I've been betrayed by a double agent, and I'm really fucking pissed. I actually have to class my anger as a 'mental illness' in my own mind, simply because it is an unhealthy, repeating loop. It is true. I was wronged... but that's not where it started.
First, I fucked up. My error put all those close to me into an ethical dilemma. It is within this space that I was betrayed, for those closest to me chose to stand against me, to alienate me, to separate my family, and to ensure the consequences against me were maximized.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
You see, I didn't realize that I had been betrayed, for almost seven months later... and I didn't know exactly who betrayed me, and how I had been betrayed, until after I read the police statements, some months following that. Even then, after I read the statements my 'friends' and 'family' signed, it took me some time to review personal messages, email, whatsapp conversations... to compare dates... and to reflect and re-remember events in light of the new knowledge - that these people were working as un-announced interrogators, and that our personal conversations were soon to become sworn statements.
These are people that I loved.
But clearly, love is blind. These people did not act as 'friends', and it is time for me to let these people go from my life.
This makes me profoundly sad and deeply hurt. The hurt wells up as anger, and the anger swirls through imagined conversations to point out the choices they made and the lifelong damage their choices have caused... I want them to tell me they are sorry, I want them to tell me they still love me.
'Love Not Returned,
Is Obsession'
But... all of that thinking actually IS the mental illness.
Not to say there is no truth. It is true. They actually are disloyal, back stabbing, traitorous associates and you would be wise to keep a light and impersonal distance from them... but my 'mental illness' is the looping repetition of thought about them and their devious rolls against me, and the futile thinking of changing their minds and hearts. For indeed, it is I who love and miss them - and it is me who must let them go.
Remaining angry is just a way of holding the past in an attempt to keep some part of if.
Instead, it it time to entertain other healthier, happier 'truths' of the world.