Hurt People Hurt People

"If you don't heal from what hurt you, you'll bleed on people who didn't cut you." – Tamara Kulish.

Have you ever felt like a lumpy piece of rag doll? Angry and depressed at the same time?

So hurt that all you want to do is hurt other people. You don't actually want to hurt them, you just want them to understand how you feel  or simply to have someone punished in the hope to ease the pain. A used, filty, torn rag doll.

Have you ever lashed out or did something horribly wrong to someone out of anger at yourself or someone else? The guilt afterwards which you try to suppress by convincing yourself that you were not wrong, they crossed the line by not understanding but you knew you were just punishing them for something entirely not their fault.

It's embarassing and hard to admit, but I've been there. Just like the lion from the story 'Androcles and The Lion'. A lion who roared at everyone because it was in agony from a thorn embedded in its paw, but too prideful and misunderstood to cry for any help. Or sometimes we don't even know we're in pain, not to mention what it is that's prickling us, causing much distressed and anguish. Not understanding why we are sad or angry is a different kind of suffering.

I'm not trying to find an excuse for my behaviour and I deeply regret my actions, but I certainly learned and grew up a lot in that phase. The most important thing I've learned is empathy. Now when I recognise a certain pattern of behaviour, instead of casting them off as a person with bad character or cutting them off as toxic and incurable, I'd pause and think whether there is any difference in their behaviour from the past or just simply ask them whether something is bothering them. 

I realised, many of us have thorns some point in our lives, and it takes love to give each other time and compassion for the thorn to fall off and the wound to heal or sometimes we really do need our Androcles, or be someone's to pry it off.

As the lion, we need to recognise and remind ourselves that people around us are not the cause of our pain. We need to be brave enough to get help, before our wounds get infested and we lose people or even ourselves. Sometimes the thorn fall off and we heal in time, but sometimes it sinks deeper and become part of us. Some people isolate themselves, thinking it would get better, but we may not; and from there, the bruised lion fell into the fate of being toxic and unreasonably savage. People can leave no matter how much they love us and it wouldn't be their fault.

Next time you sense someone dear being unusually agitated in a way that's hurtful to others or even themselves, take a step back and try to use kindness to soothe the distressed, you might just unknowingly pull out a sharp thorn. 

Hurt people hurt people, and sometimes it becomes a chain cycle, leading to a generation of entitled victims.

Thorns in human beings, not only do they hurt the flower itself, but like roses, they hurt the people who held their hands out and those who come too near.

(Pinterest)