Hurt versus Harm

Several years ago I asked my mother to help me pluck hairs from my nose, my eyebrows, and chin (yup, I said it, there is unfortunately hair there as well.) We were bickering about this and I asked her why she could not just take the tweezers and pluck one measly little hair out from me.  And she just couldn't. It came out that that she could not bear the thought that she would hurt me. This kicked off a discussion of hurt versus harm with her but for her it boiled down to she still just couldn't.

A year or two later, my (fixed) tom cat had been in a fight with another cat and when he came in we had some work we needed to do on him to keep him health. A scab had formed where he had been bitten but the bite was infected and we needed to take the scab off to clean the wound and then to put medicine on it. He had been harmed so we were going to have to hurt him to heal him. It would have harmed him more if we had not cause him hurt.

If you body has cancer, a Doctor can give you pain medicine, which will mask the problem but never actually heal you, so you die of your ailment but feel ok; or a doctor can give you surgery and medicine which will hurt you but may save your life in the long run.

This is true for our soul too. 

I remember hearing that if you respect someone you will not lie to them. While I agree with this to a point, I think it may be a bit more complicated. As an abuse survivor, I find that I felt compelled to lie to protect myself from harm. It is a self preservation function as well as a respect function. If you have been abused and are now in a relationship where you are safe now it becomes a trust function. When you finally feel safe and you trust them, then it is a respect function. If you live with a trauma or abuse survivor and you want truth, you are going to need to take into consideration their  fear triggers, you are going to need to make it safe for them to speak truth. You are going to need to listen past the words to hear then intent. That last one is important really in all situations not just survivors. Listen past the words and the feelings, and hear the intent.

Humorous example: I had a work bestie at one of my jobs and she was engaged to be married. They both worked in the office with me and it was merely weeks away from the wedding. It was a second marriage for both of them and emotions were running high. Well he came over to her desk, which was across from mine and made a quip that went over like a lead balloon. She totally freaked on him. I did not have the emotions of a wedding to deal with and heard something much more benign. I was able to hear the intent and not the words. It's easy to get riled up at words. It's a lot hard to slow down and hear what they are trying to say or ask questions to get a more perfect answer.

In the environment that cultivated my trauma, I had to choose my words very carefully, they could instantly trigger a violent response or an extreme emotional response. It wasn't for lack of respect, but to this day, I tend to be very cautious even when I am with people who are safe to me. And even with people who are safe to me, I am whether I am conscious of it or not, always evaluating if they continue to be safe. 

Here is where hurt versus harm becomes important. You and I need to demonstrate that we never want to harm and that our activities, words, and actions are never with the intent to harm. If we cause unintended harm we have to fix it. Hurt is inevitable. We have to prove that the hurt is there for healing, health, and safety, and that it is not useless pain. Useless pain is harm.

Hurt is a pain that leads to something good, healing, understanding, protection of someone we love, etc. Sometimes we have to hear things that hurt so that we can grow, just like having cancer taken out of our bodies.