A while back, I found out a one-time friend of mine had passed away from an overdose shortly after I fell out of touch with her. At the time our friendship ended, she had basically tossed aside our friendship essentially stating that [our friendship] wasn't (paraphrasing it) "doing it for me". Not one to be where I'm not wanted and having my self-respect, I honored her wishes. In fact, I made a point to shut her out and blocking her access to me. But, before I did this, I let her know that "I had figured that our friendship had an expiration date on it", before quietly fading away. Even though we were never more than friends, I did like her a little bit and I was left wondering, what did I do to deserve being 'unfriended'?
Long after this estrangement, I looked at a common friend's page and saw her name in the friend's list on Facebook. Out of curiosity, I decided to see what my estranged friend was up to. I observed she had a memorial page and after following up on it, I got the rest of the story. Even though we were estranged and she'd hurt my feelings, I was sad about it her passing. She had overdosed within a number of months of our friendship ending. Knowing that she overdosed shortly after our falling out of touch, helped me to understand that our estrangement was never really due to what I was lacking in the friend department to her. Instead, it turns out she was a hurt person, struggling with demons. She was seeking whatever she could to outrun or mask her pain and hurt. A friendship that wasn't 'fun' enough didn't help her to do this. It's clear now that neither I nor anyone else could be what she needed. She needed to come to terms with herself and her pain.
I'd venture to guess most of know or are at least familiar with someone like that, if not having experienced it ourselves. Someone who has or has had a deep soul level hurt that they tried to avoid facing. From my experience and knowledge, anyone who has been there realizes that when you are in that place, you can either do one of four things--much of which I have done. Some ways of dealing with hurt are unproductive and some are destructive.
- Attempt to outlast it
- Curling up into a ball, trying to sleep away pain, hurt and/or sadness.
- 'Sleeping it off' can sometimes actually help if not overdone or abused. Sometimes a new day can bring a fresh start and allow us to heal enough to deal with it.
- Attempt to avoid it.
- Medicating it. This can take many forms, none of which are necessarily healthy and some of which can be downright deadly.
- Literal 'medicine' such as drugs or alcohol to hope us cope.
- Distractions to keep us from facing our hurt
- Gambling, porn, overeating are 'pleasing' distractions.
- Cutting and inking can be 'blocking' or masking distractions. Just like a fire strategically set can burn the 'fuel' to a raging forest fire, a different type of pain can help block the 'hurting pain'.
- Shutting down mourning. Sometimes it hurts and makes us feel vulnerable to feel and to risk sharing our hurt. Sometimes we are told to be brave, to keep a stiff upper lip. While there is a time to be brave, sometimes when we shut down mourning, we are being just the opposite of brave. We are avoiding. Essentially, we are Zig Zagging through life: Diverting our energy from where it is really needed
- Attempt to outrun it
- Keeping too busy to have time to focus on it.
- Keeping busy I believe is a common way to avoid grieving the loss of a love one.
- Allow ourselves to feel it.
- Outwardly mourning and/or inwardly focusing on our hurt can be a distraction to what we need to get done, if it is timed wrong.
- Finding a time and a place where it is safe to feel and mourn the hurt is imperative. Allowing too much hurt to build up with no outlet is not a healthy place to be.
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We all face some disappointment, some hurt--a promise not kept, a friendship lost, but I'm talking about deeper than that. I'm talking a deep gut punch like a bitter divorce or an unexpected, untimely death, abuse and things of that nature. This is not to minimize the 'smaller' hurts, but to put things in perspective. Sometimes too however, enough 'smaller' hurts can build up and be just as debilitating. But, I digress. What I'm talking about is a buildup of hurt. Anyway, as I've gotten deeper into my adulthood, I've come to realize that pain and hurt will not magically disappear and just because you claim you are 'over them' doesn't actually mean you are. Our soul, and not our hopes, has a way of knowing if we have dealt with hurt. My estranged friend reminded me. Anyway, just some thoughts. Here are a few other posts which I think would go with this one:
See:
Cheers,
Rich
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