Dr. Paul Bloom,
Psychologist

Pain hurts more if you believe someone is doing it to you on purpose. - Paul Bloom, TED Global Conference

While I haven't taken the time to investigate the context of this statement, as a random thought, it sure is hitting me where I live today. I'm in the midst of a passive-aggressive, knock-down, drag-out episode with one of my children. I take my share of the blame for the initial incident. She's been really good at pushing my buttons lately, and when I let her do it this time, I said some regrettable things. It could have been resolved within 24 hours. I have reached out multiple times. But we're currently in the midst of the fourth week, and her response every time I reach out is, "I'm not ready to discuss it." Ugh.

Her usual response to pain is to try to resolve it right away. She's the one who wants to flip the switch, get it all on the table and then sweep it into the "resolved" pile. I usually need to stew, to process, to understand why it happened so I can call it finis. Because this is so out of character for her, I’m more and more convinced as the days go by, she is doing this on purpose so I hurt as much as she does. I wish I was the only cause of her pain, but I’m not. The other stuff isn’t something I can fix.

My parental-self doesn’t understand the rejection. The passive-aggressive bull is infuriating. The longer she leaves me to stew, the more I remember the sacrifice, the healing of her wounds, the celebrations of her triumphs, and the just plain love shown to her. The more I stew, the more my perspective turns introspective, and self-pitying.

In the few conversations we’ve had since the incident, she has made it clear she doesn’t want to hear about, much less admit to, the pain and hurt that is her responsibility. I can only hope and pray it is just the hubris and inflexibility of youth talking.  But the longer it takes to get to the table to discuss, the deeper I find myself falling into my own perspective hole. I hope when she is ready to talk, she’ll take the ladder she used to climb out of her hole and share it with me. And I pray my eyes will remain open to her pain and perspective as we heal – together.