Tell me that I'll someday stop feeling betrayed. Someone tell me that I won't always feel used. I'm not sure I'll believe you, and I'm not sure it matters. I just need to hear it.
I can think back 9, 10, even 14 years and certain past slights still sting when I focus on them. I don't feel used anymore, because it's so far gone that it doesn't matter if I was, and I only feel betrayed when I think about it actively or once in a while when I'm in a self-pitiful mood to begin with and I can't seem to prevent these thoughts from jumping into my brain.
Feeling betrayed or used is different than feeling rejected. I think rejected is so common that we all more or less get over it very easily, but feeling betrayed or used is more deeply humiliating, a harsher offense, and it's harder to let go of that. So I think it may continue to bubble it's ugly head, and its important to be ready for that but also know that that emotion and your subsequent reactive emotions are not what define you. You can experience it without being ridden by it, though that takes some practice and intentionality. It also takes facing it, which it sounds like you're doing.
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etherial
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Date: 2007-09-06 02:23 pm (UTC)Feeling betrayed or used is different than feeling rejected. I think rejected is so common that we all more or less get over it very easily, but feeling betrayed or used is more deeply humiliating, a harsher offense, and it's harder to let go of that. So I think it may continue to bubble it's ugly head, and its important to be ready for that but also know that that emotion and your subsequent reactive emotions are not what define you. You can experience it without being ridden by it, though that takes some practice and intentionality. It also takes facing it, which it sounds like you're doing.