when they only see your reaction

There's a particular kind of confusion that comes from knowing your actions hurt someone, all while knowing your actions were a reaction to the hurt they put onto you.

I'm not coming here to pretend that the way I reacted was right. They weren't. They were hurtful and explosive. There are things I said and did that I wish I could take back more than anything in the world. I know that I could have handled my pain differently and I take responsibility for that. But sometimes it feels impossible to explain that my reaction did not come from nowhere without it sounding like an excuse.

Someone in my life loved to tell me that actions had consequences and he was right. They do. But it always just felt funny to me because that same person never stopped to consider that his actions had consequences (my reactions).

There was something that happened before I reacted. There were choices he made that hurt me, things that changed how I saw things, and experiences that slowly pushed me towards this version of myself that I didn't recognize. It continued to build up within me and when I finally reacted, that became the part of the story he remembered. Not the before, just the afters.

And that's the trickiest part about this. I can acknowledge and take accountability for my reactions. I can admit to myself and him that I could have reacted in a different way. But either way, my reactions didn't come from nothing.

my reaction had a history

Reactions don't happen in isolation. I didn't cling to you based off of nothing. I didn't cry because nothing happened. Before the anger, there was hurt. Before the defensiveness, there was fear. Before the resentment, there were moments that you made me feel ignored. Before I did everything I did to hurt you, I had already been hurt by you.

And again, I am not saying how I reacted was okay. I'm not saying I was justified in hurting him. All I'm saying is there is a reason we got to this point.

when they only see what i did

Unfortunately sometimes the only thing that gets noticed in a situation is the reaction. The before is rarely explored, just the after. We see the consequences, not the actions.

They see the angry texts, but not what happened before to make you anger. They see the tears, but not the words that were said to you before you cried.

I became defined by the moment I broke rather than everything that led me there. I didn't have those feelings without something happening.

the difference between explaining and excusing

Now this is important. I think as a society we've come to believe that any explanation behind why someone did what they did becomes an excuse.

When he would tell me what I did that bothered him, I would try to explain why I reacted the way I reacted. I wasn't trying to say that it was okay that I reacted that way, I just wanted him to understand that this reaction didn't come from nowhere. I can understand why I behaved badly and still regret it. I can explain why I reacted the way I reacted without excusing the fact that I did it.

I shouldn't have to erase the circumstances that contributed to my behavior in order to apologize and take accountability.

My pain shouldn't have to disappear for me to understand someone else's.

Truthfully I think my problem was always bottling it up. So when it finally came to me exploding, anything I said to explain why sounded like excuses because if they had hurt me then, why did I hold it in for so long?

wanting them to understand

When it comes to arguments everyone is fighting with their point of view. For me it wasn't about them taking all the blame for my reaction. All I ever wanted from him was for him to understand that his choices had consequences too. All I wanted was to hear that he understood that his choices hurt me too. I didn't need him to forget how I reacted, but I wanted my hurt to be acknowledged too.

when they refuse to look at their side

I think the biggest dilemma is the idea of how when someone comes to you about their hurt, you need to focus only on their pain. Even after acknowledging my behavior bringing up his would lead him to saying that I didn't care how I made him feel which is very ironic if you think about it. He always wanted me to sit in my reaction, but never sit in his own actions.

what i wish

Truthfully I believe that most conflicts can be resolved with understanding and I don't think what happened between me and this person was any different. If he had been more willing to understand my pain, maybe those things wouldn't have continued to happen.

What he saw was me not changing my reactions but what I experienced was him never changing his actions. And it sucks. It sucks to know that some situations could be fixed with simple communication, but you can't force a person to understand you just as much as you can't force yourself to understand someone else.

ending

Actions have consequeneces just like how a reaction come from an action. I'm not going to continue rewriting what happened between the two of us just to make his story work. What happened already happened.

He did things that hurt me. I reacted. I hurt him. And it sucks.

You can't make someone understand you. And it's okay. Stay true to your story.