The Hurt Is Killing Me

I had a hospital appointment yesterday. It was to take a blood test of my cortisol level to check whether it was still low — it was low.

Back in April, I was admitted to the hospital following the decline of my kidney function to learn that I had a low cortisol level, which meant that my adrenal glands had shut down and in order to wake them up again, I had to take steroids. They began me on a high dosage to eventually lower the milligrams I was to take in hopes that my adrenal glands would come to work and stabilise my cortisol levels. Fast forward three months later and it is still low.

I hadn’t a clue that our bodies made steroids, and it was these hormones that maintained our cortisol (stress) levels, produced hormones, regulated metabolism, immune system and blood pressure. After the call with the doctor in which he discussed changing my medication and what the next steps were, the despair I had become accustomed to reappeared. I was left to contemplate how I had let stress affect me so that I was slowly destroying my body.

Let me process this, as I write I am identifying the stressors in life, people (lover, strangers, friendships, familial members), life, societal constructs (work, education, money, housing), have accumulated stress and I have been functioning in such high stress levels over the years that eventually my own body gave way and stopped working. I cannot pinpoint when my cortisol levels dropped, as I was under the presumption that my cortisol levels were high all this time with all the symptoms I had experienced: change of face shape, weight fluctuation, fatigue, lack of sleep and high blood pressure. It could be that it was high for a significant amount of time, for so long, that the adrenal glands had become overwhelmed and shut themselves down.

I think past the hurt that I had felt over time from many different people for many different reasons. Have I hurt people? I did… Upon reflection, the hurt caused to them was not projections; it was in moments when I was enforcing my worth because they were not seeing my worth.

I see relationships in simple terms: no matter who you are. If the efforts are reciprocated, if you are a decent person, then yes, I want you in my life; if you are a troubled person and I feel continuously dismissed, then no, I do not wish to associate with you. It has been this mindset in which I navigated all of my relationships with — it has served me well despite my circle getting smaller. The people who are in my life now are genuine, loving, and conscious people.

The imbalance between two people occurs when one is healed and another is not, when one is conscious and the other is not. I have noticed in people where imbalance resides that any negative reaction that penetrates, parasitically, is mostly a projection of insecurities, unhealed wounds and lack of self-awareness.

When one is not self-aware, nor do they do the work to heal from any past hurt or trauma, it festers, seeps into their soul, evoking disharmony, and this disharmony not only impacts them, but it also spreads, inflicting their surroundings, including other people. You see, hurt people hurt people, and this cycle continues until the people who are hurt stop and choose to make the conscious choice to say: ‘I need to work on myself. I cannot live like this anymore.’ The thing is, many people know what they are doing and they are making the choice to continue enacting those behaviours. The shift ensues when they decide not to endorse those patterns of behaviour anymore and invest in their healing, in repairing themselves.

You have to make a conscious choice every single moment of your life what kind of person you want to be and how you want to lead. While I never understood this when dealing with the hurt caused by the people around me, now, I understand, and the ease of dealing with hurt people has become. It is all projections. When deliberating this, the thought of even attesting someone to enforce my worth is a form of projection. You are not seeing my worth, you are dismissing me, which is not right; thus, I need to speak up.

Which makes me wonder, am I going to someone to see my value coming from a place of insecurity or security within myself? Is it coming from insecurity if my intention is to inflict the same pain they had caused me? Is it coming from security when I know I have been wronged, and I am setting my boundaries and regaining my self-respect? Indeed, the intention changes the situation.

With my body quite literally begging me to chill out and not be so hard on myself, I have surrendered. When learning about the predicament of my physical health, I couldn’t help but wonder just how important it is to not inflict suffering onto another, and if you are, from which place is it coming from, and are you redeemed? It is so important to do the healing work. If something had happened to you, it is on you to decide how to move forward. Alas, not many people do move forward, for many they allow the hurt and wounds to eat away at their bones and regress their souls, and in turn, these shadowed darkness releases itself in different shapes.

So, remember, when one is enacting negative behaviour, most of the time, it is not in response to your behaviour, but rather projections and insecurities of their own suffering that has not been resolved, and if so, do not let those negative emotions fester inside of you because you are slaying yourself.

If it is that the person continues to enact the same behavioural patterns, you must decide whether it is a situation worth resolving, if the person is capable of resolving the issue and if you can move past it amicably; if not, then you are doing yourself a disservice by maintaining relations with them. Negative situations are only worth resolving when in knowing that change will come. However, if the patterns keep repeating themselves, and the same situation plays over and over again, you then choose whether to bear with the low-hanging fruit or develop boundaries and form a healthier environment for yourself by keeping your distance.