long term grudges

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For me it was the other way round. Alcohol was caused by long term grudges. That's a large part of why I can't hold grudges any more.

I still hate the people who bullied me at school. I try not to think about it, but unfortunately it crosses my mind most days.

Somebody did a lot of damage to my career and I held a grudge on them for about 5 years. I think not having to see them again helped me to get over it, if I still had to see them I think I would have held the grudge permanently.

I am glad I was able to finally let it go. Holding on to anger was very distracting and bad for my mental health.

That only works if one is naive enough to believe in some sort of cosmic justice.

Bahaha I appreciate your vindictiveness sometimes fnord, hilariously dark.

I can forgive people for small stuff, but really bad continuous behaviour
that is also toxic to society and that hurts me over a period of
a year or more gets into my bad books.

In this case I know it hurts me to feel angry, but it also
keeps me motivated to explore the why, build my defenses
and advocate in later situations.

So far 2 people hurt me like this, and I am unlikely to forget it.

I have no religion, and it doesn't work for me. Obviously cosmic intervention is out of the question in my view of things, and the forces of nature don't seem to sort out my enemies any more often than I'd expect from random chance. It might work for religious people.

I rather like the adage "Don't get mad, get even." Though not necessarily in the harm-infliction sense of the word.

I have learned that if someone does something they are likely to do it again in the future. The best predictor of future behaviour is usually past behaviour. I have tried "moving on" and forgiving the other person however they still continue their behavioural patterns. At best they may stop doing it to me but still do it to other people. Its somewhat misanthropic. The only exception is if they did something to me as a kid, then I can move past that given people mature as they get older. If they do something to me as an adult then theres no point in interacting with that individual.

I think that's mostly reasonable. I suppose "forgiveness" means ceasing to bear a "grudge," ceasing to plan retaliation. I see retaliation as an attempt to use Pavlovian conditioning to discourage the offender from repeating their offense - in other words, it's retribution performed by the individual rather than the State. The law, when it's working well, ends the punishment when the victim's sense of honour is satisfied and the offender has learned that their bad behaviour rebounds on them. There are advantages and disadvantages to individuals saving the State the trouble and expense by fixing problems locally.

I think "grudges" are natural, and somewhat desirable as long as they don't lead to escalation. Turning the other cheek and trying to wipe one's mind clean of retaliatory urges is mostly unhealthy. A lot of the time I think the anger just gets repressed and surfaces as passive aggression or retaliation against the wrong target.

Having said that, I have some liking for the "check rather than hurt" thing, because it's less likely to escalate a conflict. But it's more of a philosophy for empowered people who have the luxury of such a choice. And very often we don't know exactly how strong or weak our position is in a given situation, until we've put it to the test, so mistakes can happen.

This is rare but mostly true advice, thanks for this, and your other points. Good stuff.

Vindictiveness?  Hardly.  For most of them, their misfortune was self-generated.  For the rest (i.e., the dementia patients), their misfortune was an "act of G^D".

how is this "the other way around". Its the same thing Cyber said.

I mean... but you did write about it here... and you were sharing this "malicious compliance stuff". Anyway I appreciate the dark vibes, it's funny.

Only recently, in the past 3 years, have I had a grudge so strong that I wanted to take revenge on the person. It wasn't even a social relationship. A landscaper just ripped me off in several vindictive, hateful, cruel ways.

But also, only in the past 3 years have I known I was autistic. So I was able to evaluate my new subjective experience of revenge seeking through the new lense of autism. And now I am grateful for how it shined a light on my autism.

I noticed I was incredibly lousy at seeking revenge. Pathetic. I'm an idiot about it. I don't have a clue how to devise a plan of action that would actually achieve revenge. I think it takes a better prefrontal cortex and capacity for executive function than I have.

Revenge strikes at the core of personal relationships. Identity against identity. A personal war of minds. It takes a strong theory-of-mind to juggle these concepts and execute a dangerous plan to success.

So I've learned something because of my grudge. Now I can say, "Wow! I didn't realize how autism makes me so incapable and vulnerable about this." It's a limitation that's always been there but I never needed to test it until now.

So someday, not today, I might be able to "let go" of my grudges more easily. I won't be able to exact revenge for anything anyway.

This is me exactly. Bullies suck and I wonder what happened to the ones who bullied me.

Hang on while I try and get my head around this.

Grudges -> alcohol (as cure) vs. alcohol <- grudges (as cause)

Yes. You're quite right. Thank you for that.

I could be pedantic and suggest that Cyberdad was projecting a solution, whereas I was only projecting the problem, but that'd only drag things even further off-topic.