Some People Just Suck — and It’s Not Your Fault
Someone else’s baggage is not your baggage.
I like to agonize over things that I can’t change.
Okay, I wouldn’t say that I like it necessarily — but that doesn’t stop me from obsessing over things that are out of my control anyway.
I also “like” to mull over my past actions and mistakes, retracing my errors and missteps with laser precision, thinking about all the things I could have done differently, or where I went wrong.
It’s this kind of mind-trench that eventually drove me to starting therapy — and it really helped dig me out of my self-inflicted woes.
Not everything is your fault
“Not everything is your fault,” my therapist said to me, after listening to another one of my tearful monologues peppered with self-loathing. Her words surprised me, like a blow to the head. I stopped in my tracks.
What an interesting concept.
I had been telling her about a breakup that broke me in two. I agonized over every detail, over every word that was said between me and my ex. I punished myself endlessly for “screwing up” and being too open about my feelings to my ex, ultimately driving them away and ruining the relationship. Or that’s how my twisted, emotionally clouded mind saw it.
My therapist opened my eyes to the fact that while I may have erred in certain things, the whole entire breakup did not rest on my shoulders. I was not entirely to blame. It takes two people to break up.
It was this particular breakup that taught me that some people just suck, and it’s not my fault that they suck.
Some people just suck
Another more recent breakup reminded me of this — that some people just suck.
I dated someone who was thoughtless and self-centered, but in such a nuanced way that it took me a while to notice. His ego manifested itself in the way where he’d withhold affection or divvy it out carefully just to keep me interested, communicate infrequently, and just generally ignore my feelings.
Several of my close friends were not fans of the way he treated me, and they made their objections known, but I chose to ignore their warnings. The final straw was when I went out of my way to visit him for a weekend — a journey of several hours — and it seemed like the whole time, he didn’t even want me there.
That was finally enough for me to wipe the grime off of my rose colored lenses and see the truth of who he really was.
Some people aren’t very nice. They aren’t as caring and considerate as you are. They’re more selfish than you are. They’re more thoughtless and don’t take everything to heart like you do.
The important thing is — it’s not your fault that they are this way. Something happened to them to make them regard the rest of the world in such a careless way, to tread on hearts with callous abandon.
Don’t internalize their baggage and make it your own. It’s not your burden to bear.
Some people just suck and it’s not your fault that they suck. Let them suck in their own sucky bubble without it affecting you. You can’t fix them. It’s not your job to fix them. Their shit has nothing to do with you as a person. Their shit is not your shit. Don’t take on someone else’s and claim it as your own — you have your own shit to carry around.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
That quote comes from Maya Angelou. But I put my own spin on it: When people show you that they suck, believe that they suck.
In both of the breakups I mentioned, deep down I knew that these people sucked. I knew they weren’t treating me right. I knew they weren’t worth my time.
But my heart didn’t want to listen. My heart made every excuse for them. My heart wanted to believe in the small speck of goodness I saw within them, even if it rarely ever showed itself.
Don’t make the same mistake I did of wasting my time on people who would never feel the same for me as I did for them. When people treat you poorly, or lie to you, or disregard you, or brush you off — remember that. Hold onto that. Because that’s who they really are — not the rosy version of them you have painted in your head.
Most importantly, don’t hold onto something or someone just because you don’t want to lose it. Really consider, first, if it’s something worth keeping. Letting go is hard, but sometimes, it’s the only choice to make.
