Sometimes it hurts a lot even when it isn’t a big deal…because even when it doesn’t look like a big deal, it’s a big deal.
Confusing? Yep.
Let me explain it with a story…
so, last week, a junior tribe member got an unexpected lower limb fashion accessory late in the evening:
It’s broken.
It hurt.
A. Lot.
He tried to be pretty tough about it, but it clearly hurt. Felt a lot better once it was in the cast though.
So…when we walked out of the hospital late at night/very early in the morning…he was better off than he had been a few hours earlier.
But as he eased himself into the car, he tapped the top of his cast on the edge of the car door opening…and he squelched a yell and emitted only a strained squeak of an “ouch” through gritted teeth…and he turned white and stopped for a moment as the pain slowly subsided. Very. Slowly. Subsided.
Then I drove home. The streets were deserted and so it was mostly smooth sailing…except he mentioned that the bumps in the road were painful.
The day before when we were in the car, we were on the same roads in the same vehicle. He didn’t complain about the bumps then…he wouldn’t have even noticed the bumps when he was broken-bone-less.
But he found the brushups, gentle nudges and taps profoundly painful when there was an underlying injury.
When he complained about the bumps as I was driving, I felt compassion for him because he was so clearly hurting…and the cast on his ankle was a dead give-away that there was a reason for the pain.
But how would I have felt about his complaints over my driving over the rough road if I wasn’t aware of his recent fracture?
If I couldn’t have seen and known about the underlying injury, I likely would have found him
- over-sensitive,
- over reactive
- being a “drama king”
- blaming me in a mean senseless way for nothing
and I would have quite possibly gotten:
- defensive
- blaming
- ridiculing
- angry
How often doesn’t one partner or one friend “over react” to a statement, a look, a gesture or a touch in a way that seems out of context or “over the top”?
None of us come to a relationship without having been hurt before. Some will have had a parent be violently angry, some will have had a partner cheat on them, some will have been dumped/abandoned/rejected, some will have been manipulated.
Even if you know you are well intentioned…it is quite possible that there is an emotional “broken bone” that you merely tap with an innocent action or line–which your partner may or (often) may not be consciously aware of. Your action or words elicits a powerful reaction…and a powerful reaction is often returned, because there is a failure to recognize that the wrenching pain that is expressed is about an emotional wound that may not be overtly casted, but nonetheless, is injured…and when bumped, it hurts all over again.
The next time someone you care about appears to “overreact” to something from you…take a deep breath and try compassionately to appreciate that you may have tapped on something deep and hidden.
What just happened really, genuinely, authentically hurt.
A. Lot.
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