People Who Hurt People – Part 3
Posted By Aaron Marcelli on October 23, 2010
People who are hurt
The saying is very true that hurt people hurt people. In the circles I’m in, I see this most in people who have been hurt by the church. As a result the leave church, think poorly of all churches, and are unwilling many times to return to a church or even discuss the subject – which is funny because people get hurt by others at work all the time but still return so they can earn a paycheck.
Either way, the people who are hurt by others, then turn and many times themselves become those who hurt people. Those who feel they have been wronged sometimes respond by adapting either an avoidance or a victim mentality. They slowly begin to view life as unfair and talk themselves into thinking that life is out to get them. This person begins to talk negatively about the general “they” but don’t want to open up about what made them this way. Hurt people often refuse to be encouraging and any time you share a dream or plan with them they respond with a “well that will never work” just because in the past life did not “work” for them.
My experience has taught me that people who have been hurt are not necessarily mean people, but sometimes a little bitter and very fear driven. In turn they begin to hurt people emotionally through discouragement. When dealing with one person like this years ago I caught on that they were shooting down every thing I said because it was not “reality.” So what you’re saying is I should just stay hidden and safe inside like you until I die is what I thought (but did not say).
I believe this attitude is one the snowballs very slowly over the years as I find the trait to be most obvious in older people. Because it happens internally and so very slowly, I think many who are this way do not even know it. They really think they are a realist. And at sometimes they make good points about our culture leaving individuals to fend for themselves and that to some people we are just a number. But listening to them talk like this, for me, just drains all the life and energy out of the room.
Because these social habits and temperamental disposition is formed so very slowly, check yourself to make sure you are not harboring bitterness or negativity (even if it seems justifies) that you are turning into discouragement for others. Try to focus on the positive, true things in situations rather than adapting an attitude that will turn people off from you. In one word, people who have been hurt are negative, but I will never forget when a college professor of mine said, “It is the guest who is positive that will always be invited back.”
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