Spotting a bitter person will help you cope with one.
Awareness of the signs of bitter person will also stop you from becoming one.
- Updated: January 19, 2021
Bitterness is both experiential and devastating to the bitter person. It does not really matter how much a bitter person has or own in life or how much the person has lost.
The negative energy they emit can be incredibly overwhelming. It could be a family member, colleague, or partner. Their behaviour could be quite unbearable at times.
It is important to be able to identify a bitter person when you come across one. This is to help you put your guard up against the effects they might have on you.
Bitterness is contagious.
You can browse through the following signs and see if anybody you know are categorised as a bitter person. You may probably have one or more of these signs. The sooner you know the better for you to circumvent the slide into becoming a bitter person.
1. Generalise things.
A bitter person will generalise things. They will put labels on everyone they come across while carrying their prejudices. They are awfully judgmental.
Yet, they are often not just angry with the individual who has wronged them, but whole groups of people. Someone who is bitter and world-weary is generally so as the result of one or multiple experiences.
They might feel anger toward all men, all women, all members of a particular profession, or a certain ethnic group. All because of an experience they have had with just one person.
Or they might just think that absolutely everyone in the world is out to get them.
They will often make sweeping statements that show they have judged a person or situation without bothering to try to understand the circumstances.
Making generalisations is a huge red flag of bitterness.
Sadly, they do not understand how this hostile behaviour of theirs could be extremely harmful to their own mental and even physical health.
2. Bear grudges.
We can get angry sometimes, but we usually will clear up the misunderstandings and arguments. They are then forgotten.
Even if two people may disagree on several things, they will not waste their energy by holding a grudge.
Those who are bitter, however, will find it extremely difficult to let something go. Even when everyone else has forgotten about it.
That is because they cannot let things go and move on. Instead, they become obsessed with their grudges and forever despise the people who have wronged them.
3. Dislike cheerful and positive people.
Angry people find cheerful and positive people annoying.
I have had bitter people ask me, “Why are you so happy?” or “Why are you so positive?” or “Why are you so optimistic?”
Probably because your positivity casts a spotlight on their anger and bitterness.
They are confronted by their own negative attitude.
This is not something they want to face up to.
If you try to cheer up a bitter person, be prepared for a hostile response. They choose to be bitter instead of being happy.
They tend to avoid naturally happy people and will ignore you. Otherwise, they may probably gossip about you to others. You have entered their forbidden territory, and they do not like it.
Bitter people want to crush your happiness. They want you to be like them.
4. Lack gratefulness.
People who constantly feel bitter believe that everything around them works against them. They feel cheated by life.
They will not express gratitude even if they have a great experience. This is because no matter how many wonderful things happen to them, they are always looking for shortcomings and things that can go wrong.
They will not express thanks for their family or friends, their home, or their job because there is still something wrong with each of these things.
Something or someone has disappointed them, and that is larger than their blessings.
5. Are jealous.
You can find this behavioural pattern in bitter people. They feel that the whole world is against them. They get jealous of other people who seem to be better off than them. Even up to the extent of undermining their success. Seeing someone happy will make them feel miserable.
There is nothing much you can do in such case if you are the target of the bitterness. Just keep your accomplishments to yourself and avoid sharing personal information.
Bitter people are jealous of others who they perceive are getting what they deserve.
6. Being vocal and always complaining and blaming other people.
A bitter person’s favourite topic of conversation is likely to be things that have happened to them. It really does seem they like the sound of their own voice.
They generally will not ask questions about your life and things that are going on with you. They just want to complain to you about what someone said to them, something that happened to them, or just the state of the world in general and how it affects them negatively.
Bitter people are constantly complaining about something. Nothing seems to be ever right in their life. It is always too hot or too cold. The traffic is always horrible, and the songs today are lousy. Their relatives are the most annoying people on Earth. There is always something that irritates them, regardless of the situation they are in.
Bitter people can hardly ever keep their bitterness for themselves. and will always seek attention. When they feel like life is treating them particularly unfairly, they want sympathy and reassurance that what they are feeling is justified, because deep down they know it is not.
They want everyone to know how unfair life is towards them. It sometimes appears as if they want people to see how miserable they are and to feel sorry for them. Their presence can be quite toxic when they are expressing their negativity.
They also will blame someone else whenever there are problems at work or in their personal life. They can easily shift the responsibility on others without even a second thought. It is always their partner, their colleague, their parents, their family, the weather, but never them. They have no responsibility because they claim to be the victim. Also, this person will not take responsibility for their angry, bitter emotions. They justify their blame-shifting with abusive language.
7. They are unable to accept advice and is resistant to change.
Although they love to complain and blame other people, they are unable to accept advice. If someone who genuinely cares about them tries to offer some helpful advice, they go on the defensive. Most of the time they may adopt an overly aggressive stance when they face the inconvenient truth.
They are blind to those people in their lives who care about them. They would rather focus on those that they feel are out to get them.
Bitter people are resistant to change. They have the hardest time changing things about themselves (if they wanted to). They often think that the world owes them happiness, and they should not have to change to grasp that happiness they want.
They think they should be the one getting the promotion or rewards or the things they want. Yet, they do not take the necessary action to change things to help them get there. They stay exactly where they are and fail to understand why things end up the way they do.
Afterthoughts
It is hard to deal with a bitter person. You would prefer not to be around them because their bitterness overshadows all the goodness in the day. They tend to be blind to their own emotions. This could be due to the deep-rooted hurt experienced in their lives, and they are bitter about it.
It is not easy to be emphatic towards an angry person as their bitterness is contagious. But you can be emphatic without agreeing with them. Stand your ground and stay positive.
Just be careful. Do not get swallowed up by their pool of bitterness. Do not become a bitter person yourself.
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5 Differences Between Anger And Bitterness