The thing about Resentment
resentment. (noun)
/rɪˈzɛntm(ə)nt
Meaning: bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly.
Resentment is a sickening feeling. It is a heaviness in your chest that makes breathing, suddenly feel like work. It is the many, small reminders that you’re reacting erratically to a minor thing. It is the inability to explain this “absurd” tendency to overreact (to minor infractions), where a particular person is concerned. It is learning that your heart remembers what you have trained your mind to forget. It is knowing that your reaction is valid. You are angry. You have been angry for way too long. You are finally letting it out in little bursts and the realization fills you with pleasure. At first. Eventually, you realize that you are not in control. There is anger and vitriol seeping, no leaking, out of you. You have taken umbrage so many times and hidden it in your loins for safekeeping. Now, it has turned to molten lava and your core is unstable. Volcanic eruptions should be expected.
Resentment is the love(hate)child of time and recurring indignation. It is insidious but persistent for you do not remember when it first arrived. You only began to take notice of it when it had taken root, within your soul. A living blackness in your insides eating away at all your new chances for forgiveness and a fresh start. Sucking all the wind out of your sails and filling you instead, with fire.
It is learning that your heart remembers what you have trained your mind to forget.
Resentment is being unable to accurately remember the actual events that fed this strange, fire in your belly. No accurate timeline of events with matching time stamps. None of that attention to detail. Instead, it is a lot of hazy recollections pieced together in ways that belie the true extent of the damage done. The hurt caused and the pain you felt are somehow minimized in your retelling of past events. All you have is a disorderly, patchwork of grievances that lack the important details that would help anyone understand what exactly transpired. You stop trying to explain. There are huge blank spots. Gaping holes in your memory where rage has coloured the helplessness, in fiery red. Indeed, you tried to forget. You wanted to salvage the relationship so you taught yourself to forget the ugly truth. Unfortunately, all that did was make the details hazy. Your body still remembers: the injustice, the hurt and the unfairness of it all. Whenever a little thing happens that tows that line, your body remembers. It goes into overdrive and immediately goes back to pick up from where you left off.
Resentment is like a horrible ritual dance that precedes a great evil. A horrible foreboding that no one appreciates. The kind that the priestess of the shrine does, when the gods have taken a hold of her and there is a brief but unbroken union of mortality and deity. The sort of dance that strikes fear into the heart of all who witness it. They are usually unwilling spectators. They who, become aware that there is an evil lurking around. An evil that will soon be made apparent. A knowledge that they would willingly have done without. Unfortunately, the priestess (dancer), is always the last to realize what has transpired. This dance has made people avoid you for they do not know who will be the next recipient of the malevolent visitation. You hate what it represents so you swear to yourself, never to repeat the dance. You promise yourself that you will simply walk away when you hear the beating of the drums. You believe that this plan will work. Indeed, it works. It appears to be the solution you have been searching for…. Until, out of nowhere, you hear the familiar rhythm. The beating of the drums of wrath and before you know it, you are dancing. Oh yes, your body remembers this dance. It is like riding a bicycle. You’ve done it so many times before that it appears your muscles do not need your brain to actively coordinate the movements of the different muscle groups. You are on autopilot. Your autonomous nervous system is in control here. There will be gyrations that you did not approve. Your body will contort into very many shapes. All in tune to the ruthless rhythms of these drums of wrath. Just as suddenly as the dance began, it will end. All you will be left with, are the sickening awareness that you cannot control this thing and the evidences of forced exercise. Aches and pains, in your muscles and joints from doing this dance you forbade yourself from doing.
Resentment is a relatively, unfamiliar territory for me. It feels like living this foreign land that I have been exiled too. A country that I hate. One where, I do not understand the language but I find myself speaking it — when the need arises. It is this alien life-form that has embedded itself in my consciousness. It has moved in and taken over. It did so without warning. Without pomp and pageantry. It just did. Now, I am aware that there is an intruder but I can’t seem to find out where resentment ends and where I begin. I know that we can not continue to co-exist like this for much longer. One must give way for the other. Only one of us can live. It is either resentment gives way for me to flourish or I separate myself from it and starve of it of life. I already know it must be the latter. I choose life. I choose healing. I choose forgiveness because I choose myself. I must remain, long after resentment is dead and gone.
PS: Resentment is a feeling that can be caused by a number of different situations. They all usually have a common denominator: a sense of injustice or wrongdoing from an individual. It could be due to feeling unrecognized or unappreciated, being constantly scrutinized, being publicly humiliated, experiencing constant discrimination or prejudice and being taken advantage of. When left unchecked, feelings of envy and jealousy can also result in resentment.
