The story is about a silly friend that he had who was a bit of a half-wit.
There was this one time, he was beaten up by a classmate.
When he recovered from the assault, he went up to his attacker...
... and punched himself in the face.
Just before walking away, he said to the guy,
¨Now you know how painful it is to be hit by you!¨
It´s an odd story, and he swears that was a true one. And we would always just laugh it off.
What a silly person he was! Why would hurting yourself change that somebody else?
And then I realised. He is not alone.
So many times, people do things to hurt themselves because someone is hurting them. Think about it. Children who join gangs or get into fights because they feel they are neglected by their parents. I believe they know it´s not right, and that what they are doing is likely to cause more harm to them. But they do it anyway, because they want to hurt their parents. In this case, ofcoz the parents have a reason to be hurt, if not they´d almost be inhuman to their child. but what about other times?
When lovers do things to hurt themselves in hopes of stirring even a little bit of care and concern from that significant other.
This happens way too often, and it´s most counter intuitive and bizarre. Have you ever done it before? Not sending a text despite wanting to, because you want to let the other person know how it feels like to be waiting for a text. Not giving a hug, even when you need one, because you want to let the other person know how it feels like to be alone without physical touch. Acting like you don´t care, even if it´s hurting you inside, because you want that person to know what it is like to feel as uncared for as you feel.
It is completely crazy. But we do it so often without realising it. Without even thinking about it, we have become this silly half wit, who decided to hurt ourselves to ¨show¨ others how much pain we are going through, in hopes that your pain will be felt by those who witness it.
Truth is, it is not going to work.
There will be only 2 types of reaction in this world. People will either be affected by you, or they won´t. So now, the people who would get affected by you, are likely to be people who gives a damn about you. Be it your friend, or your enemy, these are people who would either be hurt by your actions, or would rejoice in your pain. Meanwhile, people who are not affected clearly just don´t give a damn.
SO! The people who does not give a damn. You may not like to hear this, but, this way of trying to get someone to give a damn, is tested and proven, and confirmed, and people still test it again, but the fact is.. if that person doesn´t give a damn about you. what you do will not make him/her give a damn. ever. period. Because... you know... that´s actually the definition of someone who doesn´t give a damn!! You think someone who doesn´t give a damn about you will feel your pain? Will suddenly feel hurt by your actions? NOPE. It doesn´t work that way.
A similar case goes for people who rejoice in your pain. This one is quite straight forward, they are quite clearly, and most definitely not worth your pain at all. So there´s little to no reason whatsoever to be hurting yourself to show them. Take it as they are not humans, or atleast they don´t see you as a common species as them to evoke feelings of empathy. They do not have any empathy towards you, so give up.
Now as for the last one, this is the most heart wrenching case. These are the people who you would successfully hurt. And they will feel the full effects of your half-wit attempt at teleporting your pain to them. Unfortunately, the people who would feel hurt, are usually also people who actually cares for you. And by that extension, people who genuinely cares for you wouldn´t deliberately do anything that would hurt you to begin with (even if they are the genuine reason for your misery) Thus, they are innocently being hurt by your actions, thinking you genuinely just want to hurt them. (which you are! but it´s now all a big mess that you cannot justify logically. It´s like punishing a child for playing with flour when he has no idea flour ≠ a toy.) By now I hope you see why it wouldn´t be very useful. And by an unfortunate extension, the fact that you are trying to hurt this person probably means that you care about this person more than you think.
Why do people who care for each other hurt each other the most?
*shrugs* I sincerely don´t know. Perhaps we are all a little half-wit when it comes to certain things. I pray the strength to spread only love instead of pain everyday. I have to admit it´s not easy. In some ways, it almost feels like a hardwired reaction. But keep trying. At the very least, stop hurting yourself in hopes of inflicting your pain on someone else, for the day you succeed, it is likely you will only hurt even more.
