My daughter sent this quote to me today with a heart saying “This is you, Mom.”
It made me realize how much trauma this little girl in the picture had for a lot of her life. Things that were not talked about until years later after the damage settled in and the tendency to placate, peacemake, and isolate were deeply ingrained.
These trauma experiences not only shape our personalities but how we respond to pain, threats and criticism. To some, it makes us crave safety when feeling threatened. Fight or flight.
This little girl found out the hard way that life is harsh sometimes. That no matter how hard you try to make someone care or give you what you need; you can’t change or control others. So you choose to either be hardened and mad, or you become a peacemaker and sometimes a bit co-dependent on others responses, reactions and emotions.
We all have to move past the challenging parts of our life but a lot of times we are continually criticized for our survival methods all while criticizing others for theirs.
“Everyone is always doing the best they can” rings true everytime.
Some might respond that this doesn’t excuse poor choices and behaviors of how people are treating you. Of course not. That’s where personal boundaries come in. We don’t need to condone abuse or harassment but we can certainly try to understand the reasons they are happening.
Someone who displays narcissistic tendencies of gaslighting others, trying to control them, or outright slander, blame and vitriol; need to be treated with strong boundaries of distance, gray rocking or no contact. But we don’t need to treat them with disdain and hatred back.
I recently heard my co-worker tell a patient,
“You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself.”
I always think it’s funny when people say that, because how else do we learn positive, deeply fulfilling, transformative changes if we don’t have interactions and experiences with others?
Of course that’s usually with romantic love.
With other relationships, especially high conflict ones; those of us who are caretakers by nature (and unfortunately by {non} nurture— have to reserve our emotional energy for the things that we can be most affective with. Trying again and again to please someone who cannot heal enough to “ be pleased” is a beating-head-against-brick wall nightmare.
As for me and that little girl, I know how far she’s come and I know her heart. I can’t let recent events devalue that and cause me to question my very existence.
Luckily opinions are not facts~they are just opinions.
I have to keep loving and hoping for good things, all the while acknowledging just how many blessings I have.
