I started what I thought could be a short reply explaining the process, and decided it would be better to post the response here and link the blog post.
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Simply
put, there but for the grace of God go I.
It
wasn't recently I was able to articulate it more fully, It was started in the blog post titled 'the same coin', with it being about mental health and how we cope with emotionally painful events. The
way I see it, we have two extremes of coping that are equally
unhealthy. One extreme, complete denial, allows us to appear
to be functional, while the other extreme, remaining traumatized,
results in that event influencing thoughts and behavior pretty much on a 24/7 basis. I lean
towards the former. I take hits and keep plowing forward, this
typically results in depression until I come to grips with the impact
of whatever it was that happened. the point is that trauma affects me
just as much as it does anyone else, it just manifests itself in a
different way.
As I began to formulate my response, I recognize that there's more which I've already figured out but haven't touched on before in this blog, in that there is also a difference from person to person in their expectations and that can vary wildly. The higher the
expectations, the greater the disappointment. But sometimes
expectations can be unrealistic. Along the way, I found that when I recognize that I've been disappointed, it's often been helpful to examine what expectations got violated leading to the disappointment. Sometimes I've concluded that the expectations I had were not realistic and I've modified them. But this can be taken to extremes in two directions as well - refusing to acknowledge when expectations are unrealistic, or lowering those expectations so that one results it letting others violate boundaries that should not be violated.
The point is that I see that the person who attacked me is merely in a different quadrant of extremes and as such, I have no right to judge her, though I have judged others in the past. If anything, it's allowed to develop a sense of compassion when I can see that they are responding to some sort of pain in their lives.
The point is that I see that the person who attacked me is merely in a different quadrant of extremes and as such, I have no right to judge her, though I have judged others in the past. If anything, it's allowed to develop a sense of compassion when I can see that they are responding to some sort of pain in their lives.
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