from Hacker News

On letting go of spite

by vegancap on 11/6/23, 7:36 AM with 62 comments

• by grepLeigh on 11/6/23, 8:27 AM

  There's a meditation I've found healing for memories like this.

  >> In one instance, a teacher uttered the words ‘Ewan’s naturally bad at maths’. I was 6

  The exercise goes something like:

  Summon up a painful memory, like feeling underestimated by a teacher or ashamed of yourself. Let the memory (and feelings) get as strong as they need to be, without trying to suppress or judge how you feel. Then, imagine stepping into the memory and giving a younger version of yourself exactly what you needed. This is especially healing if there were adults in your early life may have failed to provide what you needed, and you're still holding on to pain/blame/spite.

  Here's the guided meditation where I learned this technique:

  https://timdesmond.net/self-compassion-skills-workbook/

• by sublinear on 11/6/23, 8:39 AM

  > I’m constantly desperate to prove I’m not an idiot... in some sense it’s not a problem, quite the opposite. But in a few important ways, it is a problem. Every victory, every success is not my own. It’s a moment I share with an array of teachers who have likely forgotten I even exist. No victory motivated by spite is ever your own, you share it with those you are trying to prove wrong.

  Other things mentioned in this blog posts are ADHD and "the format of traditional schooling". None of that inherently causes the spite described. It's more philosophical.

  Scholasticism is found everywhere from religion to bootcamps to public schools. It lends itself well to institutions. It's about encouraging conformity and "training" people to perform a certain way in a role. The assumptions causing all this pain are oversimplified ones: the teacher is always right, agreeing with the "right" answers means you understand, and that knowing these answers means you're ready for "the real world".

  I never felt spite towards these institutions because I was told by my parents from a young age that they merely represent collective agreements, not necessarily the truth. There may be plenty of overlap, but the incentives are completely different, so they eventually diverge. Institutions represent society, not the individual. To be happy with this is to just take it for what it is and let your faith lie in yourself and what you learn to appreciate on your own. Indeed most good teachers will also tell you to not take bad grades personally even if you still need to improve. There's a lot to admire about institutions and the results they deliver, but it's madness to pour your heart into them.

• by gizmo on 11/6/23, 11:06 AM

  > I’m now writing this in an attempt to start letting go of that spite. Just like I was during school, those teachers too were probably doing their best, and making mistakes, as we all do. Instead, I thank them for trying, I thank them for their patience. I know I derailed nearly every class and I know that many of you at least recognised the potential, and tried to get me to see what I was capable of.

  This reads like: now that I'm old and very wise I finally understand that those who hurt me as a child can't be blamed because they tried their best.

  But I don't think absolution makes sense here. The 6 year old isn't at fault for being who he is. It's the responsibility of adults to figure out why a kid isn't thriving. Trying to force a round peg into a square hole year after year after year is not reasonable, and cannot possibly be considered "trying their best". Should teachers continue to bully kids who can't sit still? Is the status quo for ADHD kids acceptable? Of course not. ADHD kids deserve a happy childhood, too.

  It's totally fine to make peace with the past and to let go of anger without trying to justify what happened.

• by ChrisMarshallNY on 11/6/23, 9:55 AM

  My mother knew I was “on the spectrum,” when I was a teen, but I never figured it out, until I was in my fifties. I just assumed I was “weird” (because I am), and “good at programming” (because I am). I’ve been taking IQ tests, all my life. I’m smarter than the average bear, but can also report that there’s a lot more to life than brainpower.

  It’s a long, sad story (bring a hanky), but I never got any formal sheepskins. In fact, I have a GED, as I dropped out of high school. Used to bother me, especially when looking up people’s noses, but it never actually had much negative impact on my career.

  In fact, if I think about it, it’s probably the opposite.

  No one has ever “cut me slack,” or “taken my word,” because I had the right school tie. My aspect didn’t help, either. I was often quite blunt, and had to learn the art of verbal communication (which I overlearned, as you can’t shut me up, these days). I’ve had to prove myself, every step of the way. This meant that I rapidly learned to deliver, even if it came with a dose of “screw you; top this.” So I’ve been delivering finished product (often under active attempts to interfere), my entire adult life. That counts for something.

