Bandaids Don’t Remove Themselves

Steady. Steady. Pull.  

Tearing a bandaid off a tuft of arm hair is supposed to be more tolerable when you have a friend do it. For me it’s not. The moderate pain from ripping the bandaid off will be the same in both scenarios. An element of surprise is better than anticipation when you expect pain to exceed the threshold that is tolerable by you from your own hand. When pain is inflicted by someone else there is more terror involved. When you have pain inflicted by yourself there is less terror and more fear control. In contrast, it may be easier to physically hurt others over hurting ourselves depending on the temperament of the individual. 

Even so, it is more common and may be easier to cause mental anguish upon ourselves. Could it be that it is healthier to be harder on ourselves than to be tough on others.

Our society could be better off if everybody faced their own insecurities instead of having them trickle out, or in some instances gush out, into the pathway of strangers. Lashing out only causes inner turmoil. Confronting inner turmoil leads to less reciprocation of stress and trauma. Though causing stress to others at a level that causes panic is psychopathy, to cause stress to ourselves by self loathing is normal.

Most people hurt themselves psychologically before hurting others emotionally. We are really hurting ourselves when we treat people in the same way we have been mistreated. It is easier to hurt ourselves but there is still the same amount of pain in our hearts when we absorb past trauma and pass it on to someone else, if not more.      

When we treat others the way we wish we would have been treated we don’t  compound the issue. We should own our trauma and not take it out on anybody else making it their problem too. Every time trauma gets reinforced there is a missed opportunity to suppress anger and fear that is associated with it. When we understand that everybody has trauma within varying degrees we can begin to feel less secretive, vulnerable, and alone.  

Every time trauma is beyond our own experience there is a bandaid put up to it in response. I am not going to pretend that I have zero trauma or that any trauma I’ve had is greater than the next person but I would like to acknowledge that when I go to yank the bandaid off of my trauma I know that the adhesive gets weaker and it will be easier for the next person I share it with to yank it off as well. 

Trauma won’t be cured but it can be worked through when we share stories with others while ripping off bandaids we were too scared to pull off on our own. There was a time when we were unafraid to put bandaids on knowing they would need to come off for healing.