I get so mad that I start crying

[Avro1986]

Hi everyone,

 

I have posted other threads about my ex and other relationships. I am still single. I am seeing a psychologist to deal with my strong anger. Here's my story: in September 2013, I started my PhD in science. I was very proud because I had to work really hard to get there. My undergraduate studies were severely affected by the death of my grandmother (who raised me) to cancer. My grades plummeted. My grandfather died 15 months later, and I left the house because it got sold. I graduated in 2009; I had to work really hard for 4 years to work my way up to the PhD. I got a M.Sc. in the process.

 

So, when I started the PhD, things quickly degraded between my supervisor and I because of miscommunication and dirty politics (with other lab members). In February, she asked me to leave the lab without helping me find another one. I refused, apologized for any unintentional mistakes, and told her I would improve. She didn't like that an cut off all resources. I had found a mentor in the department but he fell greatly ill, so he could no longer help me. At that point, I was on my own, got extremely stressed, but held on. Eventually, I out-sourced and got help from kind-hearted researchers who I had never met and who weren't involved in any project. 100% strangers. I managed to make a project on my own and win a poster prize! I was extremely happy and proud. I got mixed reactions from other lab members, and my supervisor didn't congratulate me.

 

During that time, I met my ex girlfriend through eharmony. She was very interested in me. Within a month, we said that we loved each other, and she said that she wanted to be "my woman". She wanted a relationship that could lead to marriage and didn't want to be played. I felt that things were coming around for me: PhD improving and found "love". Three months later, the Department fail my oral presentation over some bull**** reasons (i had practiced for 1.5 months in front of the lab) and asked me to leave the program right before the holidays!! I was extremely angry and stressed. My holidays were ****. I felt ashamed and unfairly treated. To add insult to injury, my professor had invited me to her Christmas diner the night before she told the Department give me the letter!!

 

Meanwhile, things fell apart between my ex and I. She had just graduate from her MBA and living at home. She was more interested in partying and getting drunk than spending time with me. We fought a lot over stupid things, except when she got mad at me for "not wanting to go to Church to confess my sins" and leaving a New Year's Party earlier because I had lab responsibilities. She lost interest in me. One Saturday, we went skating and had a great time together. I felt happier and less ashamed. She gave me her word that she would be there for me, loved me, and things would get better. I felt safe. Three days later, she dumped me saying that she couldn't help me, and "I needed a girlfriend that could." I pleaded with her saying that I was going through times, but was working for a solution. She wouldn't listen and added: "You're not the only person who got kicked out of their PhD program, so you have no excuse for acting this way (fighting and being emotional). " She was a party animal and loved getting wasted in parties, while I was working weekends and holidays for my project. I also do weightlifting 3x week. I told her: "When you were17, your dad got you a job at a prestigious law firm. When I was 17, I was cleaning animal cages in a pet shop for 7.35$/hour. You are callous and have a completely different reality than mine." She said that it was unrelated.

 

I was shocked, gave, up and accepted her decision. She looked surprised and as I was leaving, she started crying about being cheated on and that she wanted me around as a friend. I refused. She said that she would be happy to be together once I would sort out things, but admitted jumped into the relationship. I was like: "Thank you for using me as an experimental guinea pig by taping into my deepest emotions to see if you really wanted a serious relationship" She led me on for an extra 6 weeks, until I had enough and wished her a good life. She never answer back.

 

Just like with my supervisor who is a woman, I felt extremely angry for being used and abandoned. I cried in rage: losing my PhD and girlfriend during the holidays. I don't have a lot of friends. I sat in the bathtub naked with a razor blade waiting.... cried more...I had suffered a lot more when my grandparents died, failed school, and became depressed. The shame bothers me. Anyways, I started seeing a psychologist and it's helping slowly. According to her, I get extremely upset when betrayed because: 1) My mother abandoned me when I was 4 2) I don't have a large network of resources, so getting back up can be quite hard.

