Question
Hello,
I once lived with a roommate who was verbally abusive to me. Every day she would scream at me and say nasty horrible things to me and would enjoy that I was upset.
I believe she was jealous of my beauty and intelligence.
I had another roommate, who would laugh when the above would go one.
They were really cruel and horrible to me. They have caused me a lot of mental anguish and pain and trauma after the vicious screaming attacks at me.
these women were a lot younger than me, 22-25 years old, and I was 30 when this happened. so they were immature.
I had a lot of class, sophistication, manners, and elegance that they didnt, and they tried whatever they could to knock me down.
The day I moved out, they both looked at me and said "Ana, you're the best"
Will they ever regret their actions?
Answer
Hi, Ana.
I wonder why you are writing to someone in the meditation category about this.
Maybe I am misreading, but it looks like you are looking for me to agree with you that you were treated poorly and that the people who hurt you will someday feel bad about it.
I am sorry that you suffered that anguish. I don't know what the whole story is. I can only say that many times when I thought I was being treated poorly, it turned out that there was more to the story than I saw. Either I didn't understand really where the other people were coming from or I didn't see what I was contributing to the situation.
Yes, believe it or not, I have found that sometimes I was doing something or had some attitutude that fed into the situation. Not always, but sometimes it was true and it helped me understand myself better to see that, even though at first I didn't want to see that there was anything in myself that might do that.
So I can only suggest that you make the best of it for your own sake - either by forgiving and forgetting or by seeing what you might learn about yourself. In either case you are doing it for your own benefit. You can notice that resenting only makes you feel worse, so why bother? You might think you will only feel better if they are someday sorry, but that day may never come and even if it does, you will have spent many months or years feeling bad until the day comes.
The alternative is to change to something positive right now, meaning forgiving and forgetting completely for your own sake right now. Even if you don't believe it will work, you can try it out and decide for yourself.
You can also ask, "What can I learn about myself from this, even if it is something unpleasant?" Learning something about yourself, even unpleasant, is a positive thing. It is like crying - you feel bad at first but you feel better later because you let it out. Isn't it a good thing to learn more about yourself even if the process is painful at first?
Please feel free to write back if you have some other questions or if I didn't understand what you were writing about.
Best,
Jay