  Sort of like a dork version of Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” song. “That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.” (or leaves you weak and exhausted).

  But that also means that anger informed my approach to life, for many years. I had to learn to let go of that, in my late twenties. Difficult job, but I had good support, and good tools (part of the long story).

  I’ve found that anger (“spite,” as the author calls it) was very good fuel, but also highly corrosive to its container (that’s me). I really needed to put it aside.

  In the aggregate, I’m glad everything went the way it did, as it got me where I am, but the journey has been “interesting.”

  I wish the author well; however, I’ve learned that life is not a series of milestones, but a continuum, with serendipity playing a huge role. Also, my ability to relate to others has been incredibly important, and did not come naturally. I had to learn to get along. Trying to force the direction of my life actually interfered with that.

  But, as always, WFM. YMMV.

• by langsoul-com on 11/6/23, 1:15 PM

  But what if you don't want to let go of spite? What if spite, anger is a shield that protects you from seeing yourself properly?

  All this conformity school, parents, fucked me up. I have this deep desire to appear normal. All my life, I've been trying to be normal, appear normal, learn what's required for normalness. Without spite, without anger of everything that fucked me up, of what it made me become means I cannot blame everyone for my problems any more. And I cannot deal with that.

  From time to time, when I look myself in the mirror, the reflection asks "Does this look normal to you?" and have some sort of mini mental breakdown. Spite and anger is my shield, a deferred shield, I know. But really, I cannot handle myself in the mirror right now.

• by langsoul-com on 11/6/23, 8:08 AM

  Classic schooling. Never fails to fuck people up on numerous unintended ways a decade later.

  Though, in terms of the title, letting go of spite, i don't see the author really talk about that. Beyond just, yeah this happened to me, and now I want to try to let go of spite.

• by kashunstva on 11/6/23, 8:26 AM

  There’s a point where spite serves and a point where it hinders. In freshman year of high school, a PE coach said to my face “You’re never going to amount to anything.” Because I was a scrawny kid with no interest in sport. The residual spite served me well as a motivating influence in the rest of my educational life: through university, graduate school, postdoctoral work. But at some point saying “I had the last laugh,” one last time and then forgiving is the right thing to do.

• by pseudonamed on 11/6/23, 11:51 AM

  I'm currently in the process of a late 30's ADHD diagnosis. As is becoming increasingly unsurprising, I'm unsurprised at how relatable the article and all the comments here are.

  I'm writing this just to say, it's ok. I'd like to be able to tell myself that and believe it but I can't yet.

  It's hard to even express how painful ADHD is. I have had first hand experience of multiple major traumas as a child and none of them come even close to a life of undiagnosed ADHD.

• by sgu999 on 11/6/23, 1:39 PM

  > those teachers too were probably doing their best, and making mistakes, as we all do

  Some people are simply arseholes or incompetent and others have unresolved issues. Compassion and empathy are important, but I don't think we should project good intentions onto everyone. I prefer to assume that a teacher who says verbatim that a 6yo is "naturally bad at *" is a bad professional, and an arsehole.

• by photochemsyn on 11/6/23, 4:19 PM

  Thesis: ADHD is caused by low-quality educational systems (generally characterized by overcrowded classrooms, boringly repetitive rote learning, inattentive underpaid teachers, etc.) - it's not a result of genetics.

  This thesis is supported by these facts: (1) there's no solid objective diagnostic test for ADHD at the biochemical level, and (2) there's no solid genetic determinant of who and who won't come down with ADHD.

  This doesn't mean ADHD isn't real, it's just much more likely to be a symptom of societal failure to provide quality education for children than 'an inherent defect'.

• by n4r9 on 11/6/23, 3:06 PM

  I found this really interesting. I excelled academically and was a teacher/lecturer's pet. Yet I have the same fear of failure and looking like an idiot. The root cause is different - I fear failure because I didn't fail often enough growing up and never learnt to process it - but the consequence is virtually identical. The only real difference is that I don't feel spite. I am prone to arrogance though. It seems like there's a sweet spot of failing some proportion of the time, which leads to humble confidence in later life.

