Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
A photo of a man reading a neon sign on a tree that says “Healing also means taking responsibility for the role you play in your own suffering”.
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the rudest most helpful thing anyone ever said to me is “why do you keep hurting your own feelings long after [the person who once hurt you] probably forgot about it” like literally just dear god you’ve split me open so neatly my entire soul is just flopping around on the ground between us now but thank you
Just fyi if you’re autistic/adhd and struggle specifically with this sort of thing, please know what what might be happening is something called perseveration, which is a common neurodivergent behavior that can include, among other things, revisiting emotions repeatedly and being unable to break loose from processing or managing stressful events.
Don’t keep hurting your own feelings. But don’t feel bad if you get stuck there, either. Something else could be going on.
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
