I have some suggestions on dealing with anger and desire for revenge which I’m thinking will not be too popular among the Mefi crowd but here goes…

You have a lot of hurt and anger and bitterness inside you right now: that’s fine, everyone goes through that.

The noble path that people might recommend is “therapy” or “forgiveness” or trying to work things out, because she’s family. I say we don’t really have time for that.

The simplest and cheapest path that could end the pain the quickest is to cut her (and all this drama) out of your life with a few quick steps.

1. Dehumanize her: this is the part where you think of what happened to you like a natural disaster. You know, shit happens. Your car breaks down. A hurricane tears the roof off your house. Your sister turns out to be a lying psychopath. This whole drama hurts because it is a betrayal of trust and family kinship: if you instead perceive her actions as an unfortunate force of nature (which in some ways, it might well be – she might be sick and her actions might not be her own) you will begin to feel much better about it. Yes you’ve lost money: no one goes through life without experiencing loss.

2. Cut her off: this is where you make it clear to everyone that the two of you no longer have a relationship. This is because every encounter will remind you of what happened and bring the hurt to the surface again. This is like having your car get totalled and you buying a new one, but leaving the wreck in your driveway: every time you look at the wreck, you’re reminding yourself of how much money you’ve lost. Get rid of the wreck.

3. Revenge: Here is the controversial part. You’re looking for something that will satisfy your feeling of righteousness and judgement (however misplaced). This is telling, from your statement “I was not born to be a victim”. I’m all for taking revenge: but I say, if you’re going to do it, you should do it with a little thought and preparation. The common quote that taking revenge hurts you more than it does the person you hate is actually true in the majority of cases: once you total up all the time you spend brooding about how much you hate her and how that bitterness affects your life, how much all this tarnishes your social reputation (long term!) once people find out how vengeful you are, and the potential consequences under the law (most forms of revenge are in fact illegal and you might end up in jail) versus the….. suffering you intend to put the other person through. It’s actually really not worth it even at ratios of 5:1 or 10:1 (as in… if it costs you $10 to deprive your enemy of $100, is it actually worth it? I would argue not! I would rather keep the $10)

Unless you are a particularly brilliant con artist or evil mastermind, you’ll never actually pull this off. Right here we are talking about revenge in terms of 50:1 or so – just a quick summary of what you’ll need to do. You’ll need to find something that will expend a minimum amount of effort on your part (remember, time is money)… something that is completely legal under the law… and something that EVEN if exposed, will not damage your social reputation. Or conversely, you have to rig it so that after you’ve inflicted your revenge, the victim will never reveal this to anyone else because of further consequences that might ensue. Which kind of makes sense: maybe we never hear about the most effective forms of vengeance because the perpetrator has woven his web so tightly the victim can never speak up about it or the police never find out.

The takeaway from this bit, uhm, is that if you’re thinking of taking revenge, you’re probably making yourself a victim. Unless you’re an evil mastermind, which I doubt, because evil masterminds don’t post on askmefi for help. But I do encourage you to think about it, weigh the costs and benefits, and then take the path you deem best. Because if you do not do this, you will always have this in the back of your mind as “unfinished business” like that car wreck in the yard – it’s like a broken down car you have that you never bothered to find out if you could fix. Find out if you want to fix it or junk it.

4. Moving On It could take years. But one day you will find your anger and bitterness gone. I promise.
posted by xdvesper at 7:19 PM on October 10, 2010 [12 favorites]