Jumping to Conclusions

If you are one of those people that like to read things in your head as they would sound in real life (that's a thing people do right?), well I'm warning you, prepare to take a deep mental breathe because that next paragraph down there is all one sentence. Yea. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I've just been hit with the horrible realization that my parents have led me to believe that I should treat people I don't like with the same cruelty they exhibit towards me, but at the same time I feel like I should be the bigger person and be nice to them, yet I also feel that they don't deserve kindness because they're horrible people, but then I also realize that they might be horrible people because other people are mean to them and now I'm contributing to that as well, but maybe if they just realized that them being mean to other people is the reason why other people are mean to them, which means that it's all just makes a giant mean-ness circle and someone has to break the cycle first and maybe that should be me, but I don't know?

It's a known fact that many (but not all) victims of childhood abuse grow up to become abusers themselves, and the cycle of abuse is a well documented phenomenon. In that case, wouldn't it be important to always treat others with kindness and respect, so the cycle can be broken and the world is a better place? I've been struggling with the above problem for a long time, not always as explicitly as it had just hit me, but it's always been in the back of my head. Counselors and therapists have always supported me in my own journey to break out of the cycle away from my parents, and in that part I do believe I have succeeded, but what about going back to fix the cycle that my siblings are still trapped in? Just because I have broken out of it does not mean that it doesn't exist anymore.

A second realization that hit just as swiftly as the first answered my question. I remembered that I have tried being kind to them and I have tried to fix it repeatedly, with my own power and by introducing outside sources, in hopes of being able to make a connection and change the way things are, but they just didn't respond or make any changes. So that settles it. Give people chances, but there is a limit. You are under no obligation to fix other people, because sometimes it's just too late to save them. You have a breaking point too, so make sure you don't overstep that boundary and keep yourself safe. Yes it is a cycle, yes you should try to break the cycle, but don't break yourself in the process. If you've done what you can do and it doesn't work, there comes a point where the best thing to do is to preserve yourself and use your opportunities to help people that still can be helped and still want to be helped, otherwise you're just wasting your time on people that steadfastly don't want to change. It's sad but it's true.

This is an extremely important distinction, and realizing this has cleared up so much about my views on life. The reason I was contemplating this was in part regarding to the last part of the previous post, but it's also applicable in any relationship in life, whether its coworkers, friends, or romantic relationships. Things are never black and white, and things are never easy. One could even argue that the behavior of reaching limits and then switching to harsher tactics is yet another larger cycle, which really has no solution anymore, at least not from me, because if it did, the psychology would be so abstract and complicated that it would take years of research to truly decipher (but is probably something I will continue to muse over in my spare time with color coded diagrams). Or maybe, if the problem begins before the child has a chance to understand the consequences of their own actions, it simply is the parents' fault for not treating the child with unconditional love, in which case, could be due to their own childhood issues, but refer to the previous paragraph. If possible, In any case, ALWAYS avoid active cruelty at all costs. With any other relationship, this is fairly easy, as cutting the person out and never having to speak to them again is a feasible solution, but with parents it's a little different. For me, personally, I have come to enough of a satisfying conclusion to move on with my life resolute in my decisions to behave the way I will, but who knows, I may be completely wrong. ◊