Happened upon an amazing blog post today about receiving bad advice and was blown away. Rarely have I come across someone who is able to put into words exactly what I've been feeling inside of me. Here's a snippet of the post:
People always told me things like “deal with it” and “get over it” and “put it behind you” They always seemed so impatient with me and even exasperated that I was still “there” and not over it.
Has anyone ever given you instructions on HOW to “deal with it”? Have you been giving information about HOW to get over it, that didn’t include statements to which you have to keep asking “how do I do that”? Just get over it. (HOW?) Just put it behind you. (HOW?) ~ “Give it to God”. (HOW?) To which the answer was “Have faith”. (HOW?) Well, you get the picture.
Has anyone ever given you instructions on HOW to “deal with it”? Have you been giving information about HOW to get over it, that didn’t include statements to which you have to keep asking “how do I do that”? Just get over it. (HOW?) Just put it behind you. (HOW?) ~ “Give it to God”. (HOW?) To which the answer was “Have faith”. (HOW?) Well, you get the picture.
Further down in the post, the author writes, "The real message out there in the world is don't deal with it."
It's never occurred to me before but, as I thought about it, I realized that the author is right - having someone say to you, "Get over it already." or "It's in the past. Put it behind you and move on." IS essentially them saying to you, "DON'T deal with it or, at the very least, don't talk about it." This is because it holds a mirror up to them and forces them to see what they don't want to acknowledge. It interferes with their hard work to go on pretending everything is "hunky dorey" when the truth is anything but.
As I'm sure is the case for many of you, if I had a nickel for every time my N FOO has said to me, "Get over it already." or "It's in the past. Move on already.", I'd be a freaking millionaire. Being invalidated in that way is, to me, almost worse than the original abuse we were made to suffer. Not only did/do we apparently deserve what we got but now we're not even entitled to our feelings about it! Talk about a wounding to the soul.
I hope you all will head over to "Emerging From Broken" and check out her other posts. I'm telling ya, there's some GOOD stuff over there! ;o)
Excellent! "Don't deal with it, pretend it didn't happen, so we can all be comfortable, except you, of course." Thanks for the heads up, DA!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads up on the article. Have you ever noticed how often it is your abusers that says this to you? I go with 'not talking about it, does not make it go away.' I needed this today, thank you.
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