learning to be hurt

[jenny]

i'm in this time in my life where i'm learning how to do something i think everyone else already knows how to do: just being hurt. not mad, not vengeful, just full-on hurt and sad. i think people like me ingrained in multiple and bizarre defensive tactics have a ridiculously hard time with this simple concept.

 

with a counsellor, i'm working through some stuff in my upbringing, and he had this breakthrough (more or less for me, but it makes sense) of just being hurt and owning vulnerability as a strength. i feel ashamed to admit it, i want to make it a joke, i want to do anything not to feel this powerless. it makes me want to go back to very destructive habits and friends, which i am determined not to do.

 

anyone else struggle with this thing that everyone else seems to get naturally?

[midori]

I think that struggling against hurt, by being angry for example, can be a healthy thing if it doesn't get the better of you.

 

No one wants to feel helpless in the face of insult or injury. And I've found, over the years, that the most satisfying and powerful way to handle hurt is to speak to the person who has hurt you. Sometimes, obviously, it doesn't work. If the person is a coward, or a callous jerk who doesn't care that they've hurt you, they cannot or will not be able to face you and deal with the hurt you're laying at their feet.

 

But when that happens, your hurt might flare up all the more at first but you'll probably find, as I did with a couple of ex-boyfriends, that then the hurt diminishes rather quickly, because you realize that the person who hurt you is really not worth what you'd invested in them. "you always hurt the ones you love," is a truism because we have the greatest capacity to hurt the people who trust us, and care about us. A complete stranger's rudeness matters a whole lot less to me than if my flatmate seems pissed off at me, or if my boyfriend is distant and uncommunicative. Strangers don't matter. Friends and loved ones do.

 

Real friends will hear you out and they will care that they've hurt you. And often it proves to be a big misunderstanding, and you come out of it feeling much better. Demonstrating that you trust someone enough to display your hurt to them and ask them to explain it can help you deepen the relationship.

[2SidestoStories]

Jenny love,

 

I personally don't think this comes 'as naturally' as you'd like to think. I also have a hard time being just plain hurt, but my defense mechanism is more likely to be "I'm the strong one here! This doesn't hurt me at all!" I have a difficult time with crying. I sometimes wish I could just let it all hang out and sob hysterically, because there are times that I honestly feel like I desperately want to. I don't know if for me it is so much thinking it is a sign of weakness as it is a habit of mine to put other people's needs ahead of mine most of the time. (This is why it was so huge a deal that I actually DID leave my horrible relationship, though I honestly think that were it not for the children, I might not have left when I did, if ever. Scary thought, that.)

 

I understand what you mean, but again would guess that it's not as uncommon as supposed. I wish you luck, and if you happen to come up with any great tactics that you're able to share, I for one would like to hear them!

[yes]

jenny, thanks for bringing this up - it's nice to hear i'm not the only one! perhaps not so much on LS, but in person, i tend to brush off my feelings in general, and especially hurt. i laugh it off, or replace it with anger, or more likely analyze it to death - anything not to just sit there and feel like crap, helplessly.

 

what my counsellor taught me to do and what has helped me let myself feel whatever i'm feeling and not try to control and redirect it is this: just breathe, and shift your center of attention to your chest, rising and falling; get our of your mind for a second, listen to the body, to the breath... let it be - be like a tree, which doesn't judge its own feelings. if you cut a tree, the 'blood' will simply flow out... there's no judgement or analysis, it just IS like that. it's hard to describe in typing....... did it make any sense to you?

 

good luck,

-yes

[Thinkalot]

Hi jenny. I tend to analyze my feelings to death, as a response to feeling hurt or pain. I don't get really angry very often, I am way too soft and sensitive for that. I don't act destructively either. But I will obsess, and ruminate on the whys and hows and whatifs of a situation in a bid to unravel and understand it, as though that will ease the pain somehow. But it doesn't.

