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The word ‘bitter’ came up in some comments recently. All the time I’ve been out working this morning on my adobe project I have been thinking about this word and about its corresponding ‘state of being’ or ‘state of mind’.
Looking at the definition (see below) I see that the origins of this word are connected to BITE, and that the word has been in our modern Enlglish language for a long time (since before the 12th century). This is not a new word, and does not apply to some distant, remote intellectual concept or idea. I suspect that the feeling of bitter, and the experience of bitterness are primary and fundamental to the human condition.
I am trying to imagine at what age a child might be capable of feeling bitter. I can’t imagine that it is a feeling that is even humanly possible before the age of three, perhaps four. What developmental stages must a person have completed before the potential for feeling bitter becomes active-activated?
This looks to me to be one of those comprehensive emotions that involves thoughts as well as very real emotions in the body – as they are processed through the right emotional brain. It’s a tough one, one more than I can begin to comprehend today. I will just say that I am ‘thinking about it’.
This feeling and/or state of being is NOT one of well-being, joyfulness, or of peace and calm. It sounds like one that can eat a person up alive — like a cancer. I would guess that crashed hopes, disappointments, betrayal, perhaps retained childish fantasies of a perfect world, inability to tolerate ‘any more pain’, confusion about how to resolve conflict (i.e. ruptures without repair), along with a sense of powerless must all contribute to the complexity of ‘bitter’.
While I was working outside today before it got too hot and I had to retreat inside for shelter, I was thinking that this word, ‘bitter’, makes me think of ‘soul sickness’. Of course I don’t really, actually KNOW what soul is, I can’t make logical sense out of this idea that came to me: Bitterness can be healed through informed compassion and forgiveness.
It would seem to me that ‘bitterness’ would create such an imbalance within a person that vast amounts of life force would be removed from the actual LIVING of a person’s life because the life force would be all tied up in the dead-end condition that bitterness creates. Of all emotional states of being that I can imagine today, it strikes me that this one, feeling bitter, might be one that needs to be on the absolute top of the priority heap for removal and/or transformation.
Talk about a ‘monkey wrench’ thrown into the gears of a person’s ongoing life, ‘bitterness’ could do that. From an autonomic nervous system, and vagus nerve system, and stress response system perspective — bitterness to me would take its place when all other responses to trauma, threat, challenge (as well as growth) have proved inadequate and completely ineffective and useless.
The antidote to bitterness must be in taking actions connected to clearly identifying the ‘problems’ at the heart of the bitterness — and then finding active ways to try to gain new confidence, competence and ‘coping resources’ to be able to move off of the ‘stopped dead in your tracks’ state of bitterness that solves absolutely NOTHING.
I have been searching and searching inside of myself today trying to find any ‘sore spot’ within me where bitterness might lie. I honestly can’t find one — which is some ways amazes me — and makes me curious. How could I have experienced 18 years of terror and abuse as a child and NOT feel bitter? It feels like a miracle, a gift — something that was spiritually given to me that I take completely fore granted. I don’t think it’s something I avoided by myself! Which leads me today to realize how grateful I am for this gift, and how I wish to say, “Thank You” to Creation for its absence in my life.
It must be some kind of mercy that has been shown to me — and on a ‘soul’ level, I know it’s not something that I either earned or deserved. That’s what’s so special about gifts.
But this does not mean I am not vulnerable to ‘bitterness’ in the future. I hope I can pay attention, be wary and vigilant — so that if ever the tiniest shred of bitterness appears within me, I will be able to either root it out or pray it out!!
Bitterness is NOT ‘a keeper’! I am a big fan of things that are constructive (rather than things that are destructive). I don’t want bitterness in me, in my relationships, in my life. Perhaps I learned this lesson because of how SUPER bitter my mother was, and saw its potential for harming others. Maybe I was ‘helped’ to be free of bitterness myself because I SO DIDN’T WISH TO HARM anyone else — and as a side benefit, I don’t have to suffer from it either! Hey! That’s pretty cool!
(Maybe I see being bitter like being bored – a waste of time!)
