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Sometimes, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. We meet someone new, a friend, a lover, a stranger, and somehow, they remind us of them. Not because of how they speak or look or act. But because something inside us is bracing for pain. Something in us whispers, “Don’t trust them, they’ll be just like the others.”That’s the mind, protecting itself.
When we’re hurt deeply, especially by someone we once trusted, our brain doesn’t just register it as a one time event. It looks for patterns. It categorizes. It starts to build a defense mechanism that says, “This kind of behavior hurt me once, so it probably will again.” And so, without even meaning to, we begin to project. We start assuming. We expect the worst in people before they ever get a chance to show us who they really are.It’s a form of psychological self defense. But it can also become emotional self destruction.
Because when we see everyone the same, through the lens of who hurt us, we end up pushing away the very people who might have loved us right. We turn suspicious instead of curious. Cold instead of open. And sometimes, we miss out on real connections simply because we’re still bleeding from ones that broke us.But here’s what we forget, not everyone is the same.
Yes, people lie. People disappoint. People leave. But people also surprise, stay, grow, and heal with you. The danger in assuming the worst is that we slowly lose the ability to recognize the best when it’s right in front of us.Healing doesn’t mean pretending we were never hurt.
It means refusing to let those wounds filter how we see the world. It means learning to separate the then from the now, the them from the person standing in front of us today. We owe that to ourselves, and to the people we haven’t even met yet.
We can never fully protect ourselves from pain, that’s the cost of vulnerability, of connection. But we can protect our ability to see clearly. To pause. To breathe. To ask, “Is this really who they are, or am I just seeing my past again?”And maybe, that’s how we finally break the pattern.
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s0nd3r
i enjoy this perspective. there is an old mantra in my head for this, i think "do they want to hurt me or do they not know they are hurting me?" when i'm mad and don't communicate
the pattern of seeing pieces of the past into the future is really common, i'll try to remember something like this later on
Thank you for sharing that, your mantra holds so much quiet wisdom. That question, “Do they want to hurt me or do they not know they are hurting me?” creates such an important pause between reaction and understanding. It brings awareness to the gap between intention and impact, which is where so much healing can begin. You’re right, seeing fragments of the past in the present is such a human reflex, especially when we've been hurt. But even just recognizing that pattern, like you're doing, is a powerful step toward breaking it. I’m really glad this piece resonated with you, and I hope it stays with you when it matters most
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