Damn, I hate that phrase. Doesn't matter whether it's spoken by someone with good intentions or a self-important witch-doctor like Dr Laura, the message is clear: give up your desires, your needs; they count for nothing. It's the other person's right to hurt you and walk away.
Of course it has the greatest negative impact when said -- or implied -- by the one who has hurt you. The one who stuck the shiv between your ribs tells you not to bleed. Right.
Never mind that said person relied on the same qualities they later rejected, drew support, consolation and pleasure from the feelings of love and commitment they now scorn. Never mind that said person would have been hurt terribly, would have reacted badly had those feelings turned out to be false when they needed them most.
All that is irrelevant, right?
I didn't get to the place where people feel compelled to lay that evil phrase on me all by myself, you know.
Yes, I'm bitter. Even angry. Knowing that those qualities I take the most pride in possessing have been consigned to the dumpster, knowing that when the chips are down the best in me is perceived as worthless, tends to make me that way.
I don't like living on a one-way street.
3 hours ago
6 comments:
Rather than get over it, I think the goal should be reducing the desire to seek understanding and vindication, where it will not be had, makes sense. Reducung the power, removing the shiv rather than twisting it in place by your own hand.
It begins with the wish to want the power of the unsatisfied recognition to wane. Eventually it may evolve into actually wanting that. If the idea of wanting this pain to stop is appealing, then that would be the first goal. Just wanting it to stop, rather than wanting the understanding being the primary factor.
I am having trouble describing the process. It has to do with transferring the desire to be undrestood down in importance, and the desire to survive up in importance. It starts with wishing to to have the power of the one to ecplipse the other. It's a thing like I wish I wished to survive. Eventually, it is possible for that to take precedence over wishing to be vindicated and understood.
I give up. It is too hard to explain and I am a novice. But it has worked at one point in my life in which I had to want to want to live, and eventually I actually wanted to live. It is a constant process but it has worked to some degree.
I like what harpo'fly said.
Roz
Actually, I think you explained it quite well, HarpO. At least I understand what you're saying.
I won't even argue with you, as you're almost certainly right, especially since you didn't try to suggest that it's an easy process....
That phrase does suck. Life is hard. Some things are not easy to let go of either.
Gill
I, too, agree with HarpO! you have to pick yourself up and start wanting just to LIVE again... go out and start taking pictures of all those creatures in the park again, of old buildings, start being creative again... the more you dwell on what's happen, the more it'll eat at you!
"Get over it" is such a flip statement. I've found that the only way I've been able to move on is to find something else that means more to me than whatever was haunting me before.
Harder to do when it comes to people - or lovers, but then I treated my search for a new partner like I would when I was searching for a job - very seriously.
I didn't realize I was "getting over it" because my progress was slow, and one day I noticed that there was no pain left when I thought back to the past.
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