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BITTER
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English biter; akin to Old High German bittar bitter, Old English bītan to bite — more at bite Date: before 12th century
1 a : being or inducing the one of the four basic taste sensations that is peculiarly acrid, astringent, or disagreeable and suggestive of an infusion of hops — compare salt, sour, sweet b : distasteful or distressing to the mind : galling <a bitter sense of shame>
2 : marked by intensity or severity: a : accompanied by severe pain or suffering <a bitter death> b : being relentlessly determined : vehement <a bitter partisan> c : exhibiting intense animosity <bitter enemies> d (1) : harshly reproachful <bitter complaints> (2) : marked by cynicism and rancor <bitter contempt> e : intensely unpleasant especially in coldness or rawness <a bitter wind>
3 : expressive of severe pain, grief, or regret <bitter tears>
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In case there are readers who are unfamiliar with my ‘story’, here are some links to read (warning: may trigger):
*AGE 6 – FIRST GRADE — NIGHT ON THE STOOL
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Stop the Storm 
I can reflect back to when I was around the age of six I can honestly state that I was a bitter, hurt and rejected child.I knew that I wasn’t my mom’s favorite, actually I knew I was actually hated by her.I wasn’t a boy, I was the second girl and because of my mom’s emotional immaturity she couldn’t accept the fact that it was out of her and my hands.So, I was the scapegoat, I was the stupid useless child.” Helen the teachers have come to the conclusion that you will never make it through high school because you have no friends and you never smile…. why don’t you smile ?” ” Helen the teacher says you daydream all day long, what the hell is your problem?”My father often stood by my mother’s side as she belittled me.My self esteem was nil.My siblings were starving for attention and so they followed my mother’s lead in order to gain or keep her acceptance – they actually physically and verbally attacked me at school. My sister would often spit at me, call me ” Gerry Lewis’s kid”, my brother would grab my breast,make fun of my hair. So, with my head hanging low at my chest I spoke to no one, I did not participate in school or sports.I can recall an incident on the school bus, I was six. I remember always sitting by myself, ( I was the least liked kid in the school) – so if anyone sat next to me it was because there weren’t any spots left.I remember one girl sat next to me and then a spot became available and she quickly jumped for it.My face started to feel hot, my hands grew clammy….I was enraged and tired of being rejected.I grew bitter, I grew hostile and despondent.My personality evolved into a sad, despondent, bitter women.Children can feel bitterness.Children can feel helplessness…..
I think by the age of six I knew that I had to find my inner strength, grow a tough mean exterior and battle my “war”, the war was my childhood.I knew that when they discharged me from the hospital ( my ribs were broken) that I was leaving a sanctuary – I was back in the war, I lived with my enemies.I survived bites, pinches, smacks, spitting, belittling and as I progressed further into my “childhood” I grew bitter, and hard like a soldier – a little soldier with a traumatized face.Now war’s over, I’m still ready to fight, run or freeze….my survival skills are useless
Hi Helen – Just to let you know I am marking these comments to come back to them – am flying home 5:30 tomorrow this morning — things are still crazy – be back with you once I am settled down – thinking of you!!!!! So glad to read your words….. Back soon!!!
I recognize bitterness as a choice when there seems to be no other. Bitterness is a state of paralysis. You can only free yourself from it by building your strength to face the pains of the past and move forward without fear. Some sadly never escape it’s shackles.
Beautifully said! Thank you. I think this level of ‘choice’ is very near the choice to survive itself.
what about the people who are bitter? what can they do to not be bitter and hurt?
Hi there – You ask such excellent questions — and I will get back to you tonight or tomorrow. I have to think about this – certainly not simple questions — and don’t have a simple answer.
