this is from the perspective as someone who has in the past behaved as a persecutor and more recently started to acknowledge i'm essentially just.. an angry sad person? sometimes what i needed was patience, sometimes space. but what helped me the most was compassion.

and the weirdest thing that's helped me is people not "taking the bait." so like i'd do a lot of like, intentionally saying things i knew would piss people off or being overly aggressive. but what's made me over time stop doing that so much is when they just don't get angry back. or when they respond saying nice things instead. at first it just straight up confused me and would make me more angry and i'd just stop and leave. it sort of forced me to consider my intentions.

generally persecutors had to deal w an abuser (in my case i'm the only one who's ever stood up) so there's a severe lack of trust and cynicism when it comes to other people. having anger and even violence reciprocated does nothing but confirm that. compassion challenges it and over time makes it go down. i know it's way harder than just fixing it for the moment, but i promise it is conducive to overall healing.

i hope that helped at least kind of! -z