 

Basically, I do know how to feel hurt and feel pain now. It just is. You just accept it's prescence for a little time. Don't fight it. Feel it, acknowledge it. It's human. It's real. It shows you can feel deeply. It's OK, and nothing to be embarassed about. It's part of experiencing the full spectrum of life. I tend to meditate now when I feel sad. That way I allow myself to feel sad, but find comfort in knowing things will be OK, and that higher powers out there will help me through.

 

BUT don't just feel the hurt for too long, because you don't want to wallow in it either!! It's a fine line to draw really. After a while, get mad, get inspired, or whatever, and move past it. But let it be and come out for a little while first, so it doesn't find a place inside you to hide and fester.

[WWDDFD]

Everyone I know hurts me. I was brought up to be a kind and giving person, but everyone else in this ****ing country was brought up to be a selfish bastard (yay capitalism!), so I get used and used and used.

 

my friends and family owes me over $12,000 now. I will never see any of that money.

 

Women take advantage of me, my friends take advantage of me, my publisher takes advantage of me, my family takes advantage of me.

 

It hurts so bad, but I continue to do it. Why? Because I'll feel even worse if I give in and just become a greedy selfish bastard like everyone else.

 

 

I wish I had a solution to hurt, but I don't. My solution is isolation and I don't like it.

[Thinkalot]

It's hard not to become bitter sometimes, and it's hard to give without expectation too.

[yes]

i think there's a line between being a selfish bastard and letting people use you. you don't become selfish if you protect yourself. if someone owes you $ and asks for more, simply ask them to pay you back the first amount before asking again. it's self-defense. i mean - you wouldn't let someone beat you just cuz you don't want to hit back, right? you hit back cuz you're defending yourself. same deal with non-physical situations.

 

my 2c,

-yes

[jenny]

thank you to everyone....

 

i love this tree metaphor; when i begin to panic i want to think of free flowing sap; it just is. it's ok. it's ok...

 

with no relationship, i feel like a non-person, but that whole 'stop and let it feel' thing makes me feel real again - thank you so much. chest is moving, i am breathing. this did not kill me.

 

it also really helps to know other people have felt this and moved on; g-d thanks.

[midori]

Originally posted by jenny

thank you to everyone....

 

i love this tree metaphor; when i begin to panic i want to think of free flowing sap; it just is. it's ok. it's ok...

 

with no relationship, i feel like a non-person, but that whole 'stop and let it feel' thing makes me feel real again - thank you so much. chest is moving, i am breathing. this did not kill me.

 

it also really helps to know other people have felt this and moved on; g-d thanks.

 

jenny when I first posted my reply I didn't know that you had just broken up with your fiance. I've been there -- 3 years ago my ex-boyfriend broke up with me over email from thousands of miles away, because he'd been too chicken to do it when we were together the week before, when I'd gone to London to meet his ailing mother, because he and I were going to be getting married. Or such was my understanding.

 

It's a long road ahead of you, and you will undoubtedly go through different phases of anger, etc. People sometimes liken it to going through grief, but I think that's somewhat misleading. Will you grieve for the life you had planned out, the loss of things you believed in? Sure. But what you feel towards your ex, and of course I don't know the details of what happened, but it sounds like this hit you from out of the blue, will be very different. I can admit, 3 years after that blow came, that I still have a sense of schadenfreude where my ex is concerned. I used to care about him, I believed certain things to be true -- that he was a good person, that what he had imposed on me was the result of complicated, deep-rooted problems which were beyond his control to some extent. That he didnt' mean to hurt me. I rationalized my pain, so that I could justify it to some extent, and not despise him. I didn't want to despise someone I'd loved so well. But over the course of the last 3 years he has consistently shown that he is not a good person, that he will act always in his own interests no matter who gets hurt or how much they get hurt. He's a deeply selfish person. A deeply selfish person who hurt me.

