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Worried that your anger at your cheating ex-boyfriend is out of control? You could be right. Some psychologists are pushing to categorize bitterness after a traumatic event (such as a breakup or not getting a promotion) as a psychological disorder -- Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder. Experts say the condition is a lot like Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, only instead of anxious and afraid, the sufferers are angry as heck and spend all day daydreaming about revenge.
Click here to read more after the jump.
Beyond Bummed
While it's normal to be a little depressed after a breakup -- or any sucky life event, for that matter -- 1 to 2 percent of the population takes their grief a step further, according to a presentation last week at an American Psychiatric Association conference. Embitterment occurs when people put a lot of emotional energy into something (like a relationship), and then feel completely cheated by life.
While they may not have the pronounced physical and psychological symptoms associated with PTSD and other anxiety disorders, sufferers' intense feelings of anger, injustice and powerlessness affect their ability to function day-to-day. AKA you're so consumed by IMing about your jerk of an ex that you can't actually do your job or go out and have fun with your friends.
The condition may be a factor in family annihilations -- when people "snap" and kill their families, often in response to financial or relationship stress.
We've Had It
While those cases are extreme, we know all too well how the pain of a breakup can inspire some irrational behavior. Consider the following real symptoms experienced by Lemondrop editors post-split:
+Subject spends all day researching ways to cut brake lines on old Chevy Lumina, but never acts on it.
+Subject literally does not stop crying for 48 hours.
+Subject burns all of ex's belongings on sidewalk in front of house (holding a Weber grill lid as a safety precaution), frightening away even the police officer who slowed to investigate.
+Subject reads Wikipedia's article on Louisiana Voodoo all day, every day, dreaming of a way to get a lock of that bastard's hair.
+Subject listens to "I'm Not in Love" by 10cc on repeat for 14 straight hours while drinking Popov and going through ex's Gmail reading cute chats with his new girlfriend.
+Subject sells departed ex's expensive pet lizard for $10.
+Subject buys $400 custom-made leather dress.
Tell us! What do you think? Could embitterment be a legitimate illness? What's the craziest thing you've ever done after a breakup?
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How to keep your dignity after a breakup
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Friday 29 May
By Sher
I have suffered from this disorder twice. Thankfully, I recovered both times because life is too short to allow this bitterness to consume you. My ex husband cheated on me, and worst of all wouldn't stop cheating so we divorced. I felt a lot of bitterness for a long time, but I got over it after a year or two, and last year my ex took myself, our children and grandchildren and his girlfriend to Hawaii. We get along great now. I would never recommend him as a husband, but he is a pretty decent friend. I know that I could depend on him for help if I ever needed it, and we are able to enjoy our family together.
My second instance of intense bitterness occurred two years ago when I was displaced from a job I had for 28.5 years. I was not fired, but moved to a different location which was much farther from home etc. The girl who took my place was much younger and a favorite with the boss who had asked me to train her as my intern....little did I know. Anyway, that intnese bitterness lasted for about a year and there is some residual bitterness still, but I refuse to let it consume me.
I think this shoule be listed as a mental illness if someone is so affected that they cannot carry on their life activities, or they are intensely suicidal or homicidal after a period of time. I think it is normal to feel some bitterness after something like this happens, but if it goes on for a long period of time or if it is extreme, then it might be a mental illness like post traumatic stress.
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Friday 29 May
By Cheryl
I was divorced 10 years ago and it came as a complete shock after 20 years of marriage. I was deeply depressed as I think anyone would be. But it did not end there! My ex was an alcoholic and he apparently was so angry because I was awared the house, he tried to burn the house down with me in it on New Years Eve (the night we met). If my neighbors had not noticed, I would have died. Then 2 months later, he broke into the house as it was quite easy to do as we had a giant dog door big enough for a Great Dane and he came in and literally destroyed all my funiture, turned bookcases over and took a knife and made a big X in the middle of our bed. The neigbors saw his car with the fire incident but he was not seen with the other incident. The police questioned him but he said he did not do it and they let him go. I got over my depression real fast after that and I sold the house.
