How To: Survive Your Bullshit

How To: Deal With Hurting People (Even If That Hurting Person Is You)

Hurt people, hurt people.

That's a phrase my mother repeated to me often as a child but still in the same tone, let me know that it was no excuse. However, I was to extend my prayers humbly as I would want done to me.

Now years later and an adult, I appreciate this, not just a phrase, but as a lesson as well.

To the abused, humiliated, tortured and bullied, we tend to reflect once we have been attacked (verbally, emotionally and or physically) back to our first experience with abandonment or rejection.

This sort of puts us in repression mode and suddenly, we're 5 years old again. We're that vulnerable child.

That younger version of us that we try so hard to protect because somehow through all of our bullshit...we still have our youth.

We still are the child. Which isn't always necessarily a bad thing.
However, it only becomes toxic when we protect our younger selves by constantly being on defense.

And in some cases offense.

There is no balance.

We become so borderline obsessed with protecting ourselves that we actually are putting ourselves in more danger.

Is it still abuse if you do it to yourself?

We call it self harm but when others do it, we don't call it people harm. Friend harm. Girlfriend harm. Boyfriend harm.

No. We call that abuse.

And we abuse ourselves all too often.

Hurt people, hurt people. But before they do it to anyone, they first hurt themselves. There is a certain level of pain you must experience in order to inflict it on others, but we cannot always register this.

Now when I speak of abuse to ourselves, I don't just mean cutting, eating disorders, burning etc.

I'm talking about when we block people out from coming in. When we build our walls so high that we can't even come out for relief.
We build our own jail and it starts in our skulls. Our minds. Believe it or not, although contained, our minds are completely free because they belong to us.
When you feel as though you don't recognize that voice in your head anymore....then we become a prisoner to ourselves.

A prisoner to that voice that taunts and torments and half of the time that voice is just an echo.
Remember that thing about protecting? What about that voice?

Self harm runs so much deeper than physical because that's not where it starts. It never begins verbal. It never begins physical.

The decision must be made first. It may be made in 2.5 seconds. But it's certainly made.

Hurt people suffer.
Hurt people bind themselves in their own protective web. So the harder you fight to keep people out. Or are so easy to drop a friend or a relationship due to past experiences with other hurt people...

They more you hurt yourself and something that is quite inevitable: you will be hurt.
You will be offended.
This is a given. Life happens. People happen.

But that doesn't mean that you'll always be taken advantage of, or abused, or bullied.

There is one thing in this life that I know is guaranteed and that's growth.
You'll get that out of things good and bad.

Remember when you were a kid (around the age that you protect) and you fell off your bike whilst trying to learn?

But didn't you get back up and keep trying?
Did you get mad at the road for being so hard? Did you get mad at the bike?

No, if you were to get mad, you would get mad at yourself because it seemed too easy. Because you know you could do it but you were just not getting there.

But you didn't give up. You fought because you deserved it.

Yeah, I know all of this over a bike?

I'm saying this because you're gonna have your run ins with your bikes and roads. You'll fall off the trail and maybe even have to walk barefoot for awhile... but what I know for sure is if you want to protect yourself, the best way is to fight.

Fight for life. Fight for living. Fight for growth and believe you deserve it. Don't just do it for younger you. Do it for you now.
Do it because hurt people, hurt people. And only continue to hurt if you choose to stay in the same place you're in. When you refuse to grow anymore. When you protect that younger self so much that you can't grow from that space. If you choose to build those walls so high that you can't escape and if your walls are so high that you can't break them down yourself. Don't try to dig under it.
Grow.
Rise above it.
Because although you may feel like a prisoner to your thoughts and mind, only you hold the key to unlocking every chain.

And the young version of you doesn't hold the key. It's already in your hands.