• by mortallywounded on 11/6/23, 4:57 PM

  When I was young, I was categorized as "learning disabled". I wasn't allowed to take a second language in middle school or high school. I took "special" classes that were dumbed down for kids like me.

  I had a lot of resentment and spite-- that's for sure. I was accepted to college, no doubt with the help of my special categorization. When I began my studies I made it a point to take the hardest second language I could (Japanese at the time) and study abroad in Japan. I also made it a point to get a master degree in engineering, and then built a million dollar company on my own.

  So fuck them and their categories.

• by moribvndvs on 11/6/23, 7:28 PM

  A lot of this hits home very hard for me. I’d extend it beyond school to my anger with religion and how the world generally functions. I found spite and anger started in the latter half of high school, where I found myself struggling when previously education had been a breeze. This, of course, coincides with the point where your education starts to impress conformity and a particular way of doing things, as well as increasing reliance on fixtures that I do not thrive in (such as standardized testing).

  I didn’t know I had ADHD until nearly middle age. However, I didn’t notice because I didn’t have the language to even understand it let alone tools to manage it, and it “didn’t matter” because I was able to turn it into relative success.

  On the other hand, the cost of this has been high. My self-esteem is very poor. This can result in unhealthy, erratic, and self-destructive behaviors to compensate or mask my insecurities from myself or others. I sometimes let myself get taken advantage of and don’t advocate for myself because I think I deserve it and I fear failure. I work below my capabilities and overestimate risk for the same reasons. I often mistake self-deprecation as humility. I set very high standards for myself which are sometimes impossible to achieve, and I treat myself brutally when I don’t, creating a terrible feedback loop which results in burn out, anxiety and panic attacks, apathy, and reclusion. I also feel pathologically compelled to prove that I’m intelligent and capable, which can be annoying and off-putting to friends and coworkers. I have compulsions to take on more than I can handle, which naturally results in falling short and ironically disappointing people and risking devaluation. I try to control things because I’m afraid if things are done a way that I don’t understand, I’ll fail.

  It’s fucking exhausting, and it sucks. I don’t feel sorry for myself, but I’m tired of feeling like worthless shit and letting people (and myself) walk on me. I feel like I have untold depths of potential I’m just wasting, but I don’t know how to exploit them. I don’t want to coddle myself, but I wish I could just love and forgive myself in a healthy way and not feel shame all the time. I wish I would stop yelling at myself in my own head the entire time I’m awake.

  The worse part is that all this shame, fear, depression, and anxiety colors your worldview and impacts how you treat others. I’m not wretched to other people, in fact I honestly believe my friends and coworkers find me kind, generous, respectful, and supportive. I try to be nice to others and give them the benefit of the doubt. But I sometimes demand too much, treat people paternally, and I focus on negatives. It pains me to admit but I’m not always honest (with them or myself) and I’m not always reliable, qualities that I cherish in others. When I forget there’s a real person on the other side, all that unrelenting judgement and poor self esteem can result in pettiness and trollish behavior.

  I’m still trying to figure out what to do about all of this. My partner has been a great help. Part of the process is what you saw happen here: a straight forward inventory of your feelings and being honest with yourself. Then, sometimes with the help of others, you can reevaluate the severity and sincerity of a perceived problem. Discard those things that don’t pass muster, and focus on the rest. From there you start by just forgiving yourself, committing to not repeating those mistakes using quantifiable measures, and building healthy new behaviors around positive results. Be honest about what you can do, whether you _want_ to do it, and hold yourself accountable. And if you fuck it up again on the way, just recalibrate and try again, no fury or wrath is going to make it better. Celebrate appropriately when you do something right because fear of hating yourself is not a good motivator. Mindfulness seems like such a weak, simplistic, and hand-wavy solution but it’s worked better than any punishment I’ve metted out on myself in the past.

  Sorry this was so long, thanks for your time if you got this far.