me. i need perhaps to work on that a bit.

that said, other people need to be responsible for their own actions. and sometimes they need to hear "dude you fucked me off/hurt my feelings/etc".

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