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Have you noticed the human tendency to escalate and rebel? Even if our daily experience provides us only with happy reasons, if there is any bit of unexpressed anger in us we would change the narrative so that it looks like the injustice was there all along. We need our antagonist so that we can keep running away.

“Everyone sees what they want to see,” said Hamirez. “The worst thing is when someone sees only evil and wants nothing but to fight it… That’s the real evil: the fight against delusions.” – Feliks W. Kres, “Sorgethergeft”

Someone seeking attention hurt you – they are bad narcissists. Your parents behaved like assholes towards you – they rejected your authentic self because they hated you, right? WRONG! You want to know what happened? Your authenticity triggered their wounds. They themselves were hurt every time they tried to be real, so it is hard for them to embrace your love. They still love you and do not want to hurt you. It takes extreme amounts of effort and strength to overcome something as primal as our reaction to a trigger.

We often think automatic responses, triggers, conditioning, happen only when a grenade explodes next to our head. As if only explosions were able to hurt us. When we were kids, we were helpless. We did not have the capacity to deal with anger, guilt, shame, fear or even strong excitement. These sensations have a capacity to cripple a child. Cause wounds and pair them up with triggers. Next time you hear someone open a bottle of lemonade like your alcoholic father opened his beer, you might get a panic attack. As if the scary lemonade was to be feared. But not only events have the power to hurt us. Deprivation of nourishment: food, love, safety needed for sleep – even that can wear us out and kill us, when we are vulnerable, like kids are by definition.

People are helpless, most of us have no idea that our triggers are not our reality and do not have to stay. We can make them go away, there are highly efficient therapies that aim to cure such stuff. People often cannot even tell what comes from the reality and what comes from their triggered mind. When we are triggered, seemingly innocent things evoke angry or fearful emotions. It is a flashback that brings us back in time. We confuse the past with our current reality and end up attacking our loved ones. Just because their authenticity reminds us of being hurt.

If someone drunk gets behind the wheel and has an accident – we blame them for drinking and driving. But not for slow reactions – they were drunk, right? When someone has hallucinations after drugs and hurts someone, he may not even get convicted, instead ordered by court to do therapy or join the AA group. Messed up people should not have children, just like drunk people should not drive. Unless they sober up and do the therapy. But once they have children, do you think it is necessary to portray them as ultimate ill-willed monsters? Can’t you see they need help too?

Labelling things as good or bad is merely looking for an excuse to unload our frustration. We are looking for an anchor in reality that can become a tool that we can use to put others down. That anchor is idealisation. Idealisation creates deception, elevates some parts of life and denies the others. Denial creates mistrust. Tolerance for falsely grounded behaviours feeds negativity.

Fuelling the spiral of hatred does little good. Can we get our shit together and work on our triggers? Why don’t we encourage our loved ones to do the healing after we have done ours? Why don’t we invest in people and build some social capital? We can all once and for all live together in harmony and love each other without pain. 

Our focus on other people’s wounds and behaviour serves only one purpose. Distraction. It is just another way for us to avoid doing the work and dealing with our wounds and triggers. This work requires courage to face the unknown, attention and self control necessary to endure the presence of discomfort. All that work pays off, gives us relief and freedom, gives us the chance to build something stable, grounded in reality. It doesn’t come as a surprise that we buy into the illusion that a pill, a substance, a drink or another person can soothe our pain. We lie to ourselves that there is an external force that can fix the internal complexities.

All this makes us weaker. For only the healthy organism can survive and endure any external situation that it faces.

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.” – African proverb

Until we grow up. Then we begin the race against time, hoping we can make it, resolve things before it’s too late, before our stubborn stupidity kills us or cripples us and our loved ones forever.