I spent today's (and my previous) session cribbing about my work situation or specifically, a douchebag colleague's behavior.

Current T pointed out -- repeatedly, I'm embarrassed to say -- that my habit of letting loose my sarcasm in ways that are specifically meant to humiliate and demean said colleague is not going to go down well.

And, worse still, that if I were to put it in an email (as I'd intended), it would come across as aggressive and unprofessional.

She also asked me as to what I think the repercussions on my career would be if I kept giving in to my rather burning desire to rip apart people-who-irritate-me with my sarcasm.

I didn't have an answer really -- told her that I'd more or less done stuff like that throughout my life (grad school included) and I see I paid the price.

And, it's only recently I realized that it reminds me a crap ton of my super painful dynamic with my brother.

Talked (very) briefly about my father and how I've taken after him -- he was entirely unfiltered and lost his temper often at work (and home, but that's a different matter) and so, paid the price by having his career progression set back by the better part of two decades.

I then told current T that despite all my issues with my father, I feel (and have always felt) really sorry for him about this stuff -- he is one of the smartest (in a bookish way, yes) people I've known and the folks who got ahead of him weren't anywhere nearly as intelligent.

Current T then said that he made his choices and didn't figure out how to change his behavior and so, there's only so far that one can feel sorry for him.

We talked a bit then about my tendency to dismiss people as incompetent morons and how I find that people who think and process differently from me (E.g. my former therapist!) are incredibly infuriating i.e., I tend to go big-picture, need a few broad strokes and then mostly figure it out and move on; whereas, I often clash with people who think in what seems like a terribly linear (and in my not-so-humble opinion, plodding) fashion. They usually think I'm all smoke-and-mirrors and I usually think they're absolute dullards.

Current T tried to get me to see that I can stop thinking of such folks (problem colleague is one of them) as morons and instead just see that they process it differently.

But, at some point, I realized that I have way too much crap invested in maintaining that defense -- the memories and wounds go far back -- and I can't just switch out my thinking about it.

Time was up and so, didn't get into that.

She did though -- very helpfully -- give me very specific pointers / suggestions on how to deal with douchebag colleague (what to say under what circumstances and to whom). I'm not ashamed to say that I'm rather grateful for it -- I haven't ever discussed my tendency towards sarcasm / anger in professional situations with anyone else because the underlying issues always felt too painful and I didn't think anyone would "get it". Combine that with my being absolutely clueless about how I come across to people in these situations and well, let's just say, it's not been pretty.