A bystander in my own harm

She was crying. About what she had said to me. About hurting me with it.

I noticed the pull — to reach toward her, to soothe her discomfort, to hold her distress, so she didn't have to.

But I didn't. This time I stayed with what was present for me. I didn't abandon it to go and alleviate someone else's feelings.

And what was present was confusion. In an instant, it had taken centre stage and sent the pain of the rupture in our friendship to the background.

I had trusted in a shared framework — repair as each of us owning our part. Instead, without skipping a beat, it drifted from what she said to my reaction to it.

All I could suddenly feel was a crawling sensation spreading all over my body. I didn't know where it had originated. Only that it was already everywhere.

My reality was being overwritten.

I was first met with, "Oh, honey, do you need to cry it out?" and a sympathetic look. That felt abandoning — I was communicating something that legitimately hurt my feelings in a close relationship, and the response asked me to regulate myself, so I could absorb it quietly, without question.

My next attempt to bring the conversation back to what was said was met with a succinct analysis of why I was being offended — “you are overly identified with this part of yourself”. Yet again, another deflection.

We took some time to reflect.

Upon meeting again, my next and final attempt was met with tears. Her tears.

I could feel the disorientation again. Just a moment before, I had been so sure — about what happened, how it made me feel, what upset me and why, about what and how to communicate it.

She said she was so upset that she had hurt me. 'Finally', I thought.

She then proceeded to say that this had impacted her very much, and she had been feeling awful.

And just like that, the hope dissolved. Disappointment first. Then the erasure — the realisation that even this, her crying, wasn't for me.

She added that she had already forgiven herself. And as such, the matter was closed.

The mechanism of accountability appeared to be running. She was showing emotion. She was acknowledging something. It was only when I stepped back that I realised none of it was oriented towards me at all.

Even though I was the one who had been hurt.

Her internal drama was so consuming that there was simply no room for my hurt. I had become structurally irrelevant to her process. I got to be the supporting cast in her redemption arc.

Photo by Kazuo ota on Unsplash 

She didn't ask me for forgiveness. She granted it to herself, announced it, and declared herself fine. The entire process of repair happened but it got completed entirely within herself.

I was present for all of it as a spectator but featured in none of it as an actual person. I was the occasion, not the subject.

I became a bystander in my own harm.

If this dynamic — of deflecting accountability instead of offering repair, feels familiar, and you're curious to examine it more closely — not for blame, but for clarity — you can reach out here.