On self-harming: don’t do what they did

To you, who were hurt, and now are hurting yourself: would you talk about self-harming?

Imagine, on the street, an adult violently beating a kid; violently, out of any fairness, as the kid cannot defend themselves, strength-wise, from that level of attack.

What do you do?
I suppose you intervene to defend the kid from that wild punishment, right?

When those adults harmed you, given you wanted to love them, for purity, and trust them, for the sake of stability, then you probably chose to believe it was your blame… or they malevolently induced you into believing that, either not admitting the responsibility of their choices were only theirs, or knowing it, but being dishonest.

And that sense of blame led you to want to punish yourself.

Or, perhaps, you knew you were not guilty, and you would have just wanted to do something to stop them… but, given your love for them, you couldn’t find anyone else to unleash your rage upon… than yourself.

So you’ve been hurting yourself all this time.

Yourself, the person who once used to be that kid who was hurt by adults.

But by hurting yourself all this time, you’ve also been unmercifully hurting that kid already mistreated, adding pain to pain.
You’ve been unfair, towards that kid, no less than those adults.

Back on that street where such violent scene of cruelty is happening.
Imagine that the kid implores you to imitate the violent adult, and to add your blows, punches and kicks, imagine that the kid tries to persuade you he/she deserves that unfair punishment and even more.

I already showed you the flaws of that inexperienced judgement.

What do you do? I suppose you understand such flaws and do what’s best for the kid, defending rather than persecuting.

By harming yourself all this time, you’ve let a inexperienced child with an unfair judgement on themselves take the control of your older hand, out of any justice, and do more damage.

Open your eyes, and save whom was already hurt.

Open your eyes, and don’t hurt more whom was already hurt.

Don’t be cruel accomplice and successor of the first giver of such an unfair pain.

(c) Daniele Bergamini “danbergam”