“My family raised me to understand that acting out vis-à-vis such emotions would have been both wrong and unforgiveable. If that sounds simplistic, sorry.”
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I don’t necessarily disagree with the idea behind that reasoning, but it wouldn’t have been satisfactory for me, at least.
It can be done, as I did it - it wasn’t emotional at all, I planned ahead to flatten a bully, even if it had to be a sucker punch. It was cold and calculated - not in a psycho way, but just not caught up in the heat of a moment. If it further fisticuffs were to follow, so be it - at least the guy would know I would dish it back.
I flattened a high-school bully in an ambush attack - in front of his friends. I knew the price I was going to pay. They kicked and beat me until the school staff intervened. I hit back the whole time.
But "nobody saw nothing". And the bully never approached me again. Nor did his friends. A "one-time payment" is all that it took.