The problem with giving advice to angry and suffering people is that rather frequently the thing they need to know to improve their position is the last thing they want to hear and not something they have the capacity to internalize or accept
Unfortunate truths you can tell people that would help if they could hear what it means and not just what it sounds like
You were the victim, and it wasnβt fair, but itβs over now. Nobody came to save you, and Iβm sorry, but itβs too late for anyone to go back and do it different.
Youβre suffering over something that cannot be resolved. Youβre allowed to feel angry, or outraged, or betrayed, but there will eventually come a time that you donβt feel that so violently anymore, and youβre going to want to have something good left to go back to.
You canβt make anyone love you the way you need to be loved. Thatβs how a lot of good things end. Not with a clear sign, something blocking the road that says βdo not proceedβ, just a splitting of the path thatβs still moving somewhat in the same direction.
You canβt fix them. Nothing you can do will fix them. And if they fix themselves, they canβt do it for you- they have to do it for themselves as well, because otherwise a day may come when theyβre alone, and as long as they live, they are their only true constant. So you can support, and you can encourage, but the hardest part is up to them. And sometimes they canβt do it even with your help.
Sometimes letting go of someone feels like mourning at their funeral before theyβve died, and every time you see them after itβs like talking to a ghost that doesnβt know itβs dead. Sometimes that happens. Youβll both still wake up tomorrow anyways.
I understand that youβre afraid, and that youβre afraid for good reasons. And I understand that being brave isnβt as easy as just turning that fear off, and you would if you could in a heartbeat. But the thing is, as long as that fear is able to dictate your choices, it will have power over you. If you donβt believe you can try to fight it, if you accept that it will always be in charge, you let the frightening thing stay present in your life. It will exist as long as you stay paralyzed. And that sounds cruel, but it isnβt something anyone can fix for you.
The person you may let yourself become after experiencing the terrible thing may very well grow into a much bigger, much more terrible thing, and someday it will swallow the first terrible thing whole. And all that will be left is something far worse for someone else. And you will not be able to shrink it down by explaining where it came from, because terrible things that are dead and gone are never as terrible as terrible things that are alive right now in front of you.
No matter how much or how little I love you, I still do not have the ability to help you the way you need to be helped. I might be the helper you want, but I am not a helper you can get. If you are to be helped at all, you will need to accept that it will come from someone else.
If anyone goes out of their way to find this user and harass them, please know thatβs shitty behaviour and I will be deeply disappointed, but I think they really helped to underline number 8 in a way I wished Iβd known to consider of others years ago
So Iβve read the notes and the messages.
If you read this whole thing and found yourself angry, if you thought to yourself βI know that, and it doesnβt help. I know that, and Iβm still suffering. I know that, Iβve heard that, Iβve been told that before, over and over and over again, by people who arenβt listening who donβt understand, who donβt get it, and Iβm still hurting, still tired, still in pain, still suffering, and this isnβt something a handful of pithy words from some asshole who isnβt here and present and walking in my shoes suffering what Iβm suffering from can fix. I know all of this and it changes nothingβ, I want you to know:
Yeah. That was me, too. I sat at the bottom of a miserable pit that I didnβt even dig while a bunch of detached, emotionally unavailable jackasses who werenβt helping even a little yelled all this down at me, like just saying it hard enough or making me hear it as though I wasnβt already a hundred percent aware and still hurting anyways would magically solve all my problems and it didnβt. Like I was some whiny little rat with a victim complex looking for the easy way out and not the survivor of something awful doing their goddamn best to keep going, scraping by on the skin of their fucking teeth.
Every single note on this list is something someone told me at the exact wrong time, that made me want to scream and cry and smash a goddamn brick over their head because βI already know that, you fucking asshole, and it doesnβt change anything, so fucking help me or piss the hell off.β
Thatβs why I wrote the list.
Itβs everything I needed to know that I already knew, that only made me feel worse, and didnβt help me improve anything at all even a little bit until I experienced the exact right circumstances that made them click the exact right way and allowed me to say it to myself and feel only a sense of, βokay yeah, I get it now.β
Itβs not something I would ever directly say to someone in a time of crisis, but itβs all stuff I learned and needed to learn while I was that person.
You get what I mean?
The difference between knowing and internalizing, the difference between hearing the pain is temporary when youβve broken a bone and KNOWING the pain is temporary after its healed, is that you KNOW, but youβre still not done experiencing the part that makes it true and real and meaningful.
