Not everyone who hurt you was wrong

I get hurt easily.

By people, by words, by small changes in tone. I overthink and replay conversations long after they have ended.

And somewhere in my mind, there is this belief:

If it hurts, someone must have done something wrong.

Yes, of course, it is true.

Some people do hurt you and are wrong.

Some situations are unfair, and you feel rejected.

Some pain is betrayal.

And no explanation or action can immediately fix that. That kind of pain is real.

But not all pain comes from that place.

I have started to realize there’s another kind of pain.

The kind where no one did anything wrong, and yet it breaks you.

The kind that comes from unmet expectations.

And no one is the villain.

And we don’t understand how to handle it, what to make out of it.

Because we are used to making sense of pain by assigning blame. We are wired to assign blame to reduce uncertainty.

Who did this to me?

Blame gives control when ambiguity feels unsafe.

If something ends, then someone must have failed.

Because if someone is at fault, at least the world still makes sense.

Anger is simpler and easier than acceptance.

Not everyone who hurt us was wrong.

Sometimes they are just honest. About what they felt. About what they couldn’t give you.

Not because you are not worth it, but because they just could not.

And that is harder to accept, as no one is to blame. No anger left behind.

Just a quiet gap between what you expected and what actually happened.

Maybe that is why it hurts so much.

Not because they broke you, but because your mind had already written a different ending. And we are attached to the outcome so much that our brain tends to ignore the signs saying that it’s not working.

You saw it going somewhere. You believed it would stay.

And when it didn’t, it felt like something was snatched away from you.

But nothing was taken. It just didn’t become what you imagined.

Not all pain is injustice.

Some of it is just the moment we realize reality doesn’t owe us the version we hoped for.

And nothing is wrong with it.

Until next time,

Love, Aayushi.