How to Cope with Bitter-Biters

The word bitter comes from the ancient Greeks meaning “sharp or pointed” and indeed, bitterness is a weapon so-carefully crafted by the wordsmith that his scornful words often pierce a fragile soul.

The truth is these people can trouble you and destroy you as well. Toxic or bitter people exist in life with a spectrum of toxicity. Sometimes you have mildly toxic people who say things in annoyance or frustration but these people can be dealt with. After all, we all get angry with someone at some point. However, horridness lies on the other end of the spectrum where the bitterness is so dreadful that it can get into an abusive or dysfunctional relationship.

What should you do? Get out of it before it is too late! The philosophy is simple – life is too short to deal with toxic people and the best solution is to get rid of them.

You are like a sponge and no matter how optimistic you are, if you live in an environment full of negativity, you are absorbing pessimism and that my friend does not lead to success. This only means, if you are stuck in a social matrix with toxic people, it is right to untangle the spiral before it outgrows and consumes you.

But what if it’s too late? What if you can’t get rid of them? A bitter person can also be your companion, your sibling, your parent, or your best friend. Maybe you care too much to leave but it hurts too much to stay. What would you do then? Well, the only choice left is to stay and deal with them evidently, by making sure you do not lose your mind. Before you think of dealing with a bitter person, you should know why they are the way they are.

Dealing with bitter people can be dicey and exhausting, if you let it be. Bitter people resend your good fortune, almost everything about you, and they let you know it. Yes, they let you know it, usually in a passive-aggressive way.

Therefore holding onto your patience and living with them doesn’t deliver happiness of any kind, when you know no one is born brutal and bitter. Bitterness settles in when someone focuses on anger over an emotional “violation” that has happened to them in the past.

However, the bitter person’s perception of damage and the extent of their vengeful response to the original slight seem exceedingly out of proportion to the reality of what happened, but once bitterness settles in, it is all consuming with someone who does not have the tools in place to release it. It makes us do and say the most irrational and self-defeating things. Yet, despite how much we are better off without it, once bitterness takes hold, its grip is like that of a boa constrictor.

Bitter people often think that life has been unfair to them and everything that they ever did was right but the world made it wrong. They feel that they are deprived of success and better opportunities, and there is nothing that they can do to change it. A person with bitterness is captivated in self-loathe. Nevertheless, if bitterness imprisons life, love releases it.

The best you can do to deal with them is to show them the mirror. Show them that happiness is a choice. That life threw them a number of opportunities and will always give them another chance to change their situation. Let them know that they need to stop dwelling in the past and retelling the same story to themselves and others.

Instead, they should put their focus on what they can do today to take a step towards a solution; they will feel more in control and less a victim of circumstances. If that does not work and they still indulge in self-pity then convince them to visit a therapist or a psychologist. It is no shame to seek healing for your mind.

Last but not the least, for the sake of your own sanity, remember to hold their hands yet stand miles away. Bitterness is contagious and if you want to tame that creature, you better tame it well.