So, as usually seems to be the case in recent months, I'll start off with an anecdote about what's just happened to me and hope that it can promote some sort of discussion.
Two years ago I was addicted to heroin. During this time, naturally, I was not always myself. I had some pretty unpleasant tendencies - I could be manipulative and deceptive, primarily.
Naturally, being in that state of being, I attracted others of a similar nature. I lived in a pretty toxic household filled with individuals who loved to enable each other to indulge in their addictions. I won't lie - it was a blast! But in retrospect it was pretty unhealthy.
So anyways, about ten months into the one-year lease, a couple people in the household started being passive-aggressive and ignoring me. This continued to become more of an issue until it became outright aggressive. Nobody ever told me what their issue was, but it was obviously something to do with my behaviour.
Fast forward two years. The rejection from this group of friends led me to reconsider my life path and to get off the dope. Since then, I've been even more interested in spirituality. My old roommates would pop up in my head fairly often, and I observed as the thoughts changed in their character throughout the years.
At first, they were curious - what did I do? Then the thoughts became aggressive - fuck these people, how could they do this?! Then they diminished for a period of several months, and recently emerged in a totally new light - in an apologetic way. I decided it was time to bite the bullet and write apologies to these folks.
So I did! I wrote out a few heartfelt apologies and sent them on through the old Messenger. I didn't expect anyone to reply, and part of me didn't even think they'd read the apologies. I just wanted to clear my conscience and let them know that I'd seen the error of my ways and that I'd moved on.
So the interesting part, is that the first message I sent was immediately read. The response wasn't anything that I expected - rather, the individual told me that I'd delivered the most insincere apology they'd ever heard, that I was a terrible person, and I think that if they "never saw me again, that'd be too soon." (That last part is actually a pretty bad-ass dismissal, I have to say).
Having developed the perspective I have now, I'm not sure how to approach this situation. Obviously, I've cut off contact with this person because it doesn't seem like I could do anything aside from adding fuel to the fire. However, from an emotional perspective, I'm highly conflicted and curious about which direction to move in.
My first response was, of course, anger. That diffused pretty quickly, since my intention was truly to apologize and I wasn't going to get angry about it. I did follow up with a replied message that was aggressively apologetic, which in hindsight is actually kind of funny.
Anyway, that proceeded to feelings of sadness - not for myself, but for the individual I was speaking with. It saddened me that someone could so vehemently hold on to a grudge for such a long time that it could cloud the reception of a heartfelt apology.
That then proceeded into a feeling of detachment. I shouldn't be investing too much emotion in the current state of others, especially if there's nothing I can do about it. If they want to hold onto that grudge, that's their prerogative, and they'll learn (or choose not to learn) from it at their own pace, right? I can't grudgingly interfere with another individual's own life lessons, otherwise I'd be no better than that which I'm upset about.
But the problem is I still can't shake this feeling of discomfort. And it keeps popping up. I'll be working, and suddenly I'll just be reminded of this incident. I guess I'm wondering why I'm still so concerned about this person even though it's obvious that there's no possible recompense at this point.
Is that just a hard thing to acknowledge? That there's an issue (from my point of view) that can't be resolved? How would one go about coping with that without losing too much sleep?
I've forgiven them, and myself, for our irrational behaviour, and I accept that they're not going to change at a whim (nor should they), but I still catch my thoughts drifting in this direction again and again.
What does one do?
