What Makes The Embittered Person Most Bitter Is Not Embittering The Lives Of Others

Bitterness is often a form of covert depression. The world of the embittered is full of windows through which he sees only injustice, from which he likes to peek to pour out his rancor, his bitter melody and his pessimistic feelings. The embittered one wants captives, but he also cries out for help.

Certainly many of us have in mind more than one person close to us who, at times, gives us the feeling of having a pleasurable inclination to embitter our lives with their reasoning, advice and behavior. However, reality is usually very far from this supposed pleasure, and the fact is that they are still unhappy people.

The embittered person feels, above all, that he has lost control of his life. We are in such a defeatist state that the person is simply no longer responsible for himself. Take the role of victim and let yourself go. Therefore, it is necessary to know how to intuit and present strategies to help, because despite these behaviors bothering us, we are facing someone who needs to be helped.

Bitterness and the roots of bitterness

No one comes into the world with a heart filled with bitterness, although sometimes it begins to emerge in childhood. An unloving communication or an unloved upbringing can open up this soil early on, allowing the roots to grow in the heart that will have as a future those shadows that dwell in the soul of the embittered person.

Bitterness is a seed that is sown and that does not usually germinate right away. His presence, at first, is silent. A disappointment hurts but doesn’t change us; two make us think, but when someone accumulates too many stones in the path and makes a clear negative judgment of your existence, you no longer feel that you have control over your life. Then the seeds germinate… and make us sick.

A fact that we should also consider is related to the classic image of the “embittered elderly person”. We all know a grandfather or grandmother who reacts with apathy, who anticipates negative things, and who seems to have such a grudge against the world and life itself. As the magazine “Health Psychology” explains, all of these are, in most cases, indicators of an underlying depression. It’s important to keep this in mind.

Bitterness and emotional numbness

Bitterness is often described as classic “toxic” behavior. We are used to using the label of “toxicity” very lightly, almost with the need to wear a mask and move away quickly without regard for the person and their personal reality. This is not correct. At least not when it comes to bitterness.

As we have said before, the embittered person is not born, it is created over time and due to various situations that were not well managed, and which at a certain point overcame the person. They must not be abandoned, they must not be left adrift in this emotional numbness. We know that an embittered brain – depressed – doesn’t go overnight to be a happy brain, but it never hurts to know some basic advice.

How to change an embittered person’s attitude

As we’ve pointed out throughout this article, bitterness is sometimes an indicator of depression. Therefore, it is important to encourage the person to use a health professional to assess their status. It is a necessary and essential first step. Then we can put the following into practice:

• Use compassion and optimism. We know that the embittered person wants to seize us with his cynicism, his rancor, and his fatalism. However, far from surrendering, it is necessary to maintain a constant attitude, being able to respond to their negativity with optimism.

• Don’t take your attacks personally, be patient. It is not the person’s heart that speaks, it is the root of their bitterness and disappointments not overcome, their traumas not assimilated, their emptiness not understood. Keep calm and always respond with the voice of intimacy, the most serene kindness.
• Invite the embittered to acquire new habits. Bitterness is passive, corrosive and feeds on a person’s thoughts. One way of “breaking” this circle of negativity is trying to get the person to change their habits, to adopt new habits, to move through other scenarios. So, without pressure, just suggest that you go out for a walk, play a sport, enroll in a course, meet other people…

The person who is not at peace with his heart, past and thoughts will be at war with everyone around him. Allow her to find that balance, that key to healing her wounds and finding calm for her inner battles. It is necessary to help her, but at the same time taking care of our own limits and without neglecting our own self-esteem.