Repressing Instinctive Anger

How can one reasonably repress the instinctive need to lash out when hurt, to tell a person how badly they disabused you, how completely inaccurate they might be about you?  When someone cuts to the quick and draws our private blood of the soul, we want to reciprocate with hurts to their being, just as fierce, just as painful, just as damaging and hopefully, come out the "winner" which of course makes no sense at all and never brings true satisfaction.  Yet we do this all the time.  There must be a better way, a more civil method of curbing the urge to strike out when struck.

I recently became the victim of such an outpouring of criticism, done under the protective guise of the word "constructive".  Though so much of it was inaccurate to my way of thinking, surely these horrors must've originated in some factual base, for my torturer was positive and steadfast in their belief they were right, I was not.  Being told you are "self-delusional" unless you embrace the beliefs of another is not just specious, it also hurts.  The psychic damage may take several introspective, meditative sessions before one returns to self-possession, self-assurance.  How is it that we allow others to utilize such power over us, a power we invest trustingly and perhaps with naivete but nonetheless sincere.  Perhaps it's time to stop sharing ourselves with those who can hurt us.  But how to recognize the sadist behind the sympathizer?  Their disguise is so well crafted!  Point, how do we suppress the urge to repay hurt with more hurt, how do we stop the cycle?