How do you get over frustration when something is stolen from you?

What’s the replacement value? Assuming these are losses that you can’t easily absorb, I’d like to send you something, and maybe others would to.

Matthew 5:40

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak also.

Did you call the police? I would. Let them question people and scare the shit out of the people who are evil thiefs. Or, set up a camera in your room and set some bait, entice them to steal so you can land their ass in jail. To get over it, well eventually time will let your angry feelings fade, that is if it does not keep happening. If it was a one time occurance I would say let it go, but if this is happening over and over again, something is very wrong. I mean they stole your tampons, come on. It’s annoying to have to spend money on those in the first place, and when you need one, you relly need one. That is just beyond mean.

it isn’t personal and try to imagine what kind of pitiful person lives their life as a thief.

I would move. in your situation. I had a tank of gas syphoned out of my car. I felt mad as hell. I went and bought a locked gas cap. Helped solved the problem.

You should report this situation to the authorities. Seems like you live in kleptomaniac community.

If something that I consider as valuable for me is stolen I will try to find it as hard as I could,spending/transferring the frustration to effort and desire to investigate. If there’s no other option and I can’t do anything I could then I will try to accept it and find a new alternative.

I understand your frustration and have felt the same way. There is a saying: Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me.

It has been a great life lesson for me when my wallet was taken from a car seat while I ducked inside a building to drop something off. It is now secured and hidden from view in order not to tempt anyone. I also left the garage door open while working in the yard one day, and someone took the door remote out of my car and a bottle of liquor out of my roommate’s. The garage door is now always secured and the car locked.

It can take quite a bit of time to get over the frustration, shock and a feeling of violation that those around you would do such things. It is even worse when one starts to mistrust everyone for one person’s actions (or possibly multiple people in your situation).

or you could focus all your suspicion and paranoia on one suspect only to discover in due course it was someone else all along.

@kevbo count me in, as long as it isn’t more than $50

Righteous indignation is a common response. A sense of unease and mistrust of the environment is only natural. That’s why people lock the barn door after the horse is stolen. Then they get a new horse. Of course, they wish they had locked the door in the first place.

I’ve lost things to petty thieves often. We live in the city. After a while we came to see it as kind of a cost of living in the city. I’ve lost a car—that was the biggest thing that was ever stolen.

From time to time I think about what people might take if they broke into our house (which has locks and alarms). Most of our stuff is old. What isn’t is the computers, and they should be backed up. They aren’t up to date on that, though. Well, I’m the fool if they get taken.

Anyway, they wouldn’t take much of value. We don’t have any old rugs or silver that might be worthwhile—if they could make off with it.

We’ve learned to take a philosophical attitude about theft. It happens. Not much you can do about it after it happens. Feeling bad about it doesn’t change anything. All you can do is try to prevent future thefts.

I know that the emotion of the events get you all angry. Unfortunately, the anger doesn’t help. Telling yourself that can help you get over it. But you still want to protect yourself against future thefts.

This is an example of why surveillance cameras are useful.

It is just the beginning of the school year and this will not stop unless something drastic is done. Odds are it is only a couple of people doing the lifting. I’d fight back early and hard.
I would label everything and start setting traps. Tell no one.

PM me if you want to more info.

Two thoughts occur to me:

1. If you can, adopt @mammal‘s attitude about “material items” in general. Living alone in an environment that has been doing downhill slowly, I’ve found myself victimized by a relatively few bad apples when I don’t keep everything locked up tight. (Since I’m predictably away at work most of every weekday and I don’t want to live with everything under lock and key all the time, I’m somewhat vulnerable to some theft activity.) I also lost a lot of household goods in my move to this house eight years ago, and because I was slow to realize that I’ve had to live with the loss. If you don’t have too-close an attachment to your “stuff” you can shrug off some loss as inevitable and not let it get to you too much. But that’s difficult to do!

2. Learn who you can trust among your associates in the dorm, and cooperate with them to watch out for each other in a sort of Neighborhood Watch. Once you start talking with others and sharing trust, you’ll probably find out in short order who the bad actors are, or they’ll just go away as they notice the community look out for each other. The thing is that probably 90% or more of the people you come in contact with wouldn’t dream of stealing from you, so once you all start to find each other and talk and watch for each other, the problems diminish and the thieves go elsewhere.

But I still recall the first time I had anything of value stolen from my unlocked car, in my driveway, in the middle of the day once: it’s like a kick in the gut. The second thought after that was, “I’m glad they didn’t decide to try the door to the house.” (It was unlocked, too.)

The sad thing is that you will have to keep things under direct observation or lock them up more and more now, and that’s a pain.

All of the above in terms of practical things but I’d “ggrrrrrr” whenever you think about it, get a punch bag (or bean bag), let it out of your system…go into a field and curse loudly…scream….hit your pillow… whatever works for you!

Thank you everyone. I’m actually already feeling better as the day wears on. No need to help me out financially. The total amound is probably over 600 bucks, but I was more frustrated that the community I live in is considered by lots of people to be safe and loving. Aka “christian.” I’m not really believing that anymore. :(

@Doctor_D is there really such a things as a “kleptomaniac community”?

The emotional toll this kind of theft takes isn’t easy to get over. I still mourn the loss of several personal belongings of my late dad that were stolen from my house 30 years ago. None ofit was worth much money, but the sentimental value was, and continues to be, irreplaceable. I still feel angry and frustrated to this day. The police said it was probably neighborhood kids.

Find a way to catch whoever is doing this in the act.

you have every right to be frustrated
put something valubale as a trap
watch it
catch them in the act

Wow I didn’t know this had happened to you! Did they take all the new stuff you bought when you were home after CedarS? I would go to Community Safety and let them know it’s happening. Also, if you see anyone wearing your clothes you can nail them then and there. Just keep a watchful eye out.

As for the emotional damage, I would say just realize that it was probably only a few people that stole from you and not the entire Prin community. I was just looking at this picture of all your housemates (it’s in your room) and I know all of them. From what I can remember, none of them would stoop low enough to steal your personal belongings.

Think of these two things: your mom (who just walked in the room!) loves you (and so do I) and if that’s true then how can you feel down? Keeping a clear thought about the goodness and integrity of your housemates is like building up good karma. If you’re thinking positively about them and the situation, your stuff will find its way back to you before you know it.

And, finally, on the practical side, your mom’s homeowners insurance might cover you even though your at school. When my Mac was stolen at Prin, my parent’s insurance was able to get me a new one with hardly any questions asked. That may be the way your belongings will be returned. Who knows?

Keep smiling honey!

If I can find and confront the thief I break everyone of their fingers.

Things that like infuriate me. Last year (i think), someone broke into our house and stole my favourite watch. It’s irreplaceable and i loved it. All i had to do was not think about it, because there’s nothing you can do about it. So, i just try not to dwell on it. If you can, just replace the stuff and move on. And try to make your stuff more secure…where possible. I say this because in some countries people are not all that used to theft taking place on such a large scale or so often, and so the thought of upping the security of your stuff just seems weird or something, but it won’t hurt to get used to it.

That would upset me. Once I had one of my heirloom crosses stolen from a bag of mine when I went to go change.So I just say’‘Well someone felt that they needed it more than I did’’. Hope that the person gets some help if they think its acceptable to be a thief and just ’‘take’’ things that don’t belong to them.