What Happens When You Hurt Someone?

By: Liz Queen

Dear Liz Queen:

I was thinking of reaching out to someone who, I guess I should be honest, I may have treated badly in the past. It wasn’t intentional. I just wasn’t very nice. Maybe it was even partly her fault.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised by her cool and indifferent reaction to me now. I guess you could just say I’m older and wiser. It all bothers me for reasons I can’t even explain. I’ve pretty much moved on with my life and I assume she has too. I rationalized and made excuses for my behavior back then, but now, I guess I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to make it better?

Answer:

Think about “it”:

Do you remember when you were a kid and you couldn’t return to school after you were sick without a doctor’s note saying you were better?

Don’t go back into a relationship without doing the work you need to do to be sure you’re healthier now.

The very nature of human interaction is that what we say and do has some impact on the person we’re saying and doing it to.

It’s enticing and uplifting to reflect on what our collective existence could bring forth if every time we touched each other in some way, it would be in a way that would leave them whole, not make them hurt.

But now I feel my spirit sinking too, as I acknowledge the reality that our human dealings with other human beings often result in someone being hurt.

What was “it” you did?

How we treat each other is simply a series of human decisions we make.

And we’re constantly making decisions: decisions on how we do business, how we do love, how we do parenting, decisions on how we handle friendships and intimate relationships, decisions on what we say about someone and who we say it to and in what manner we say it, decisions on the way we interact with families, neighbors, friends, children, the elderly, youth, coworkers, subordinates (are they really?), and random strangers.

Sometimes we make hurtful decisions without even thinking about the implications. We carelessly or thoughtlessly or frivolously interact with someone in some way.

Sometimes it’s unintentional, like when we didn’t have the emotional maturity (yea, that means “immaturity”) to realize the hurtful void we left when we had the chance to interact positively with someone but made a decision not to do so.

Sometimes it’s unavoidable and inevitable. We didn’t know or didn’t care how to handle a decision in a healing, not a hurtful, way. Or maybe you did your best, but it hurt somebody anyway.

And sometimes it’s simply selfish. We make a decision that only caters to our own needs as though that’s all that matters.

What did “it” do?

Your hurtful decisions could inflict on someone else just a small, momentary sting.

Or it could rise to the ravaging effects of psychological abuse that trigger health-threatening chemical reactions in another human’s, body, mind, and spirit. You cheated on her. You ghosted her. She betrayed your trust. You lied. You took advantage of her. She led you on and then dumped you. You neglected her. She wasn’t there when you needed her. You took something away from her.

And here’s what happens to YOU – not just the other person – when your decisions hurt someone else.

What happens to YOU when you hurt someone? You start a windstorm you can’t escape.

Even if you dismiss the impact of your decisions by suggesting the other person “get over it” or “move on,” consider the force it will take that person to pick up what you’ve torn down. Do you think you can keep that type of power from sucking YOU into the vortex of hurt as well?

So maybe that’s the “it” you’re feeling – the backlash of your own actions?

What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you reduce yourself to a lower level of humanity that allows you to be capable of that action. No surprise then, if you feel inhumane. Is that the “it” you’re feeling?

What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is maybe you’re continuing to delay your own healing. Are you inflicting your own unresolved hurts on someone else in an unconsciously lame attempt to keep yourself from hurting?

What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you’ve given yourself permission to be superior to what you perceive as that person’s inferior status to you.

What happens to YOU when you hurt someone is that you trigger the natural flow of the self-regulating process of whatever your belief system may be. An eye-for-an-eye. Karma. Vengeance. What goes around comes around. For every action there’s an equal reaction. You reap what you sow. Revenge.

All of these have their roots in the divine correcting nature of what my friend’s wisely-uneducated uncle sized up in a simple declaration: “you can’t do wrong and get by.”

That decision you thought you had to make, that step you thought you had to take, that relationship you felt you had to end, that discipline you concluded you had to dole out. What you did was hurtful, whether you knew it or not, whether you intended it or not, whether you were justified or not.

And perhaps what really got your attention now is that the person you hurt seems, at least seems, to be OK, and her decision to disregard your disrespect could perhaps be hurting YOU – is that “it?”

What is “it” you should do now?

I’m impressed you’ve started recognizing the frailty of rationalizing “it” as a way to justify “it.”

I know I’m not being kind now. But I suspect you know there’s an issue or you wouldn’t have asked the question. Maybe the best way you’ll understand the pain of hurting someone is to feel that hurt yourself.

And once your OWN pain has you bothered to the point that “it” has gotten your attention?

The “it” you can make better is to be more mindful, more intentional, more thoughtful, less self-centered, less uncaring, less frivolous in handling those hurtful decisions you made, and those you wish you hadn’t.

How can you do that? I suspect you’ll find a way, to relieve the hurt you’ve inflicted that’s hurt you now, too.

Own “it.” Do the work to fix “it.”

That healing starts within yourself first. Don’t go back into a relationship without a doctor’s note.