i keep hurting people i care about (but it's not like i mean to)
Pretty much, just read the title. I don't think of myself as a confrontational or in any other form a contrarian person, and 9/10 times I'm involved in resolving a fight, not starting it. So when I'm the one who's made the mistake, it tends to eat at me.
I set myself rulesβnever be dishonest, since your lies will always unravel and hurt even more, never do anything petty, like seek vengeance, never assume the other person was wrong before you look into what they did, and always, always put yourself in their shoes. The latter rules usually mean that I find myself in the wrong, or at the very least apologising. I'm more than okay with that, I get more hurt knowing I've wronged someone to make them [hurt me in return] than.. [them hurting me in return.]
But recently, it seems like no matter what level of peace-keeping I try to do, I step into mines anyways. I had a dream, woke up deliriously, sent a text that ended up spiralling into a wave of whatever else, but I hadn't thought about it at all when it happened because I was half asleep and I didn't care. I didn't think about it afterwards, because I didn't think about the ramifications enough. Someone I care a lot about got hurt because of my carelessness. Of course I didn't intend for it to happen, but that doesn't change the situation, I still did it.
I also told a friend something while withholding full knowledge of a situation, only for them to get upset and question my character for doing so. And they were right, but I assumed, pre-emptively, that they'd be more upset at me if they knew the whole story than the partial one.
In doing something, I hurt someone. In doing something halfway, I hurt someone. I get that these are mistakes, that I know better now, and that realistically, neither party cares as much as I do about it anymore. But I still feel really guilty. Any moment of rest turns into an eventual, "wow, I shouldn't have done that."
To be fair, sometimes being unwilling to "hurt" people is also a bad thing. My own unwillingness to initiate conflict made the second situation worse. My own inability to shut down a negative situation instead of just walking away from it has led to normalities in my everyday life that I could live without. But I'm more afraid of hurting people than I am of letting myself get hurt, so in that sense, I keep doing "nothing" instead.
I have a friend who says that all people are motivated by a selfishness. Everyone, in some way, does every action in reference to themselves. Donating to charity is an effort to make them feel good about themselves, sacrificing something usually ends up in your favour after the initial loss, etcetera. They would probably argue that I hate being unkind because I don't want to get hurt. I'm sure there's some truth in that, though I'm not pessimistic enough to agree with their worldview.
But you can't do nothing forever, regardless of how much damage you mitigate, because in doing nothing, you're also not able to have the opposite effect on people's lives. So, I hope that everyone I've managed to do something to can forgive me, and I hope, that in turn, I can somehow forgive myself.
Big love!!! Rei
As usual, you can find me at appletender(at)proton(dot)me :-)