So the conflict I face that makes me struggle to turn off my compassion and try hold on to some grudges so that I remind myself to not fall prey again is the following.
I realized after being shocked that my bully doesn’t do what she does out of maliciousness.
She does what she does because she is a self loather and so lacks compassion. She has been bullied for things not in her hands and has somehow internalised it all and now bullies others as a self defense mechanism to dissociate herself from her real self .
She also, has a shit loads of internalised misogyny due to her upbringing and just naturally undermines other women’s judgements and opinions snd would like to see herself as different from every other woman and obsessively needs that validation as to silence her self loathing thoughts.
When she bullied me she was quite immature and exceptionally immature for her age and that’s due to being neglected. And so she lacked awareness of social boundaries and was quite self centred in pursuing her own ends even if it is at the cost of others simply becshse she doesn’t have the compassion to pay attention to where other peoples feelings might need to be worth her limiting how far she pushes for her own agenda.
It’s quite impulsive for her.
So combination resulted in her, self destructively needing to put others down socially while putting herself up.. and while in that self absorbed process anything that came in her way she would go all the length to get her way because she had genuinely not been taught right from wrong .. and then she would continue to do so without having any ability to tune in to other people that she is meant to care about and have the compassion that it takes to realise that going too far is quite damaging emotionally.
So all in all, it’s not very calculated. But it’s coming from deep routed insecurity and misogyny. And I know that she was trying to be different from her upbringing and she keeps dropping hints that she is now aware that she has seen things wrongly.
After reaching that understanding I went back to feeling compassion towards her. Honestly. I feel glad I had a better upbringing where I didn’t end up being a self loather and I wish her well on her recovery journey.
I know for sure she is on a self discovery journey trying to become a better person. She keeps dropping hints in our encounters.
I made her sound like a down right malicious person because I still have a lot of bottled up anger but it’s also mixed with a lot of feelings of compassion because I feel like it’s coming from an impulsive place where she clearly needs to dig deep and uproot from her system.
But that doesn’t change that I was collateral damage to that process and I feel like while I might be the first person in her life that offered her sisterhood compassion before she decided to exercise her powers on me, I feel like I’m hopeful she will find others who will be compassionate with her unlike how she behaved towards me because she really does need it if she is to improve on that journey.
I know her growth isn’t my responsibility but I feel like I initiated it and I’m really hoping by denying her a compassionate hearing I won’t be ending her journey.
But I have to remind myself to have compassion for myself snd my family first and recognise that I should not put myself in position where my mental health will be compromised and I’m not assertive enough to deal with her character in a way that doesn’t suck me in.