 

I brought my supervisor in front of the Dean (for the way I was treated all along), and I am getting a second M.Sc, so I won. I'm not leaving with nothing. I still train and meet new people. I am finishing my thesis (my supervisor is not helping) and getting my applications for med/vet school and PhD programs ready. I am bouncing back. However, occasionally, I get extremely sad and betrayed: I can't get back at them either physically or psychologically without going to jail. I didn't deserve to be treated that way. I have always been honest and genuinely tried to improve situations by apologizing if necessary. My question: how can you get back at such people? Or should I? I hate feeling that angry to the point I cry and start thinking about suicide to "get back at them". I am sure that other people in this forum have been through something similar...being helpless. I'm sorry for posting something similar from other posts, it's just I keep dreaming about these two bit**** and wake up. It's my ex

s birthday on the 21. I take comfort knowing that "what goes around comes around" and that her family life is far from being ideal (she's Italian in a relatively conservative family). Sometimes, I want to call her to ask to take me back, but I know that it's only because I am emotionally vulnerable right now. Once I bounce back and find myself in a loving relationship and in a new studies program, I will be happy and won't think about my supervisor or ex anymore. Again, sorry for the long post.

[ParisPaulette]

First, no you don't want to do the conventional revenge thing. That can backfire so badly on you, screw up your whole future, and things like that can come back to bite you in the butt somewhere down the line. Imagine applying for that dream job only to find out the person hiring is the relative to your supervisor, so yeah don't do it. Do what you have already done by insisting the supervisor do their job properly (kudos to you for that BTW), understand that not all romantic relationships work out and it is what it is, and just keep on.

 

The best revenge, and yes this is a cliché but a good one, is to live well and achieve your goals no matter what roadblocks get thrown at you. So take your anger to the gym and a punching bag, work with a therapist on exercises to control it, realize that so far in spite of all that life has thrown at you, you are a) very smart, b) very driven and c) still moving forward no matter what happens.

 

That's an extraordinary feat, not many can do that. So you press forward, you develop an attitude of "Don't think I can get there? You want to bring me down? No way man, check this out!" And you go out and you take the world by storm.

 

There's your revenge. And oh is it sweet when you should happen to be doing well in life, bump into one of these people, walk up to them and thank them for being the grain of sand that turned your life into a pearl, then strut on down the street while they scratch their heads and wonder what that was about.

 

It's normal to get frustrated. It's even normal to sometimes have revenge fantasies. But to act on them, no. Live your life to the fullest, never let anyone stop you from your dreams. You have simply made it too far already to let it all be undone over an action that would actually be beneath your intellect and abilities. Live well, live long, keep going. It's the best thing you can do and it drives anyone who doesn't like you wild that they couldn't take you down.

[bulletproof]

Once I bounce back and find myself in a loving relationship and in a new studies program, I will be happy and won't think about my supervisor or ex anymore. Again, sorry for the long post.

 

I think that you are way dependent on external circumstances for your happiness. What everyone else does/says/thinks shouldn't matter. When you're truly happy and at peace with yourself, it won't matter if you have a girlfriend or if your new studies program is going well.

 

I think your therapist is right on about your mother's abandonment as the real reason for your anger. Your gf and your supervisor are easy targets for your anger, because they're in your life. Your mother wasn't.

 

Stick with your therapist and work through this anger at your mother, and maybe you'll find yourself no longer having revenge fantasies.

[Avro1986]

Thank you for your comment. It made me feel much better to know that someone else can recognize that I am on the right path. I mean, I am working on my low self-esteem. It's not easy to move forward when several influential people don't believe in you and you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. However, you're right: I should be proud. I just feel like the underdog...that I don't fit in because I had a different life path. Still, I do consider myself courageous. Only weak people attempt things they already know they can achieve.

