Wounds... and What Thereof Follows

Sometimes, I am reminded of a scene from the 2001 movie "Blackhawk Down."

Without going into a lot of detail, the poignant point of it is that whereas our wounds are uniquely ours, the fact that "we have been wounded" is nothing special... because we have pretty much ALL been wounded.

I'm not talking about wounded in the physical sense — although it can be — I'm talking about wounded in the psychological trauma sense.

It's a bit like the psychological truism "Show me a person who claims to have no baggage, and I'll show you someone who's in denial."

Whether we like it or not, our psychological trauma — whether it happened in childhood, youth or adulthood — affects the way we perceive life, and how we respond to the challenging situations that come our way.

Oftentimes, we're not even aware that a stressful situation has caused us to "go into our complex."

For example, it took me many years to recognize that my aversion to — and feeling powerless in the face of — people displaying "loud anger" wasn't so much about them as it was about re-living moments from my childhood with a father who had temper and anger issues.

We employ different "coping strategies;" instead of becoming reactive and argumentative (by adopting his example), I rejected that paradigm and became quiet and withdrawn instead... allowing a rain of abuse to fall on me until the angry person simply got it out of their system, and I could just get away from them.

Some years of therapy taught me that all anger isn't necessarily destructive in the way of my father.

Our wounds sometimes include what I think of as a "familiarity trap," meaning that we accept toxic behaviors because the resemble something bad — but at least familiar — from our past, so we're not appalled by them.

Of course, simply being familiar with something toxic doesn't mean that it's good or even acceptable for us. The only thing it is, is familiar.

Hitting yourself in the head with a piece of board every day (figuratively speaking) can become familiar, but that doesn't mean you actually want to do it, does it?

Some of this stuff can get very subtle.

For example, sometimes we end up choosing to fail, even though our choices — at a surface level — look wise and like the right ones.

As a metaphor... it's a bit like getting a great education and lots of superior skills training, in a field that's rapidly becoming obsolete. You're not really doing anything wrong, but you're doing "right" within the wrong framework.

You're doing great, but it's "not your fault" that the market is dying.

I have been in that particular boat, myself, several times, doing things like getting really good jobs with failing companies... so my "great job" would go away within a few months.

We even do such things with relationships. Again, the metaphor would be that your "perfect mate" you just met is someone who has terminal cancer... and being blind to the fact that they aren't really your perfect mate if they are going to be dead within a year.

It sets up a strange duality that allows us to feel like we're right, even though we are actually wrong.

The human psyche can be a strange minefield... and it's important to remember that we likely all have been wounded, in some way... however subtle that might be.

Self-awareness helps!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great week ahead!

How about you? Have you ever discovered that you carry subtle psychological wounds that are affecting your behavior, sometimes in a negative way? What did you do about them?Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.09.09 00:11PDT
x839/2073