If there’s anything that I want to change about how I deal with my everyday stressors, it probably has to be the bad stuff I can sometimes say in the moment when I’m venting to a third party. I can pretty much always hold my tongue around a person who has offended me, and I try cooling myself before seeing the offending party again, so I typically don’t hurt the person who has hurt me in their face. But all hell breaks loose when I’m talking to another family member or friends about the hurt that someone may have caused, which usually involves calling someone a nasty name, emphasizing their negative qualities, or falling into the “recency” trap, where I filter out all the person’s positive traits, or the friendship/love they provided me and concentrate only on the hurt they caused in the moment.

At first I thought it was just a temporary thing that would be a quick fix even after this problem arising from several years of enduring manipulation from fake friends, spawning feelings of resentment towards people in general. But now I am starting to feel guilty about some of the unnecessarily crappy things I have said about others in the moment while venting to my best friends about my problems, especially when I recently harshly criticized a friend behind his back while talking to my folks about a tough week in school due to his failure to complete his part for a project I am leading, and when have even called family members disgusting things when I’ve vented to my friends about any hurt or offense they may have caused.

What can I do to prevent myself from speaking badly of others behind closed doors, so I can reduce the likelihood of actually criticizing or insulting the offending party in person?