 

My getting hurt was the result of bad luck and also my own blindness. Friends of his that I myself became friends with repeatedly warned me about him, nothing blatant, just "you know he's not really the kind of guy you want to be in a long-term relationship with." I thought they were jealous of his career and success. My friends and family were never particularly impressed with this guy. Oh sure, they were interested in him for my sake, but none of them were enthusiastic. My parents would have been reluctant to welcome him into our family. They didn't take me aside and warn me, but if I'd been paying attention I would have seen that they had doubts, and I would have seen that they had good reason to have doubts. Long story short, I am somewhat repsonsible for all of the pain I felt. That was hard to face.

 

But the bulk of my pain rested with this guy. And he didn't care. So now, I dont' care about him. I don't think he's aware of this change, and I doubt it would trouble him if he did know. But I feel much better about myself now that I've allowed myself to acknowledge the truth.

 

Anyway, all this to say that I feel your pain. I've been right there, right where you are, gasping, and crying, and numb, and really thinking that ceasing to exist would be a blessed relief. It's something you have to work through on your own terms -- because your issues in your situation will naturally be different from mine, or from anyone else who has been in your shoes. But the one thing I learned going through all of this -- and thanks again to all here at LS who helped me, especially in those early months -- is that the sense of loss that you feel regarding your love for him, and your hopes, plans, etc. is rather different from the sense of loss you feel regarding him specifically. The latter involves disrespect, betrayal, and things for which you SHOULD be angry. I dont' think anger is maladaptive or inappropriate in all cases. To deny it is to deny a part of your experience.

[jenny]

midori,

 

thank you so much for your post...i can't even type about this stuff without crying. i know so many women have been cheated on; i know i was making idiot bargains with myself to avoid seeing what i knew to be present (i.e. if i weigh X amount, or if i rationalize like so, if i read this book, i will not be cheated on. he won't use my money for that purpose, certainly) but the visual confirmation was just too much. i stupidly invested; i am an a**h***. we're keeping up appearances for the time being but its awful. i hate everything about myself right now. he's my best friend; i can't breathe.

 

blah. sorry. i think the worst thing about all of this is that it makes me so selfish. i want to be the kind of person who is there for others and protects other people, which i cannot do when im so self- engaged. i have to keep tree breathing (thanks again!) and focusing on others.

[midori]

Originally posted by jenny

blah. sorry. i think the worst thing about all of this is that it makes me so selfish. i want to be the kind of person who is there for others and protects other people, which i cannot do when im so self- engaged. i have to keep tree breathing (thanks again!) and focusing on others.

 

First of all -- he CHEATED on you!?! Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry. Didn't realize. Fortunately to the best of my knowledge that wasn't the case for me, and if it was and he kept it from me then my ex did me an enormous favor, because no one needs to deal with that kind of pain. If you need to cheat, you just need to leave -- that's how I see it anyway.

 

Secondly, to what you've said above, I say: nonsense. Is that the only way you think you're acceptable to others, if you're the serene, it's-all-cool-yeah-you-can-come-over-and-use-me-anytime kind of friend with Buddha-like composure and wisdom? Is it that you're afraid to show that you're hurting because you don't know how others would respond (maybe some might be selfish or embarrassed and disappoint you) -- maybe you'll find that you don't have as many wonderful friends as you like to believe, because you've been giving some of them too much credit? Or is it that you're afraid that if you're anything but the Embodiment of Graciousness and Cool that no one will like you/admire you the way you feel you need? You might want to figure out why you feel this need to show no need.

