Brave Enough To Be Bliss

I used to think…

Slavery, racism, childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, murder…

I used to think the people who hurt others in these ways were inherently bad people. I truly could not imagine how someone could harm another person, especially a child. Now I think there are hurt people who become sick people who do these things.

Poverty, homelessness, mental illness, addiction, suicide...

I used to think, surely people who suffered in ways like these really could do something to help themselves if they just tried hard enough. Now I think there are people who cannot help themselves and it is up to all of us to help them however we can.

I used to think people wouldn't talk about things like rape because it was something to be ashamed of. Now I think people are just terrified it could happen to them or someone they love, so they avoid the topic at all costs.

I used to think no one talked about unpleasant, painful things because it wasn't polite to discuss such things. Now I think we are so scared of feeling our own pain that we are scared to discuss someone else's.

Our individual pain is so scary that we deny it thinking that is the solution. But in reality, it only adds to our load. And because we cannot manage our own pain, we cannot help each other. We are exhausted, sad, and sometimes run out of hope. The knowledge that these tragic things are happening every single day on this earth is overwhelming. Thinking about these things terrifies us all. It makes us feel helpless and since we cannot immediately stop them from ever happening, we just don’t want to discuss, believe, or even try to stop them because what if we cannot? There is no guaranteed safety if we can't stop all these bad things from happening, and that would leave us with a feeling of complete and utter lack of control. And sometimes we do not tell even as the receivers of such abuses, or we attempt to tell but are shut down and don’t keep trying , because sometimes that is even more painful than the original abuse. Or our brains hide those memories somewhere so far away we cannot access them, because there are some things that are just too painful to relive again and again and again, even if only our minds. There are some things that cannot even be put into words. There are some things that are simply beyond our comprehension. These are human beings doing these unspeakable things to other human beings. So, we are too scared to even believe they are true, because if they are true, they could happen to us or someone we love. And the people who are doing these hurtful things to someone, or to even to us, these are actual people too. These people may have parents, siblings, children, or spouses who love them, unaware of how they are hurting others. Or perhaps they have no one who loves them and that’s scary too. And sometimes these people who are hurting us, we love them, and they love us, and that’s the ultimate mind f ***. And it's likely they had the same or other terrible things done to them, contributing to them becoming so sick they could treat other human beings in these ways. But we don’t want to admit that. We call them animals. We treat them worse than we treat animals sometimes. We don’t want to believe they are human because if they are, we would have to ask ourselves if one day that could be us or someone we know. So, we live in the judgment of people we do not even know because it’s easier and safer to live there than to learn about the human behind the behavior.

That is why we laugh, that is why we get defensive and angry, that is why we argue, that is why we don't listen, that is why we look away, that is why we refuse to talk about it, that is why we think we heard something

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