Why did You Hurt Me? Am I not Special?

I am well aware that the way people treated me in my past is not my fault. But it makes me question why they did that to me. Am I not important? Am I not special? Am I not loving and caring? Their actions make me question my worth. If I am special, why would they hurt me like they did? Why would they hurt me when all I ever wanted to do was love and respect them?

Sometimes, people hurt people because they are suffering. I would know because I have hurt people. I only did that because, deep down, I was in pain.

It is not that people hurt people because they believe the other person deserves to suffer; rather, they hurt people in the same ways they believe they themselves deserve to suffer. Suffering never starts from the person who loves; it always starts from the person who hurts. They learned that hurt from someone in pain and that someone in pain learned that from someone who is suffering. Every cause has an effect. Every effect has a cause. If I didn’t cause that person’s suffering, why do I deserve to be affected by it?

Who were we before we experienced that pain, hurt, and suffering? We were innocent people. But we were also very vulnerable people. Not yet with enough intelligence to cultivate strength. Not yet experienced. Too young to be resilient. As much as the past pains me. As much as people have hurt me. There is a deep purpose in pain. There is a desire to suffer. It is a strange idea that people crave suffering, but we do. There would be no reason for happiness to exist in a world free of suffering. Joy and pleasure would not be so precious, so dear, so special. Love and compassion would not be so valuable.

Maybe it wasn’t that I was not special, but I needed to realize I was. But to deeply understand how special I am, I must experience suffering. We don’t truly comprehend how special something is until we experience the absence of it.

When we lose ourselves in what people say to us/ about us, we experience the absence of the person we were before we experienced pain. In an instant, we are changed and affected by the cause of their suffering. That change is excruciatingly painful. That pain is going to make us desire to feel better. In order to do that, we must adapt to the pain we just experienced. It is not possible to go back to the person we were before we got hurt. They are gone. No longer with us. No longer innocent. The only option left is to adapt. Change, adapt, and grow.

Now we understand how it feels to suffer. That is good. Understanding that we can experience great suffering will motivate us not to want to suffer again. It will also motivate us to not hurt others in the way others have pained us. To do this, we must adapt to the suffering and change in a way that makes us resilient to the pain. Through this process, we become even more valuable.

If we become experienced with pain but still manage a great capacity to love. How special we are! How else would we have realized how special we are? How can we become even more special? Nothing grows from perfection. But everything grows from its absence.

The truth is we are all special. We only think we are not because someone taught us to feel like we are not. If we were never taught to feel that way about ourselves, we would never think we are less than who we are. On the contrary, if we were never taught to feel pain, we would not profoundly understand how special we are. Do not fear suffering. Do not deprive yourself of the experience of suffering. This will only hurt you more. Instead, have the courage to face your suffering and experience the presence of love and compassion. No mud, no lotus.

Love, Ajie