Why Do We Hurt the Ones We Love?

Because We Are Mirroring Creatures

Photo by Jeanette Brown

I spent much of my life incapable of seeing the ways other people hurt me.

Because I would find a way to blame their hurtful behavior on myself. Because blaming myself felt better—more in control—than blaming someone else.

If something bad happened to me, it was my fault. Which put me in control of whether or not it happened again.

I think this is why I said “I’m sorry” over and over again to my rapist through my tears.

I not only blamed myself for my rape, I apologized to my rapist.

Because if it was my fault, it was within my control to keep it from happening again.

This is how my brain was wired as a very small child. To survive some very bad sh!t.

I survived many people hurting me in brutal, horrible ways by telling myself I deserved it.

It was a coping mechanism that kept me alive. I am grateful for it.

It makes looking back on the ways people hurt me in the past without this filter of my own blame and shame absolutely harrowing. I am forced to face the bruta…