 

When I got dumped, I let everyone I cared about know that I was in serious crisis. This meant of course that their mistrust of Ex solidified into contempt, because anyone who could inflict the hurt on me that he did was, in their eyes, beyond contempt. I have some friends who to this day would cheerfully trip him on a flight of stairs, if given the chance. I was also disappointed by the way that some people whom I considered to be very close friends didn't extend themselves -- not in a way that I needed, at least. I needed people to surround me, distract me, put new hopes on my horizon. For various reasons (I shortly thereafter moved to a new city where I knew no one, for reasons having nothing to do w/break-up) I didn't get certain kinds of help that would have been invaluable to my recovery. So it took longer. I eventually got what I needed but I was disappointed to see how my friends, great though they were, let me down in a few key ways. It showed me some gaps that had long been in my life but I'd ignored. I needed to develop a wider circle of friends. I've done that now. I'm infinitely stronger and better positioned to be happy than I was 3 years ago. I've put to rest the resentment I felt toward certain friends who were too wrapped up in their own lives to rush to my aid. They're human, and they accept me as human too. I feel less obliged to them -- I allow myself to be wrapped up in my life and not so answerable to their needs. Which is good. I still love them, but I don't feel that I must be everything to everyone. The payoff for that is never what you put into it.

 

Look, you can't help anyone if you're quietly bleeding away. Think of yourself as a resource, a power station. People DO rely on you, you are vital. But sometimes you need to run self-maintenance. And yes, sometimes there are crises and people who normally take from you need to be alerted that instead they need to be there for you. Sometimes the power-rates are raised, people have to give to the resource they rely upon. Give people that chance! That's another thing that this crisis might highlight: you may see that in some of your friendships you assumed the role of the strong, stable, knowing person, while your friend played the part of frazzled or insecure or otherwise needy soul. You might be comfortable in that role, but your friend might surprise you -- he or she might have much more to give than you'd realized.

 

As for keeping up appearances for the sake of saving face: what's the point? Really. Who does that help?

[zarathustra]

Some experiences hurt so much that in the immediate aftermath the emotional ache is irony resistant. Your fiance's betrayal is one of those times. I'm so sorry, jenny.

 

Imploding dreams are no picnic. The loss of a lover, friend and companion is no walk in the park. Grieve with all your soul, my lost, lonely one. Cry until your tears run dry and all you can do is sob and sob and sob some more.

 

To those who know you IRL, let them console you in this, your darkest hour. I, a mere cyber-friend, curse the man who hurt you, and offer you my love, my support , my consolation.

 

You will emerge from this blackest of nights a little stronger, a little warier. Wear your cuts and bruises like the champion you are, Jenny. And know that it is better to know now the true nature of your fiance as opposed to that of your husband and the father of your children.

 

So go a little crazy. Heck, you can even retire the cool, ironic Jenny character. I don't care about cool, ironic "Jenny." Rather I care deeply about the betrayed, anguished woman, the wonderful, wounded person underneath. Let that person rise.

 

Let the healing time begin.

[EnigmaXOXO]

It is not a “stupid investment” when one gives freely of their trust and love.

 

It also does not make you an “a**h***” because someone else, who you’ve invested in, takes advantage of that vulnerability and hurts you. All it does is make you the better person, however fragile and wounded your heart might be.

 

And you are hardly “selfish,” Jenny. The fact that you were willing to put it all out there disproves that theory. You don’t have to ‘give it all away’ to strangers while you are trying to heal. It’s “okay”…even necessary…to hold a little something back for yourself at this time. If anyone can benefit from your strength and wisdom at this time…it’s you.

 

I can not even begin to express how sorry I am that this has happened to you. You didn’t deserve it, and there was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent it. Nor is there anything any of us can do to avoid having it happen again sometime in the future…at another time, with another person.

 

Your original question:

anyone else struggle with this thing that everyone else seems to get naturally?

 

Yes. Many, many times. But I’m not sure this comes “naturally” for any of us. I would never say that I’ve learned to ‘process’ the pain. The wounds are still there. But I believe (for me) that experiencing and hanging onto some memory of that pain has helped me to become more sensitive and empathetic towards others. Strangely enough, I use my pain (or the memory thereof) as a constant reminder by which I gauge my own actions and behavior…never wanting to inflict (or cause) that which I am most fearful of reliving myself. But for all my efforts to avoid becoming a perpetrator of such betrayal and hurt…I have never, ever learned the secret to protecting myself from the same. At least, not while my heart is still capable of "love."