 

I also do want to be angry. I hate it. I scare people away. I always try to understand others' feelings and expect the same in return. When it doesn't happen or get dropped, I became furious because I don't deserve to be treated that way (like my mom). I feel worthless. My psychologist did cheer me up. She said: use "I" statements to express your feelings constructively. That way, you can control your emotions and trigger empathy in your listener. If they can't feel empathy, then you don't need such people in your life." I actually felt at peace for a second. She's right. This is a great way to filter out negative influences in your life. Still, it's my ex birthday today, and regret the way things turned out. I would like to show her that I am more than what she saw in 3 months. It frustrates me that my PhD problems had to blow up once I got a girlfriend. My dad said: "you're not perfect, but you're hard working, kind, and caring. You admitted your wrongs and worked on them. You got kicked out of a PhD, not losing a video game. Clearly, she is selfish and f***ed in the head for the way she acted. She's not woman enough."

[catfeeder]

I am working on my low self-esteem. It's not easy to move forward when several influential people don't believe in you and you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Glad to hear you're doing this work. Plenty of people feel as isolated as you do, but it takes courage and discipline to actually hire a professional with the expertise to guide you in your efforts to resolve it.

 

That's where most people drop the ball, because it IS much easier in the short term to build a cocoon and comfort oneself by fingerpointing outward. The problem is, that never buys anyone anything. It doesn't move us forward, it only creates a self fulfilling prophesy that seeks to prove how 'right' we can be about the evils of those who disappoint us.

 

You, however, are doing the work to gain specific life skills. We aren't born with these, they need to be taught. Well, we can all look back at some point and realize that our teachers were flawed humans who may have never learned these skills themselves--or they never learned how to teach them. So it falls on us as adults to fill in any gaps in our self development, and working with a consultant who IS trained to teach such skills makes sense.

 

As for self esteem, it's one of the few psyche terms that is clear and literal. Self esteem is not parent esteem, or girlfriend esteem, or authority figure esteem--it's Self generated respect and admiration--regardless of, and often in spite of, anyone else's opinion.

 

Sure, the support of others is always a 'nice' thing to gain. The problem comes when we're dependent on others to supply it. And as you've probably noticed, some of us are dealt a hand that keeps moving that carrot away from us the more we seek it--which, IMO, only means that we're being set up to learn self sufficiency because our particular talents and gifts will require that of us.

 

And here's the rub: the more focused you become in pursuing your successes for their own sake rather than as a means to gain approval for them, the easier it gets to create your own internal carrots and to reward yourself for each baby step in the right direction. Once you master this, and approval becomes irrelevant, THAT is exactly the point when approval tends to come.

 

Weird, but worth it.

 

Head high.

[Avro1986]

Thank you very much for your time! I truly appreciate it. Although a fight takes two, I DO NOT want to go through life blaming others for my responsibilities. When you're physically injured, you hire a physiotherapist...When emotionally injured, you should hire a psychologist/therapist. There should not be any shame in this. I know that it's not normal to feel this way. I was happy that my grandmother raised me as her own son, but I always felt some blockage in regards to my mother since she would be in/out of the picture. I don't talk about this to other family members much because they think that I trying to victimize myself and that the "psychologist doesn't really know me." Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and have an externally objective assessment. What gets me most is that now that my grandparents are dead, I don't feel safe anymore; I feel that it something were to happen, I would be f*****. My dad is financially struggling himself, and I am more or less estranged with other family members.

 

Overall, I agree with you: I want to work on myself until I reach a point where I feel comfortable with my choices and don't need anyone else's approval (except a judge lol). Working on myself empowers me and makes me feel like a water stream chipping at a mountain. Eventually, that mountain will be rubbles. Finally, my first scientific article as first author got accepted today, so I have extremely proud!!! It's a major step for my studies!! Again, thank you very much for your time and advice!!

[ParisPaulette]

Finally, my first scientific article as first author got accepted today, so I have extremely proud!!! D It's a major step for my studies!!

 

That is fantastic!!!! Congratulations. I love hearing that you have had a success. And that's a huge success BTW. Accomplishments that are yours and yours alone are the best way to build the self-esteem and to give you a foundation for a happy, good life. Cheers!