In 1992, the movie Damaged came out, starring Juliette Binoche and Jeremy Irons. It was a heavy movie, with dark themes, including incest.
The movie was based on a similarly-titled book, by Josephine Hart, and there is a quote from the book (and the movie) that I have come across quite often:
“All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them so.”
However, I have had the dubious privilege of reading the book and that quote only tells half of a terrifying story.
The second half of that quote is this:
“Because they have no pity. They know that others can survive, as they did.”
The premise then follows that because people get hurt, they become hard, and then they have no problem with hurting others in turn.
I lived out this quote for a long time, not really caring what others think or feel. I actually thought it made me a badass, believe it or not! Why care about other people? No-one cared about me when I was hurting and my spirit was bleeding inside me. Why shouldn’t I give others a taste of that medicine?
No, I can’t say I felt the Spirit move (sorry, all the pastors!), but I still came to the realization that if I carried on down that path and with that mindset, the only person that I would be destroying would be myself.
So I toned it down.
I wish I can say that I have forgiven my school bullies, but I can’t. Some scars run too deep to be easily smoothed over. The wounds bled too much.
But yes, I can control how I act towards others. I can control how I treat hurting people. And I can see the darkness eating at the soul of a depressed teenager. I am a trained counselor, not because I have an affinity for psychology, but because I can see the pain in others. And, unlike most psychologists, I don’t merely hand out band-aids, but I try my best to get to the very root of that issue and then pull out the whole noxious weed. If that darkness is too big to remove, we make a pact with it. After all, that darkness can’t exist if the person doesn’t, can it?
However, I have given up on my quest to find a mate. Some people say that one is not complete without a soul mate, or at least a good, loving life partner.
I may never be complete. I will be whole.