 

Will we ever?

[meanon]

Oh Jenny I am so, so sorry this happened and so sorry that it is making you hate yourself, curse yourself for trusting someone you love. You once said to me that you loved, and that mattered. You were right. Just as you need to feel the hurt, to experience it - so you need to accept that your love was a fine gift, the best of you and that you were not stupid to give it. Don't belittle it or yourself. You did not deserve this. He may be your best friend Jenny but he's the a**h***, not you.

 

Try not to care so much what people think, appearances don't matter. You matter. You are NOT selfish - from the little I know of you that's so clearly not the case. Clear the decks of these self destructive thoughts, Jenny and concentrate on that hurt and healing it. You know I think you are a truly remarkable person. You will get over this and you will learn from it and be an even stronger, more compassionate woman.

 

I send you my love, Jenny. Contact me if I can help. Turn to your friends at home and here - seek what comfort you can. Take care my friend.

[Thinkalot]

jenny- I had no idea this had happened with your fiance! So sorry. Don't beat up on yourself though!!! Investing love and time is admirable. What he did is certainly not!

 

Hang in there...post on here if it helps...and remember there are people here who care and will try and help you.

[moimeme]

Strangely enough, I use my pain (or the memory thereof) as a constant reminder by which I gauge my own actions and behavior…never wanting to inflict (or cause) that which I am most fearful of reliving myself. But for all my efforts to avoid becoming a perpetrator of such betrayal and hurt…I have never, ever learned the secret to protecting myself from the same. At least, not while my heart is still capable of "love.

 

First of all, Jenny, I'm sorry this happened. Thank heavens it happened before you married. It is no less painful, to be sure, but the parting won't be complicated by legal messes. It will be awful for a while. Then you'll feel better - until one day you drop back into the pit again. The reason I tell you this is so you won't think that the pain will never end. It will, but it will take a few trips round the roller-coaster track before you're back on firm ground. You will come out of this and be fine, but I'm sorry for what will transpire between now and then.

 

I would have to echo Enigma in responding to your initial question. I have been caused pain and I have caused pain and the memory of both remains with me, reminding me to be vigilant over myself to avoid causing pain again.

[jenny]

first: i know you probably have not gotten my PM apology to yourself, moi, but i owe you a huge one. i am publicly and clearly very sorry. i was stupid and wrong and everyone should hear it. it was all about my own issues and i need to acknowledge that to be an ethical person. we might have differences but what i did was way way beyond the pale, and i hope you have it in your heart to forgive me. i'm taking inventory, and i really suck there. i am so sorry. no excuses. i am so sorry.

 

what is happening right now has a lot to do with the depth of affection i feel for dyer, who has been threatened legally. it is important to me that i not be seen as randomly or wildly malovolent.

 

i'm frankly a horrible mess.i have been for about a month. i cannot be cogent about myself or the image i have seen. everything is fine when it's academic, i guess. my hubris has been wildly and tenfold punished. so im starting over again and taking inventory. part of that is apologizing, which i have some amount to do. hopefully this will not be taken advantage of; i am assuming it will not.

 

when i think of my alpha male posts i want to throw up on myself. everything i trust is evidently false.

 

anyway, thank you for your post...im glad it's not as bad as it could have been. isn't this awful: i keep thinking: i have money and uncles. i have money and uncles. dumb, hey?i don't know how else to fill my head.

[moimeme]

these will be deleted, but in absence of PMs, perhaps the mods will allow us a few moments.

 

All's forgiven, Jenny, though in truth the sadder thing for me was the seeming defection.

 

You and I have had differences, but I have a sense of you; bizarre though it may seem, I do sometimes intuit via these wires. It's late and I should be in bed, so forgive the clumsy phrasing, but I think I 'know where you're coming from'. That is not meant unkindly.

