Sorry, The Pain Of The Past Isn’t An Excuse For Bad Behavior

Sorry, The Pain Of The Past Isn’t An Excuse For Bad Behavior

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Confront past pain head on and deal with its full force instead of looking for a quick, malicious escape. No one deserves to be caught in this unrelenting crossfire of lies, deceit, and inexcusable bad behavior. 

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If there’s anything crueler in the world, it’s the simple fact that everybody gets hurt. We can go over the psychological semantics and dive deep into the intricacies and nuances of pain, but no matter who you are and where you stand in life, there will always be some sort of suffering that one will just have to face, endure, and process, to at the very least come to terms with it.

It’s not always a bad thing, as we have come to learn in the agonizing stretch of our lives, because if dealt with properly, it can form the backbone of what is hopefully a more mature and self-actualized version of our humanity. However, that isn’t always the way things work, does it? Often, when backed into the corner by whatever scraping form of torment that aggressively chases us, the general reaction would be to find an escape rather than stare it down and pounce on it to submission. Now, it isn’t entirely a decision at fault, but instead of getting a grip and taking the reins, this situation allows this suffering to linger, its painfully sharp talons digging itself deep in your system.

Without actually attempting to find a solution, it is often the case that people who excuse and even condone this reaction would find themselves falling to the trope of emotional appeal and playing the pity card when confronted with the reality of distress-induced bad behavior. Blanket statements such as “I am a victim, too” or “Trauma made me do it” used to dull the brunt of one’s choices is a clear weaponizing of emotions for personal gain, and not to enlighten the human condition as it is intended to be. Now, this is where the bigger and more disturbing problem starts to take form, further complicating the path of healing by seemingly laying the tracks with shards of glass and sharp edges.

In an unsettling turn of events, a wild fire sparked by a harrowing and gut-wrenching detailed account of deceit, abuse, and blatant transphobia blazed through many a frustrated and exhausted timeline on Twitter, erupting into a full blown furnace that burned everything from relationships and reputations in a succession of very telling recounting of Jzan Tero exposing the reprehensible and repulsive alleged catfishing of videographer, Sam Morales.

Over the course of a few hours, more vulnerable victims (9 as of press time) were emboldened to speak up, recounting their own stories of how they were maliciously mistreated and emotionally all for a reason that apparently stemmed from the pain of the past that involved a supposed bullying by someone from the LGBTQ+ community. Look, we get it, it is extremely difficult to recover from any form of trauma, especially one that is rooted at a formative stage. However, the fact that you are living a life as if you are constantly drowning from the damage it caused, doesn’t give you the right to pull someone else down the obsidian depths of an uncharted abyss. We all get hurt, some more than others, but inflicting it to greater and more disturbing effects on another is just vile, cruel, and downright merciless. Grief, no matter how you attempt to antagonize it is absolutely no grounds for you to enact a rage of vendetta on someone else.

Trauma, as Joseph Benamati, MSW, EdD, senior faculty member at the Sanctuary Institute in Yonkers, New York explains, is a reason not an excuse. A rationale by nature, it doesn’t condone untoward reactions to a scathing experience in the past that has caused one great hurt and torment. While it is easier said than done, one is advised and compelled to deal with it properly, guided by empathy and an open mind.

Exacting revenge as a misguided attempt at coping is harmful at its core, even when approached with grievances. Without an ounce of remorse on so many innocent lives and invalidating their truth when they want nothing more than to be loved for who they are, what do they get in return for the gamble? Pain, hurt, trauma, just like what was claimed to be the very reason of the unfathomable and downright exhaustive effort to catfish.

While juvenile in thinking, this is no mere child’s play. Try as we might, we no longer run the playground in carefree liberties, but rather, we are walking through the surface of this world ideally with even just an ounce of responsibility and respect. The fact of the matter is, we are all burdened by suffering, but unlike certain people, most do not go peddling it around and using it for their own selfish and skewed motivations. Feelings are valid, sure, but as we participate in the complicated movement of life, we must be held accountable for whatever actions are derived from it. If we just let things be, it will likely end up a misdirected abuse, which is nowhere the healing we all want to attain—for everyone.

Yes, we do not know what the other is going through, what motivates their intentions, and why they engage in what can often be incriminating, but the point is, it doesn’t excuse bad behavior, point blank. In a life that is inextricably connected by questionable choices, you are supposed to break the cycle, not perpetuate it.

No one else will be responsible for your pain in the past, present, and future. Go deal with it yourself, because as it stands, no other life deserves to be caught as collateral damage in your crossfire. Playing victim to the dictates of hurt ends now.

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