What do you do when you just can’t seem to rise above a painful experience?
(Many parts of the following question were redacted to honor privacy. The gist is true.)
Dear Auntie SAM: Please help me.. I can’t get over things that happened to me that were beyond my control & I hate that the people who hurt me get to live life and I can’t… it’s not fair .. the hate suffocates me. I don’t know what to do … Please help me.
Something awful happened to me once. Then a year later, on the same date, my Dad died. The following year ? Something awful. And this repeated until I grew a genuine phobia about that date.
That date I can’t remember today.
Oh, I know generally when my father died. Around my birthday; something lovely.
But the rest ? Just fell away … not like stardust. But like things you wouldn’t even bother to name.
Things you wouldn’t bother to name haven’t earned the right to suffocate you.
There are bad people in this world. Born every day. These people cannot connect with humanity but they can exploit it.
Sometimes a genuine person encounters them. The genuine person assumes the best; the bad person knows that. Of course things turn out badly … for the person with the soul.
Mostly, however, the people who rend our hearts are genuine people. People we like (maybe liked) & whom we thought liked us. This makes „getting over things“, as you write, difficult.
The Devil is easy to dismiss. Our neighbor? Not so much.
First: „fairness“, Darling … who knows what that is ? „Fairness“ is a concept we developed as children. You cried when your sibling got the larger piece of pie because it violated some part inside you that scientists say even monkeys recognize.
But. As much as we love hard, firm bananas … you & I … we can do better than that.
We can leave „fairness“ for the gods. They created the concept; let them clean it up.
Here, on earth, what we really must contend with is the fact that we must co-habitate with people who sometimes (quite often) simply do not care about your tomorrows.
And all your tomorrows is why I’m writing.
They’re yours.
The people who hurt you can’t touch them anymore.
And so we start from here. Your tomorrows are yours. They’re yours to bathe in; to enjoy. But how does one get from here to loving your tomorrows ?
By loving the people who hurt you.
I know this sounds radical. But love is always magical. Transforming, even. So, if you can’t trust me; trust it. You found yourself in a relationship — with someone you trusted — a co-worker, a friend, family, a lover … Egal. Through a series of unfortunate events, things soured.
When this happens … and it is in the nature of some things for this to happen … the best we can do, in your Auntie’s surely drunk but accurate opinion, is to narrow our eyes.
See things a little clearer. Did the person who hurt you invest much in your future ? No ? Then, of course they hurt you. Yes ? Then this’ll sting like a Queen Bee at a Chanel No. 5 counter, but:
You still gotta love them. In fact, you gotta double-down on love. Accept that whatever happened is what they needed to feel good about themselves. Accept, too, that it was wrong & you need better. Then, let them go. So you can walk away.
When you love (i.e., want their happiness as much as your own) & also recognize that what they want is/was toxic for you, you can let them go. Their grip on your wild & precious, broken bleeding still beating heart will fall away. Like something we need not name.
That’s love. Accept it, then use it. Real love is excrutiatingly powerful. It will even protect you from those you love.
So all your tomorrows can allow happiness in.
You can do this.
XO
AS
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