Only You Can Fix You

Someone hurt you. They spewed terrible words; they acted in unkind ways. You are traumatized, angry, and it has caused you to act differently towards others.

It’s not your fault it happened, but it is your job to fix it.

Yes I just said that. Get mad at me now if you would like. But hear me out.

I feel like I am in a year of ownership.

A large part of that has been owning up to my own mistakes, allowing myself to make even more mistakes, and still going on. It has been taking a more aggressive role in undoing harmful patterns of thinking I have held. Owning up to my own short-comings, and knowing that it makes me human.

I normally am too hard on myself. I have always been the person who makes a small mistake and immediately feels stupid. An argument happens in a relationship, and I think it is 100% my fault. I almost constantly analyze how I could be better, be more.

In this process, I have walked through life picking up blame. I see a shortcoming in another person, a mistake they made; and out of love (and probably a bit of lack of self-worth), I scoop up the blame and put it on my shoulders.

That gets heavy. It makes it really hard to achieve anything in life.

But you can also do the opposite. I have seen so many people act in horrible ways, or live miserable lives, and when you ask why?

“Oh this person did this thing to me and it ruined me.”

Excuse me? Allow me to return to my thesis.

It’s not your fault it happened, but it is your job to fix it.

It sounds harsh I know, but this is what I mean. There is a difference between fault, and responsibility.

If someone hurt you, absolutely they are at fault, and they should take responsibility for their actions of course! (Good luck with that second one in most cases).

But you also have a responsibility. That responsibility is to yourself, and to everyone around you that you love now, and anyone you may love in the future.

You cannot avoid the truth. No one else can fix how you act because of your trauma but you. That person that hurt you? They could take responsibility all day long, and it still will not fix you.

You have to fix you. You can cry. You can scream at the top of your lungs that it isn’t fair. You can feel like giving up some days, or even most days.

But you have to love yourself enough to fix what they did. You have to love those around you enough to fix your toxic behaviors that you learned so that you don’t hurt other people.

You have to take responsibility for the way you act because of what happened to you. No one else can control that.

You have to think that you are worth having a life that is not saturated in self-pity and toxicity. To think you are worth being the best version of yourself, the version that lies on the other side of hard work and a lot of healing.

Please don’t take the blame; that isn’t your weight to carry. Instead, pick up the responsibility to grow and run with it.