When Pain Threatens to Define You: Why Change Is Possible
I choose this as the first subject of my blog so as to challenge the resistance many of us have to change. After all, many of us consider our problems to be our personality! Well, if it’s our personality then we can’t change, and even if we did we would cease to be ourselves.
The very idea that your personality is flawed and that your mistakes define you is a falsity. Consider the things you have done. It is likely that some of your actions align with your values. Other things may have been done out of fear, obsession, addiction, lack of knowledge; these things have influenced the actions you would rather that you didn’t take. This means you, as a person, align with your values and are an inherently valuable person!
To specifically tackle the idea of pain, let’s break pain down into sources.
I use a dialectical approach, as described by Marsha Linehan in the book (which I am currently reading) Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder (1993). This was the work that developed DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy. If DBT-style dialectics resonate with you, that doesn’t automatically mean you have a personality disorder. These skills are often useful across many kinds of distress. As I discuss here, you are a valuable human being whether you do have one or not!
Rejection
Do others judge you harshly? Do they refuse to spend time with you? Do they blame you for things in their life, things you’ve done and perhaps a big thing you didn’t do? Do they fail to understand you? Do they treat you with disrespect, in ways that you would never treat anyone or for reasons that just don’t make sense?
The dialectic here is that your value is not defined by the value that others place on you, and that you value the opinions of others. Both are true! You are valuable beyond the measure of any critic, AND the way others perceive you affects you dearly, every day of your life.
There are ways to change how others perceive you. You might consider seeking a licensed clinician to explore interpersonal skills if this resonates, not necessarily because others are right, but because interpersonal skills can help you prove they are wrong. They don’t judge you because they’re right about you, they judge you because they THINK they’re right about you, and that’s what needs changed.
Here in this blog the important part to recognize is that changing how you show yourself to others won’t change who you are. You’re still you, you won’t cease to exist. You are far different from when you were a child, if fact every cell in your body has been replaced, yet miraculously you are still you. Changing how you deal with other people will change their perception of you; it won’t change who you are.
Things you may try:
Name something you can try differently when interacting with someone. Make it something safe, something you’re comfortable with doing, something your comfortable with the consequences of, and take a gentle approach to however they react.
Find an individual therapist or therapy group to learn and role play interpersonal skills with. Do your research and find a good therapist!
Self-Worth
So what if I’m truly a despicable person? After all, I did despicable things! What if this is all I am.
The pain in low self worth has to do with the things we tell ourselves. In the Buddhist teaching known as the ‘parable of the two arrows’ (see Sallatha Sutta, SN 36.6), our initial pain, the first arrow, is the things that have happened to us. These are outside forces or illness, they are things we cannot avoid. Pain will happen, and we can’t do anything to totally stop pain from happening, nor should we because pain exists to protect us from allowing harm to come to ourselves.
The second arrow is the things we tell ourselves. Some examples: Something terrible happened to me, so I must be a terrible person. I caused that to happen and I deserve to suffer. I make mistakes, and always will, and therefore I am and always will be a broken person.
This is the arrow we harm ourselves with, it is fired by our own hands.
To take a dialectical approach, there can be truth in the things you tell yourself. There is also truth when you give yourself grace. Some examples: I can’t change the past and I’m going to focus on the future. It’s ok that I’ve made mistakes. I’m still a loving person. I am a powerful person who can change the future.
The dialectic here is that we’ve all done something wrong. My faith says that there’s a reason for this, that being so that no one can in truth boast about their superiority to others. For sure, there are those who do boast, but they are not being honest about their own failings. You are unique, you are valuable, you are of worth.
Things you may try:
Name 3 ways your trauma has made you stronger, perhaps ways you learned to keep yourself safe.
Find a therapist to discuss your trauma with, perhaps even to discuss the ways trauma made you stronger: do your research and find a good one!
