Hurt People Hurt People

One of my university professors from back home, Dr. Nick Ogle, says, "Brokenness cries out to brokenness."

Those two catch phrases, if you will, are very similar, I think.

It's similar to the old cliche, "Misery loves company."

We're all pretty messed up, it's true. And we're all messed up both the same and different than one another.

And yet, and yet, we all like to think our messed-up-ness is completely unique. Nobody in the entire world understands!!!! To a certain degree, that's true. There has never been another person like you, so no other person has experienced or processed pain in the same way as you.

However, in our confusion and in our partial/poor processing and understanding of our problems, we act out.

We become cagey, reckless, electric.

We find people who are similarly cagey, reckless, and electric and form destructive, dependent bonds with them.

Or/and we lash out at everything that moves.
"She looked at me weird."
"He sent me a smileyface emoticon as her entire text response."
"How hard is it to take two seconds and return an email?!."
"GET OFF MY TAIL, JERK! I'M GOING THE SPEEDLIMIT"
"Slam that door one more time. C'mon. I dare you."

Anything can set off the trigger.
All that self-anxiety and tumbles of frustration (that honestly we may not even recognize what the source of it is) is then tunnel-visioned onto whomever gave that twitchy finger the go-ahead.

In response, the squinter/emoticon abuser/slow emailer/butt-face driver (who, in defense of shootey-mcgee over there, probably deserve at least a paintball to the gut or an airsoft gun bruise or two) receives an avalanche of venomous slush.

Nearly all of it deserves displacement.

That's not what it seems, though. And it's definitely not how it feels.

But we don't take the time to analyze that.
We let it happen.

We, the offended, leave that interaction burning hot with rage, all at the offenders.
The offenders leave angry, hurt, and confused at what the heck just happened??
And, in response, transfer their anger, hurt, and confusion onto their own personal trigger people.

And honestly, at the end of the day, it doesn't make a whole heck of a lot difference if we do recognize what we have done and why we have done it.

Apologies are great. Recognizing and verbalizing that you have wronged is an incredible step forward. And it could indeed mend that acid-burned relationship.

But it still happened. And those dominos still fell.

Your words have power. Your actions have power. Don't be so smallminded as to think you can do whatever you want without broad consequence.

Be careful not to let tumble from your lips words that do not deserve existence.

That's not to say hoard offense. Rather, seek God, seek truth, seek understanding, and seek ways to word your pain which demonstrates knowledge that you are not only one in the battle.

Everybody's got their stuff.
Take the time to ask.
To give the benefit of the doubt.
To exercise mercy even if they deserve your wrath.

Because hurt people hurt people, yes.
But  blessed people bless people.

It works both ways.