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Friday 29 May
By Clover
Worst thing I ever did to an ex...it was about a year ago...
Before he and I had broken up, I'd started on two paintings that were going to be his birthday present. Even after he broke up with me, since at the time it seemed as though we might still be able to be friends, I kept working on the paintings. Well, that little idea of he and I being able to be friends went to hell in a hand-basket after I had to go to his apartment to pick up some stuff of mine he'd borrowed. By then the paintings were very nearly finished, which left me with some hard choices:
1. I could finish the paintings and give him the paintings for his birthday anyway.
2. I could keep the paintings for myself.
3. I could give the paintings to someone else.
I really didn't like any of those options...keeping the paintings reminded me of him, but I wasn't going to reward bad behavior. So an artist friend told me I should burn them. When he said that, that's when I got the idea...
I finished the paintings, took pictures of said paintings, and then a picture of them burning. I then put the pictures I took into a plastic baggie and tucked them into a small envelope. I then poured the ashes into the envelope and mailed it off...just in time for his birthday. :D
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Friday 29 May
By ishkabble
These are not symtoms of a mental disorder! They're symptoms of STRESS. And the reason for it is the inability of the sufferer to kick the ever-living hell out of someone who desperatly needs it.
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Friday 29 May
By gb
Why don't you look into domestic violence if you want to take a
voyage into the high level of destructive and too often deadly
mental illness in predominantly males. Check your local paper
headlines any day.
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Friday 29 May
By suzi
Hey,
I had one guy that broke up with and asked for gifts back from me and said his mommy wanted them. After words he would leave flowers on my car and notes on my car where I work. He had another girlfirend this went on for about a yr til I informend him that if he did not knock his shit off that he could come into where I worked at the time, he could watch the surveliance tapes of him that we have leaving flowers and notes on my car, and that the store mgr would like to have a conversation with him. Now I realize that I fed him a line of BS because none of that was true but he did knock it off he did leave me alone and yes his girlfriend broke up with him.
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Friday 29 May
By MsUnderstood
Funniest thing I ever did over post-relationship bitterness was over a break-up caused by the endless machinations of my ex's client who would call relentlessly with animal emergencies day and night. My ex was a farrier, an expert in horse feet and gait and shoeing, and also trained horses--but wound up whispering a lot more than horses while I was working 12 hour shifts as a newborn intensive care RN. This woman befriended me and became a confidant before deciding to seduce my long-time lover (evil witch) and would even come to the home we shared (I learned from a family member who walked in on them in our family room) when I was at work and they would "use" MY furniture! What I did was empty close to half my ex's very expensive cologne (which I had recently gifted him with) and refill it to its previous level with my own urine. He never even noticed the difference! It was so fun knowing that she'd be nuzzling a lot more than that wonderful cologne scent, which he liked to put on his neck and other intimate places I know I always enjoyed lingering over. A few months later I informed them both of what I had done when we unexpectedly met at a social event I was attending with a much younger, much more handsome man. Her reaction was the best cure for any bitterness I had ever felt over her betrayal of our friendship, and my ex laughing at her as she ran for the ladies room was some of the best therapy I've ever received for free! Of course having Mr. Gorgeous with me didn't hurt either, nor did my ex trying for years to get back together with me. Yes indeed, revenge truly is best served cold.
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Friday 29 May
By Juliette
I came home one Monday from work to my now ex-boyfriend sitting on the couch, waiting to tell me he was leaving me to move in with another woman b/c she said he could live there for free. I'm 27, got a good job, great things ahead. She's in her early to mid 40's, divorced twice, multiple restraining orders from exes of hers, etc. I then came to find out while I was at home, cleaning up after his 4 year old twins after having them all weekend, doing laundry, cooking dinner, and getting his stuff ready for work the next day so when he got home from dropping the kids off at their mother's house, he could relax, he was actually cheating on me with the other woman. This had gone on for 2 months before he left. I definitely wanted revenge, and I knew had to get it. Just after awhile, I didn't need it anymore. The best revenge is going to be when his life implodes, and I'm not there to pick up the pieces for him b/c I've moved on to bigger and better things.