Illness or Handicap
It is common for someone to be identified as “a borderline,” “handicapped,” “disabled,” “depressing,” “anxious,” etc. It does help when others refer to a diagnosis while acknowledging our identity as a human being, such as “a person with borderline personality disorder,” “a person with a disability,” “a person with anxiety” or “an anxiety disorder,” and many other examples exist. This does not change the fact that we are living with the illness every day.
The dialectic here is that we all have our challenges and yours is greater than the experiences of many other people. You are a human being, totally individual and unique (just like everybody else, ironically) and that you identity as a human being means that you suffer.
If you’re looking for validation, know this; that a human being is not impressive for the lack of challenges, but for their overcoming of them. If you’re not looking for validation right now, that’s ok. It’s ok to be hurting, and there will be a time when the hurting fades, even if you’re not not like your neighbor.
Things you may try:
Name 3 constructive, beneficial things you can do, even though you are ill. Try to do at least one a day, then increase to more.
Find a counselor who can discuss your illness or handicap with you. Do your research and find a good one!
Grief
Loss strikes at the entirety of our being because we have gotten used to that which we lost, most often discussed as a person, but it could also be an ability, an object, anything you cared about.
Grief can be for what’s gone, or for what has changed — even for something or someone who’s still present but different. This is often difficult to deal with because people may invalidate your feelings; “you haven’t really experienced a loss,” “at least you still have them!” “Other people have it worse.” “I shouldn’t feel this bad.” Or you may invalidate your own with the same thoughts!
Guilt, self-blame, difficulty accepting the loss, anger, resentment, fear, hopelessness, all of these things can come with any kind of grief, or you may feel numb.
You are you, and it’s ok to be you. You are the one who experienced loss, and it’s ok to feel the way you feel. You valued that which you lost, and you are a caring, compassionate, person. If you didn’t feel bad through the grief, would that mean you didn’t care about the thing, or the person, you lost? The question is rhetorical; if you hurt, you care.
You won’t stop being a person who cares when you distance yourself from grieving. It’s easy to say that the person whom you care about would want you to move on. That may or may not be the case. Instead, know that you are a passionate human being who cares, and give yourself the right to live. If you need to mourn daily, you may find that at some point you can spend most of the day showing your care in the things you accomplish, for others and also for yourself, and then you may need to take some time daily to remember that which you’ve lost. Since you still care, you are still the same person, you will have made a special time for the person or item you’ve lost, and perhaps as a more functional person you will care even more deeply. After all, it’s counterproductive to live in the past, to be numb from the things from your past, even your responsibility for the past. You’re responsible, and able to change, what you do next.
Things you may try:
Name 2 ways you can honor that which you have lost.
Do some research and find a great counselor with whom you can share your grief.
Trauma
“I am my trauma.” This strikes at the very heart of this entire issue, because life is traumatizing. Your trauma may be so big that it threatens to define you. Read the other sections, then consider this: you are a human being who has experienced trauma. Both are true. As a person with trauma you have experienced pain and changed the way you live to avoid reliving that pain. As a human being you make all your own choices. Trauma shapes choices and reactions, but it’s not the whole story of who you are.
The Christian philosopher Kierkegaard described stages of our lives where we make aesthetic decisions or we make ethical decisions (Kierkegaard, Either/Or, 1843). This requires some explanation, so here’s my attempt: if something is aesthetically pleasing, we generally mean it looks right. If it’s an aesthetic decision, that means we did what felt right. Since you’ve just considered this fact, you now have new information: you can do what you know is the right decision even if it “feels” wrong!
The dialectic here is that you have trauma that informs your decisions AND you have other knowledge, an ability to predict the consequences of what you do with some accuracy (note; not total accuracy). It’s time to weigh your options.
Things you can try:
Name 2 ways your trauma has kept you safe already.
Do your research and find a great counselor who can help incorporate everything you’ve learned, including how you keep yourself safe, without being having to constantly be remembering the past.