Imagine if someone destroyed your phone, gave you a fork and told you that it would be OK.
It will never be OK — Let’s just throw that notion away. Pain changes you.
1.) Shitty Things Are Shitty — That’s It. Period.
We as a society need to give up on trying to make things OK. The reality is that some things are not OK and they never will be. Trying to make them OK just creates a facade that satiates your hunger to fix me.
I am going to dwell on why it happened. And yes, I will question the cosmic injustice of it all and my mind will, occasionally, wander. It may wander at your perfect dinner party but if that bothers you than that’s your problem not mine. I’m fine with healing at my own pace.
2.) Don’t Make Me Feel Weird. I Already Feel Weird.
I know you are worried, I appreciate it, and trust me I know you are scared — but so am I. What I need right now is to be heard, loved and feel accepted.
The important thing to remember here is that I do not need you to have all the answers or any of them. In fact — I don’t fucking know. It fucking sucks — is a perfectly acceptable answer to most things. I just need to let it out. Answers are nice but by no means are they expected.
3.) “Let’s Just Pretend Like It Never Happened”
— *Dramatic EYE-ROLL* —
I’m sure the intentions behind this are well-intended — but quite frankly, it make me want to run as fast as I can into fire. It’s intimidating and makes you feel vulnerable to have someone who knows what you have gone through to suggest that you just snap out of it. When you make these types of suggestions it feels like you are “owning” my experience. You have generalized my experience, made a judgement call and assumed that I am ready for this “push”. No — Let me tell you when I’m ready. Don’t make that decision for me.
Take it from someone who knows, there is nothing more we would like than to be able to “pretend” or “snap out” of it. It’s wonderful that you cannot relate. You are fortunate to have never experience this and we are happy for you but please stop doing this.
The Silver Lining
We will act different and ask questions that we have never asked before. We may even take up weird extreme hobbies or stop doing things we enjoyed. There may be nights when we eat a whole pizza to ourselves or watch 36 hours of the Mindy Project in our pajamas drinking champagne — And that worries you a bit.
That is understandable. We get it. It’s a bit weird. And we know you only concerned because you are good friend who cares but doesn’t change the way we feel.
The reality is the pain has changed us. We need to learn how to re-adapt. How to feel normal again. It’s not an easy process. Lend your support. Don’t question the small things and just be there when you can.
