Cruelty

I didn’t understand how other people could be mean, rude, or offensive toward strangers or friends. I took it personally when people affronted me or were curt with me, believing they were truly out to get me for something I’d done. Before all this, i began to cry a lot and retreat into myself rather than being social and opening up, which only furthered the problem. I felt alone, miserable, and, try as I might, I could not regain that feeling of the world being beautiful.

I felt like something had crawled into my brain and flipped all the positive switches off and the negative ones on. I felt hopeless, like it was more of a disease than a feeling. When I became depressed, though, my temper shortened and I felt far more irritable.

I had little patience for anything, and I lived in a constant state of anxiety about social interactions. Whenever I engaged in conversation with someone else, I assumed they found me boring, annoying, or self-obsessed, and it sent me even further into my sadness.

I started to become rude and unkind myself. I lashed out at people, or, more commonly, gave them passive aggressive excuses for distancing myself from them. I even became prone to insulting people as a way of protecting myself if they didn’t like me.

Being unkind, more often than not, is a reaction to anger with ourselves or our perceived inadequacy. When I was rude to other people, it was because I was afraid they wouldn’t like the nice me. I didn’t mind if they were angry at the fake, unkind me, because it really wasn’t me.