Pain is temporary

by Mel JM

“People think they know you. They think they know how you’re handling a situation. But the truth is no one knows. No one knows what happens after you leave them, when you’re lying in bed or sitting over your breakfast alone and all you want to do is cry or scream. They don’t know what’s going on inside your head—the mind-numbing cocktail of anger and sadness and guilt. This isn’t their fault. They just don’t know. And so they pretend and they say you’re doing great when you’re really not. And this makes everyone feel better. Everybody but you.” – William H.

Maybe sometimes people just say you’re doing great and focus on the surface because they are struggling themselves? Sometimes we just do not have the emotional capacity to worry about someone else’s problems anymore. And I think it’s fine. Everyone has their own pain; Pain is personal, pain is unique. Pain is also inevitable, and I might even say that pain is necessary; because maturity develops from the understanding of pain – what it is and what it does.

But we should never forget that at the end of the day, pain is temporary. Most of the time, the emotional drama within ourselves that don’t seem to fade away are kinda self-inflicted, because we choose to attribute any subsequent bad event to something which happened ages ago. It’s as if we’ve created a generalised explanation for everything that happens/does not happen – e.g. a bad relationship gave you a fear of commitment and from then on it becomes an explanation (or excuse) for every other failed attempt.. how convenient. I just see it as a downward spiral actually…. Kinda like how someone who’s going through a rough time would constantly attribute his/her actions to the fact that he or she is going through a rough time, and then it gets worse.

What I’m saying is that events are factual and can’t be controlled, but interpretations of these events can. Most of the time, there’s really no point receiving advise or seeking comfort from other people because of the fact that we gave ourselves the approval to remain miserable.

Of course it’s unhealthy. Along with any other habit that’s hard to get rid of…

#1 Stop being a victim of your past

To me, being a victim of your past would mean to attribute every bad experience to events that occurred in the past. Yes, I agree that past events (good or bad) had played a part in shaping us to become whoever we are today. But given that we actually got out of those shitty moments and we’re standing here fine, why should we still let those memories hinder us from leading a fulfilling life today? I just think that it is important to differentiate between using past events as life lessons VS using them as convenient ways to avoid our current problems.

#2 No one is building a wall around you except you

Sometimes, there might be bad experiences, choices or just some very horrible people who pop by to dump a whole load of pain and bullshit in your heart, and leave. It happens. But whether or not to use that load of bad memories to build an imaginary wall around ourselves is a choice we can make, right? I think to be more specific, it is the fear that made us build that wall; not the memories, not anyone else. Likewise, sometimes you feel like the world is shutting you out, but it’s just you shutting yourself out.

#3 You get what you think you deserve

Sometimes we beat ourselves up for no reason and we think that we’re just messed up. And most likely, we end up with people who we think we deserve because we turn away those who seem “too good” for us. But one day I hope we shall realise that making unwise choices doesn’t necessarily make us messed up. I hope that once we stop focusing on ourselves and our own pain, we can open our eyes to see that there are way more complex and messed up issues in the world than our internal turmoils. To be honest, we all have our unique balance of flaws and strengths, so no one can ever be “too good” for anyone, right?

Let’s not hinder ourselves from the happiness that we are entitled to.