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Friday 29 May
By Laura
I carry my bitternesses with pride. I earned those badges. I'm not sick. I haven't committed revenge, but I DON'T forget. It's part of being human and being more than 13 years old.
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Friday 29 May
By Emanon
This is another example of the Mental Health Association trying to make up another mental illness. It's eather a budget or an ego issue with them. The mental health system needs to be boycotted. They are a medical fraud and need to be stopped in their 80 million dollar a year per county tracks. They are not to be trusted and are a threat to the well being of our nations health budget and everyones scence of self. They have turned every emotion into a mental illness. And have an excuse for everything they hide or deny.
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Friday 29 May
By Marilyn
If someone harasses you again and again, just whose mental disorder is that?
If anyone falsely gives information with the intent to humiliate, demean does that mean they have this embitterment problem?
Do you really believe everyone plays nice?
Perhaps everyone should get a psychology degree and be immune from what is now coined "embitterness" and be "above it".
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Friday 29 May
By BOOWAH
My ex and I fought for seven years, the last of which we were both having affairs. Unfortunatly I was willing to acnowledge mine and try to make a new start, while she refused to own up to hers. She continued to disappear all day every Saturday and lock me out of the house when she talked on the phone with her paramour. Finally i snapped and threatened her with bodily harm. She moved out 2 weeks later. Her leaving was a breath of fresh air. my anger evaporated. She was no longer mine and I was free.
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Friday 29 May
By Smokey
You know, all these wackos' had to exhibit some kind of possessive behavior while you people were going with them. There also had to be some people you could have probably talked to before you went out with them that could have told you what they were like. Also, the guy that had al the magazines coming to his house any time I got any kind of magazine that I didn't order I wrote and called them and told them I did not order this and i don't want it and I will not pay for it. The next one that came I just sent it right back. Yo contimue to do that and they will get the message. Also did you ever hear of people hainb signatures and hand writing analized and compared? Come onm when they got you to pay, they found them selves a real gullible person.
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Friday 29 May
By NEWT
By your definition I must be mentaly ill. Although I remaried and have children by a second marriage, even after 40 years I have never fully recovered from the first.
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Saturday 30 May
By Richard
QUESTION'S, & some of my own ans. For those of you for the most part, just starting out on life. Maybe you already have had some up, & down's in puppy love relationship's. Not knocking anyone's sorrow, to you it's as bad as it can get. Oh, big time wrong ! It can get so much deeper, and sadder. As time prevails, you find out the super star you saw your self as, was just your opinion. To me, 25 years of solid good times is not worth all the time it can take to emotionly evolve and be somewhere else.. This mental illness garbage can only relate to different strokes for different folks. Every body's different, and yet all the same. The degree of our pain, seperates each of us when it comes to out, & out mourning. I hate to admit it just to myself. How beyound being distraught I have known. No way, is it my image. I've had my act together in all way's, & had hundreds of gilrfriends, but the 5 women that composed sharing a life with. Have left me so bitter, and broken down, that my life is over. Now to sickly, old, and broke to brush it off, & start over again......
But please don't say I have mental illness, as when a wife of 24 years, 10 months 8 days goes to work and doesn't come home. You were just planning how to spend your silver annerversary. But instead in the course of the next week, you find out that you never knew the broad you were married to. The trash of a women had an affair during her first marriage with a high school sweetheart. Her second marriage, she aleast kept in touch. She was a converted Jew, to born again Christian. I felt tottaly safe ! and made a SERIOUS PROMISE I would be a good husband, & would always be there for her, no matter what........She suffered (supposedly) from depreshion her whole marriage with me, so I put her on the pedastil she always thought she deserved, and as the years went by, buying her two homes, so many cars, opening a new bussiness she just had to have....Little did I know (Mr. cool smart man) that for at least a decade that got rubbed in my face, she was doing this piece of s--- whose wife was dieing with cancer for years. Myself the last 6 years I have been extremely ill. unable to work anymore, and only now a disability check coming in, I was no longer an asset for her.
