Passive-Aggressive Passive-Aggressiveness Of Doom and Wonder

After being told I'm borderline psychotic by someone I care for dearly, I was told (two days later) that "We need to work on our communication skills."

WE. Need to work on OUR. Communication skills.

After I overcame that stage in my life wherein my response to stresors was automatically bursting into tears, hyperventilating, screaming (or attempting to scream) obscenities with every breath of air I could manage, and throwing, hitting, and kicking whatever or whomever had set me off or got in the way of my tantrum, I decided to try the whole "walk away from the argument until you're rational enough to sort out the issue like a responsible adult" thing.

Problem is, walking away is hard to do.

First off, you have to know EXACTLY how much time to take. YOU need to catch your breath. YOU need to get all your frustration out in a way which is harmful to no one, but especially to yourself and to the person who pissed you off beyond all reason, because you probably shouldn't further damage the relationship by going off on your mutual friends or, I don't know, posting passive-aggressive Facebook statuses or blogs or something stupid like that. YOU need to get your head in order enough that you can analyze the situation, including everything YOU did wrong, everything THEY did wrong, and anything BOTH of you can do to actively ensure those mistakes don't get made again.

And then you need to know how much time it will take the other person to do the same thing.

This is probably the most complicated part of the whole "walking away" thing. You, as a human being, are (more or less) aware of how long you'll need to cool off from a heated debate, but it's a much more difficult measurement to make as it pertains to the brain of another human being. I may need a hour or two to cry and sob and scream and meditate and analyze, but you might need to play video games for 6 consecutive hours before passing out, and then not talk to the person you're mad at for a week or more.

I don't know. I'm not you. You do what you've gotta do. I'll try and respect that.

But that "trying to respect your need for space" thing is really difficult when I've sent you multiple messages over several means of communication over the course of several days and don't hear back from you, but your Facebook profile is choc-full of posts about how much fun you're having with my ex and this criminally-adorable spritely little thing I used to hang out with at school.

(Also, if you're feeling guilty about the negative repercussions of something you did that badly affected your "friendship" with someone else, maybe you should, I don't know, apologize and admit you were being a selfish ass at the time instead of buying that person a fancy sword and pretending that makes everything okay. Also, I'm worth more than a sword. Trading a sword for Fantasticness is a losing deal, thank you very much, and I'm offended. Also, I'd kind of like to see it. Because, you know. Swords.)

It's not that I don't want you to have fun. I'm glad you have a life. I'm really glad you're trying to be a decent person and make amends for your past transgressions; that's really admirable. Most importantly, I'm glad to no longer be the thing in the way of your friendship with someone else.

But I'd like to hear directly from you that you're still pissed off at me instead of hearing indirectly through Facebook how happy you are hanging out with other people while you ignore my texts, IMs, emails, and private messages.

How difficult is it, really, to text "Hey, I'm still pissed and you need to leave me alone a bit longer."

For someone who says "We need to work on our communication skills," you do a fan-fucking-tastic job at not communicating.

Just saying.

Back on task, now, the most important thing when dealing with a fight, even after walking away angry to give yourself time to cool down, is not walking away so far and so effectively that the issue can never be resolved.

Going to bed angry is bad. If the world ended in the middle of the night, you will have spent your last conversation name-calling and your last moments of consciousness bitterly begrudging how much of an ass your partner-in-frustration is.

But going home angry is worse, because now there's all this anger, bitterness, frustration, multiple dwellings' worth of walls, those three or four or more doors you slammed on the way out, and 2461 miles of distance separating you from making amends.

And apologies and mediation don't ever work over the phone or internet.

The distance between myself and my partner-in-craziness is currently 2461 miles.

Exactly.

My issue at the moment is how much of this is me being psychotic and clingy (I am a bit on the co-dependent side, for sure, but I've never actually been diagnosed with any mental disorders, in case you were wondering) and how much of this is two grown adults throwing temper tantrums? You know, "You hurt my feelings so I'm not talking to you" bullshit.

How angry am I? Do I have a right to be this upset? Is my current frustration rational? I'm really not sure of anything, except that the more times I see these "Oh, you're so much fun to watch Moulin Rouge/play Munchkins/geek out with!" posts, the more angry I am.

Especially since you could literally be killed on the job every second of your job, and these are the only bits of info I have telling me you haven't kicked the bucket yet.

I dunno, guys. I'm at a loss. I'm torn between wanting to cut my losses and stubbornly refusing to call it quits because I believe that all relationships can be fixed.

Hell, three years ago I called of a relationship with another person due to an insurmountable difference of opinion, and we just started talking again. It might take time, but IT CAN BE FIXED.

But is it worth it to wait out the storm?