Do you hold grudges?

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I find it very hard to let go of people who have treated me like crap before I was diagnosed with Asperger's. This especially holds true with teachers. I was constantly called a smart aleck, treated like a troublemaker, yelled at for being disorganized, and punished for doing things I didn't know were wrong. They made me feel like I was a bad student, and I started to believe it. "Forgive and forget," they say, but it's really hard to do that when you went through elementary school with teachers just thinking you were trying to stir up trouble. And don't even get me started with the bullies and people who took advantage of my low pain threshold and naïveté. Does anyone else feel this way?

I don't hold grudges.
That said, I also don't suffer fools gladly.
If someone has shown in the past that they've hurt me
and there's no indication that they're going to change for the better,
I can forgive them for the past ...
meanwhile, when necessary,
I can stand up to speak up for and defend myself
or shake the dust off my feet and leave.

...

I do hold grudges, but I've found it to be useful to imagine the people who hurt me laughing at me and asking, "What the hell are you pathetic loser going to do about it?". Then I realize the only thing I'll achieve is to give them an extra reason to hurt me even more. And, since I don't have the balls to physically fight them, I don't have the moral right to expect to be treated with dignity, so everything is okay exactly the way it is.

I hold grudges like no one else I know. The grudges I hold though aren't usually about me its about the ones I care about.
I don't forgive easily when someone is bad to me but I don't give second chances to people who hurt my family.

No, grudges are unhealthy. I just tend to be weary of everyone in general.

I hold grudges so hard. I cannot even compare my grudge holding to anyone I know.

Every single person who hurt me in the past has done very well for himself / herself. Many of them didn't even bother to go to college.

I am here, working for crappy customers I find on guru.com and upwork.com, and barely making $300 / month. How do you think I feel?

I do not hold grudges or obsess over them. I do not forgive them.

I can feel hurt, upset and angry, for whatever someone has done to people i care about, or people in general, or to myself, but from what i learned during my teens, holding grudges, hating someone, only hurt myself and other people more than it changes or influences the person it is aimed at. So i find it best to try to find a way to solve the situation out peacefully as a way that you can put it behind you, not having it drain you physically and emotionally for longer than necessary, whether it is talking things out with the person that caused negativity, or if that doesn't help, then you have to dig deep into the core of yourself and find a way to accept the situation as something out of your control, and search for a possible road in which you can take to leave that trail behind you, so that it doesn't have to trip you over and keep on scratching you up in the future. Not just for yourself, but if you carry hatred, it usually will affect your personality and emotional stamina over time, not so much unlike a old water kettle , if you keep a lid on or hold onto scorching feelings for too long (not setting it free), it will eventually blow over, if not inwardly (as in developing mental disorders such as depressions etc. - effects aimed at and concentrated in yourself) it will explode outwards, and influence the people around you, aka for example in being irritable, aggressive, hypersensitive.

So yeah, try to find a way to put it behind you, and if there are people that has done really bad things, just don't interact with these people any more, or if you have no choice but to meet up with them every now and then just try to be mature about it and be neutral, don't start a fuss out of the blue every time you meet, this only causes more harm to yourself, and delays the healing process. Show them that you are mature enough to rise above them. This does not mean that you like them or accept what they did, it just proves that you put your own well being and emotions first, and therefore wont let them harbour negativity and destructive behavior in you. Sometimes, this is a process that takes a lot of time though, and it isn't easy.

Yes, like my mother I hold grudges and NEVER, EVER let them go. Wish I could and I certainly have tried but.....

Yeah, this sums it up. I wouldn't be so upset if not for the fact the bullies have succeeded based on their BSing skills and until recently I have not. Granted, I have full time job and things are looking up (getting married, soon looking at buying a home and starting a family) but I was always an overachiever growing up: just surviving was never my goal.

If they came to me and asked for forgiveness, I would let it go tomorrow but NOBODY has ever done that and never will. All I want is for someone to acknowledge I was wronged and it wasn't my fault I "made" myself a target.

I remember. Then, when someone who has hurt me asks for a favor (usually money), I simply turn them down. Active revenge wastes time and energy. Passive indifference costs practically nothing.

^^^^^^This. I can be forgiving of some things. But never forgotten.

The quote "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die," comes to mind.
I know several people who hold onto things over decades, and all it does is make them toxic, bitter, petty people.
I also believe holding onto grudges requires a level of emotional investment I'm often not capable of, so I don't hold grudges at all. I only respect past information, and run the difference engine. If someone has screwed me 10 times, unless there are variant influencing factors, it's likely they'll screw me an 11th. I respond accordingly, but without any kind of negative emotional attachment. I will respond in a way that is best for all, to the best of my knowledge in predicting the outcome. If mistreatment or whatever is past and has no potential to influence the future, it's irrelevant to me.

I have a long history of holding grudges; however, I've been learning lately to forgive and forget because of Jainism.

Grudges are serious business here in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Scotland takes it all the way up to eleven and then some. Here in Scotland we inherit grudges. There are two families in particular, both from different clans, who have been feuding over the same grudge now for over 4800 years. There are some Clans that are still bent out of shape about the partial Roman occupation 2000 years ago. Then there's The Great War with Germany almost 100 years ago, a very bitter subject, very few families were spared the heartache of loss, and many Scottish clans (some of whom had existed for thousands of years) died out by wars end.

Of course, the BIGGEST grudge that stands out above them all, is the one we have with England. This one actually transcends Clan Society, reaching Nationalistic levels where it almost becomes a universal truth for all Scotsmen. Of course, if you ask a Clansmen why they hate the English, you'll usually get a long story that almost starts with "My Great Great times xx Great Great Grandfather so-so was killed by so-so, at the battle of so-so in xxx or xxxx, and we swore an oath to something-something in the blood of so-so, and so long as so-so's blood courses through my veins I will never forget, or forgive!". When you ask a non-Clansmen why they hate England, you might get a reference to the film Braveheart, but even if you don't, you can expect some mention of William of Clan Wallace (or simply William Wallace as he is known by the tourists) to make an appearance.


Personally?
Well despite being Scottish, I'm actually not very grudgeful, or at least I don't hold grudges over trivial things. That being said, I am in possession of my own Book of Grudges (I'm not breaking any Scottish stereotypes today) which I write down the names of those who've wronged either myself or those close to me. Being the traditionalist that I am, I do use my own blood instead of ink, though I've replace the standard bloodletting ceremony with one of my own that involves a syringe instead of knife, which I find saves time on the cleanup and doesn't leave behind any scarring.

Last edited by Idealist on 01 Feb 2016, 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I usually get over my anger pretty quickly, and am able to like/love the person again, or at least treat them civilly. But I still continue to be mad whenever I think about what happened.