Try to avoid the prayer, "God, please help this person to stop being such an a**hole, so (s)he will stop screwing with me." As much as possible (and I know that it is difficult as all heck), offer a sincere, disinterested prayer to God for that person's well being.
I sometimes find that the only way I can pray for someone in a situation like that without being half-spiteful and filled with self-will is to separate my prayer from the situation entirely. Just pray that they will have a good life; pray that they will be happy; most of all, pray that they will find grace and peace with Jesus Christ. Go to Holy Mass (daily, if possible) and entrust all of your intentions to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts solely for their benefit. Say your favorite novena for them.
Most importantly of all, take all of the merits and satisfactions that accrue due to the patient suffering of this evil, place them into the hands of Our Lady, and ask her to use them as she will for the salvation of those who have done this.
Ha, I really understand what you advise. I have been praying for the specific people in this group (actually, the three/four individuals who seem the most troubled), that they can be free from whatever is influencing them that I feel is not from God, and at times I lapse into a very self-focused sorta' perspective, but I do feel at those points that I'm missing the larger picture...so I try to stop what I'm wrongly praying about (as I feel at that time) and then to regroup and contemplate and then I find that I pray for their behalf more than my own and that seems to be where -- as you suggest -- I ought to be going. Because, I was also thinking...well, it's not just me who is being adversely affected here, but many others, and particularly, these people who are acting in quite such dedication to their own egoism.
I don't write that out of a "get them" haughty tone but out of an acknowledgement that what they are doing and why is wrong. But they are proliferating wrongs and it's harming people, and, well...I guess you can tell I still have a ways to go here.
Thank you so much for praying for me and for the practical, perspectual helps.