 

I am fond of that boy, too, but people we are fond of sometimes are unwise and unkind and I don't believe it is a favour to them to encourage that. In all, recent events have been been mostly disappointing and I am sad for people who behave with integrity and are accused of not.

 

But you are in pain, and I know pain and am sorry. You didn't do anything wrong in loving; hope will have us choose unwisely and continue on the path we have chosen, even though reality urges us to choose differently.

The lesson of life I wish people didn't have to learn is that hope can be the greatest deceiver of all. Welcome to the world of the wounded wise.

 

dumb, hey?i don't know how else to fill my head.

 

Use whatever is at your disposal to distract yourself. Process the grief for a while, but have a fallback for when it gets too awful. Come back out of the grief, distract yourself, and when you are a little stronger, process again. You can't try to numb it because it will return and demand attention, but nor can you allow it to swallow you.

[jenny]

g-d and thank you. i am crying right now about this. i am really so sorry; i was such an ass.

 

i want to kill myself about the harms i have inadvertently done. i can't keep wandering around the earth hurting people and seeing what i see in my head. this is not a pity cry, i don't mean it that way, but i have fresh insight into0 the epistemology of suicide. i want more than anything to get the ice i have buried on 112th, up and to the left if anyone beats me to the slain playground, but that should not be an option anymore. i am not a product of my environment. i cant do that stuff anymore; i am almost thirty.

 

i don't know how to make this up to you, except to say you have heard the very last from me re: medical rigour or suspicipion. that's it. it will never happen again. lol - i am also making out my final fiance check to an ADD organization. let strip mining help someone for a change. anyway, it will never ever ever happen again.

 

complete integrity starts now, and that includes being fully aware of mistakes. i am so sorry. i am so sorry. i am just so f***ing sorry. maybe what happened to me is a way for the universe to say stop being so stupid on forums? i'm an a**h***, maybe i am a karma a**h***? anyway, i am so sorry.

 

dyer loves. that's all he does. this is not his kitten. please help him. please. he is perfect is his innocence here.

[moimeme]

You have enough pain without beating yourself up. Leave that to me if you get feisty

If I may say so, I'll enjoy knowing the real jenny. Not that you weren't, but we couldn't see. You wouldn't let us.

 

As for D, he is wise but not wise enough. Older and wiser people should have discouraged all that; I had no way to reach him or I would have. I did see him urge people not to take certain courses of action; I hope that will help him. But I was sore disappointed in it all; quite sad all yesterday over it, actually.

 

The mods here don't deserve what's been said. I've observed much more than most over this last while and witnessed what has and has not been done - as well as the reasons given. I am passionate about fairness; and the unfairness has not, IMHO, been in the admin side of LS.

 

When people feel hurt, they react with vigor; unfortunately some actions can be extremely unwise. I want it all to end well. I expect it will.

 

I'd stay up and keep you company like I used to, but I should have been abed long ago. I can run well on no less than 4.5 hrs of sleep, and that will be what I get.

 

Get some rest. Life sorts itself out and we live on, though we may limp a little for a while. Be good to yourself and don't worry too much. These caretakers of LS have very big hearts. You used not to believe me on some things; believe me on this.

[Thinkalot]

Without meaning to sound condescending in the least, I must say jenny and moi, I was really touched to read such honesty and kindness and compassion on this thread. I pay my respects to you both. I am glad any remaining tension between you seems to have melted in the face of this fresh honesty.

 

jenny...finally I feel like I can see more of who you really are- and what a sweetie you are! I send you healing vibes and hope you are hanging in there OK through this tough time. Just remember, don't beat up on yourself! We all make errors in our own actions and judgements...we must forgive ourselves. Sometimes I have punished myself for far too long, so I do know. Things really do happen for a reason. The lessons are often only apparent in time though, and often they are a bitter pill to take. Good things will come into your life.

 

I would PM you guys if I could.