When she left, she took every penny with her except for 35.00 in a piggy bank. I had no car, a house full of new furniture, two pets. 3days before the rent was do, and all the bills. I had to spend 4-5 hundred a month for doctors, & RX's. We lived in a place that sent eviction notice just 5 days after the 1st. Call me what you will, but I couldn't think straight, my head had never been this blown. I had no fight left, and did not care.............My Spirtual beliefs, and my pet's, was the only reason I didnt down a million pain pills I have. I had to walk away from my whole house. A (slow brother) I have in another state started to beg me to come live with him. It was to live now under a bridge, or with the most annoying human being that exsisted..........My wife (x) I guess moved into a new condo in her name within 4 month's. She always told me her next car was going to be a BMW. He's fat, and bald, and is at least as sickly as I am, or even worse. He has dieabieties and can't eat. And can't stop passing gas continously. His kids (adults) are so pissed at him for not seeing his money is all shes there for..............Am I suppose to think I'm mentally ill, because I can't get over this after 7 months, am I ill as I take zoluft, and still hear her lies, and know she stole my last 25 years, and left me with no future.................I wsh I was ill, so ill I would shut down, and not be able to think, and feel anymore.
So young people who know it all, only a fool doesn't listen. I am not unique. This is life, if you already know your weak link is your emotions. I can't tell you what to do. Just don't be like me, the pay back is to extreme
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Wednesday 03 June
By Ty
I don't think this article would have flown at all in Italian or Spanish
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Wednesday 10 June
By bakermf465
I have been very bitter and angry over a cheating boyfriend. This guy had promised to marry me and said he would never leave me. So, when I got pregnant, I didn't expect his behavior to be the way it was. And I do think it made me sick. Suddenly, when I needed him most, he didn't want to be with me. I was angry then and when I found out he was cheating I was angrier.
But, the pain that I felt was so deep, it didn't go away for years. Probably, there are emotional scares left from that experience, too.
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Wednesday 10 June
By bakermf465
My recent breakup doesn't involve any bitterness. I guess because we went together so long, 10 years. I really still love him though, even though he wasn't doing right. That is probably why I will take him back. It is a llittle sick how I can't get over this guy. He doesn't beat me and I don't have to pay his bills, and he has sex with me as much as I want ans It is the best. So, those are the good points. I just wish he would chane--that's silly I know. Nobody is perfect.
But, I do think some bitterness is normal in certain circumstances. But, we learn from those experiences and we know how far to let things go with a significant other. Because certain behaviors push buttons and probably do trigger mental breakdowns. Such as, leaving you with a baby after promising marriage, or stealing from you, or violent behavior.
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Monday 20 July
By bob
My ex left me. I didn't much care, didn't chase, didn't beg. But when I started divorce proceedings she filled my boat (at dock) with over 300 gallons of water. It was a real mess and took days to empty and clean up. We are divorced now, but still sometimes I contemplate payback. But doing nothing, ignoring the impulse for revenge feels good and probably drives her crazy. I wouldn't piss on her if she was on fire.
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Tuesday 15 June
By Jennifer M
I think this happens quite frequently, and it's referred to as abandonment rage. Love and hate share similar nervous circuits in the brain, so people can often "switch" from one to another quite quickly. I think this explains why people do crazy things in the heat of the moment, when they fear they are losing someone they love. Additionally, it is often thought that this psychotic behavior after a break up is an evolutionary trait that allows one to "rage" at the lover who is causing them significant distress, thereby pushing them away and allowing the person causing the attack to move on to a more suitable mate.
That said, I think it is normal to react "psychotically" in the heat of the moment as long as you aren't hurting anyone. Screaming, crying, throwing things, etc. It definitely helps get the rage out, which is good for your psychological well being. But after a day or two, move on with your life. I don't think the stalking of the ex is necessary. Evolutionarily, they're totally wrong for you! Find someone new and better, because there is ALWAYS something better out there, you just have to be willing to find it!
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