I'm certainly not going to be able to sleep until I get this off my chest. I still feel like shit. So here goes.

Following yet another job rejection after I thought I had done so well and a really mentally draining week in my statistics class I was in a depressed mood. I felt bad in a way like I was melting or falling apart. It was really hard to be positive in any way, and I'll admit I was bringing quite a deal of negativity to the SB as I tried to keep myself from going crazy. (Yes I do have a prescription for my depression.)

So trying to make up with it by something I found positive and interesting, I posted a link to this video since I'm on a bit of a prehistoric animal bend right now. I got very little positive response, or any response at all except for one user simply stating that the narrator's voice was droning. I get frustrated at my failure here, and commented about it. Said user and another user that I don't always get along with (but is well-liked enough in the community and thus I feel obliged to respect them) then went after me for being passive aggressive, and I, feeling attacked, felt I had the right to defend myself. Apparently not, as it was pointed out how my behavior is recurring, how I was making everything about me, not being able to accept other people's opinions, and that I was not in fact being attacked. Maybe they were right and I was just being self-centered. I'm not sure I completely agree with the last one, as after growing up with a narcissist mother I really want to defend the legitimacy of my emotions whether they're "correct" or not. She pulled that "nobody is criticizing you" shit alot, and even now, I still feel she has point and I'm an overreacting little bitch. I don't know. I always do this shit wrong, and it always comes down me harder than I hammer. I try to be a mature person, but instance like this prove that I'm not. With all my therapy, with all my introspection, I never change. I never grow out of the immature little twat I am. It's been years, and I'm only slightly, ever so slightly better than I was when I was in high school.

I don't know what I'm looking for really, other than a little peace of mind. Whenever something like this happens I just cannot forgive myself. I really hate myself so much that any failure at all is the weight of the world on my shoulders and I feel I will be severely punished (possibly because with my history, I have) if I don't defend myself. What am I to do?

I'm going to be 100% honest first and I want to preface what I'm about to say with saying that this comes from personal experience with my own bad behavior, my own depression.I'm not going to be speaking specifically about certain people and situations you've been in but rather about consequences and the process of moving forward as a whole.

They're not going to stop punishing you if they know what you did. When you cross someone - even if you didn't mean to- they don't forget. Not for a long time, not for all the effort to change and grow you might put in. They might even dislike you forever no matter what you do. They want you to answer for whatever you did that upset or even hurt them. You don't grow to make other people treat you better. You don't grow to fix your mistakes. They won't. You can't. That vase has shattered and you're no expert at fixing vases.

The world is like ice sometimes. Your growth and knowledge that being a good person is not a default but instead a constant action has to be like a fire inside you. You're not doing it for who you've hurt. They deserve it, they really do, but you can't do it for them. You HAVE to do it for you and for those you're going to meet. I can never fix the relationships that have shattered in my past. They're not just markers in my life but in the lives of the other people as well. They ALSO have to want to heal and that's not something you can or should expect from someone.

Healing only can happen when you accept that what you did wrong defines your past and shapes your future. It created you. But you also have to realize that it's a mile marker that's behind you on the road of life. Each day you have the chance to be better. I have the chance to be less bitter. You have the chance to be less reactionary. But you have to take that. The road of life is a battle and you're fighting yourself first. My very best advice is never miss a chance to be kind and open, even when you don't want to. Kindness creates goodness and gradually erodes selfishness. It opens the path to maturity. This isn't a dead end road. If you miss a chance there's another fork right around the corner.

All you have to do is keep taking the path where you get to grow the most. If you find yourself participating in negative behavior you feel trapped in by other's opinions that you feel like you NEED to fix, accept that you can't. Step away. Go be petty in a word document or look at puppy videos. It's not just other people you treat badly when you participate. It's you too. Take yourself back from the things that hurt you.

A list of things to step away to: youtube channels Thagomizers (paleo stuff) and ChannelAwesome (tons of different movie and tv show mini-shows, I recommend Tamara's Never Seen and Nostalgia Critic), paleofail and paleofailexplained on tumblr, and this thing called pix2pix which is really fun to mess with.

Thanks. And you're a good writer.