Right now I am thinking about the difference as I experience it between the feeling of the whole range of hurt at any age – a very real feeling and emotion in response to wounds and injuries. At this moment – I think bitterness is an ‘adult’ state – I can’t remember it from my childhood. Hum — gotta make some guacamole and think about this! Thanks for asking!! – Linda
A sentence came into my mind: “I brook no bitterness.” It might seem odd, but looking up ‘brook’ as a verb in online Webster’s dictionary, the roots of this word go back to this —
Middle English brouken to use, enjoy, from Old English brūcan; akin to Old High German brūhhan to use, Latin frui to enjoy
In essence, I evidently do not feel bitter because I don’t enjoy it. It is not something I can ‘use’ — it is not useful to me.
There are as many individual detailed variations in differing experiences of life that can lead people into a state of bitterness as there are people who have these experiences — and ALL are truly different. While abuse shares common characteristics, individual reactions to it depend on so many things. What is important to me is that we begin to become clear and honest, let go of denial that keeps us from knowing the truth — and that if at all possible we find safe ways to talk about our histories with safe people.
In my case, the abuse I suffered from my mother was so severe, so chronic, began so early and lasted so long I never knew five important pieces of information:
– I didn’t know my mother was nuts
– I didn’t know that what she did to me was wrong
– I didn’t know that I wasn’t as bad as she said I was
– I didn’t know that I didn’t deserve what she did to me
– I didn’t know there was any other way for me to live in the world
I had no point of comparison. I had no outside information. Even though the life of the family went on ‘as usual’ around me, I never was angry that I was being treated so badly and the other children weren’t, never felt sorry for myself, never wondered about what was happening to me, never imagined anything could be different. I had been ‘programmed’ by abuse and for abuse from birth and never knew anything different.
In the end, I think this state protected me from bitterness in my adult life. I didn’t believe I DESERVED anything else. I didn’t ever think my mother (or my father) could be different.
Looking at bitterness as being very, very different from the fact of hurt and of the feeling of the hurt, I would say from my own very particular point of view that IF and WHEN someone can feel bitterness about abuse that has happened to them, they can experience that state because they had a whole lot more information about these things I just mentioned than I ever did, and a whole different KIND of information than I had during the 18 years of my childhood.
As an adult I was still somehow spared the experience of bitterness. I honestly don’t believe that I had built into my body-brain the kinds of brain-mind and nervous system patterns and connections that would allow me to feel bitterness. I have wondered if I MUST or need to feel anger at my mother (my sister feels it for what our mother did to me). I am almost 59, and if I don’t feel that anger now, why bother? In this recent post I included what I just found out about my mother’s death:
https://stopthestorm.wordpress.com/2010/08/07/urging-informed-compassion-for-our-abusers-and-link-to-my-baby-book/
I believe in informed compassion. The more I understand what happened to my abuser to change her earliest development so that her own life was destroyed, the more I see — that no matter HOW severe her abuse of me was, her treatment of me was just ONE symptom of her sickness. It permeated her life since the time of her own birth and got worse and worse until her death.
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So, I guess I must say that I don’t have enough personal information and experience with bitterness to speak of it ‘for’ anyone else. I say I don’t have the capacity to feel bitterness at the same time I DON’T say that I make the choice not to feel bitter — any more than I chose to have my blue eyes. It is entirely possible that the ability to choose to feel bitter or not was stolen from me by the abuse I suffered as my body-brain formed during my abusive infant-childhood. But in this case, I feel fortunate — and I feel spared.
It COULD be that people who DO feel bitter — because they CAN feel bitter — have a certain ability that I do not have. At the same time do these people have an ability I do not have to CHOOSE to feel bitter or not to? From my viewpoint I would think that bitterness is like deadly quicksand — and why stay in THAT if there’s any other way OUT? That would seem to mean that the abuser is still abusing — long, long after the actual abuse has stopped.
I certainly know what hurt is. I had plenty of opportunity to exercise that ‘state’ growing up abused. But I did not have the opportunity to exercise the state of bitterness — as far as I know. But my guess is that the more internally honest and vulnerable a wounded person can allow themselves to be the more their bitterness might transform into something else as the hurt heals – slowly, with lots and lots of scar tissue. (It is important to me that I clarify that I do not have a history of sexual abuse — that I know of. I cannot speak AT ALL about that hurt, though I can about most other forms infant-child abuse can take.)