When You Miss The Person You’re Supposed To Hate

Contrary to what most people would say, sometimes when someone hurts us we need to hold onto the pain and anger we feel, at least for a certain amount of time. Yea, it sounds insane and un-therapeutic, especially coming from a therapist, but when the anger subsides, especially without healing, what’s left is usually that layer of intense feeling of missing someone-or something that we should not be missing. What comes next is an ongoing oscillation of hating someone combined with missing the fuck out of them, depending on the day.

You would never consider letting someone who hurt you back in your life. And hell if you did, your friends and family would probably have you committed. On a rational day of thinking you would commit fucking your self. But we all have irrational and emotional days. And on those days, we think that those same people we ran and cried to should shut the hell up because they aren’t you. They weren’t there during your most private moments with this person, felt what you felt, heard your conversations or saw the way they looked at you. So you justify in your head, that for the moment, you are allowed to miss them and fantasize that they are back in your life. And if they were, they would all just accept it because all the wrongs were made right.

You know it’s terrible for you to be feeling, let alone thinking this, but some days you just wake up with it. You had a dream about them. It felt real. You heard a song that instantly transported you to a time that you spent together before they hurt you. You once looked back at this time and felt sick, but today you would give anything to go back. You smell something as simple as really humid air, and it feels like a season in your life with them that made you feel more alive than you ever were. On these days, it’s easy to forget all the bad and let it all go-if you could just see them and feel them one more time. Maybe it would be like none of it ever happened.

But it did and they aren’t doing anything to make it different.

Once we get past these days, where we almost caved and sent that text, we are back to our rational selves. Sometimes not only are we rational, we are even more mad, not only at ourselves for even conceiving of the fact that things could be different, but are again angry at them. When thinking about the good times and what could have been, it’s very easy to feel the initial hurt all over again because it feels like going back to the scene of the crime. If it once felt so good, how and why did they have to make it end feeling so bad?

Even if you’ve technically gotten over it and moved on, it’s hard to make peace with the fact that someone made you feel as bad as they did, and more importantly that even though we know this, a part of us still wants to reach out and undo what’s already been done.

Wrestling with that burning desire for answers or to see them, even though you feel like you hate them starts to take ever once we give in to the feeling of what feels like missing them. That in return can lead to the mental back and forth of wondering if you should reach out with then how you could even consider this after everything that’s happened. Are you out of your mind?

The answer, no. If you actually do it, yes. It’s okay to want to do it but then re-examine what the hell purpose this could possibly serve you. We’ve all been there. When someone is a part of our lives one way or another, getting used to the fact that they aren’t anymore, and that you most likely didn’t chose this, they did, is not easy. A part of us always wants to know if they miss us like we miss them, if they remember and think about those ridiculously hot nights despite what’s happened, and mostly, if they regret their decision. But the truth is, even if they do, the past can’t be changed, especially when they aren’t re-appearing in the present or attempting to create a different future with you.

Accepting that good times were really fucking good and allowing ourselves to leave them behind as memories that we grab onto when something reminds us, is okay. Even if it hurts to know that we can never feel that again, those memories are still ours. And more importantly, even though they aren’t here anymore, they’re still theirs too, whether they want them to be or not. Even if you never see them again, no one can change that it all happened. It’s whether you chose to remember the good or bad times that will define how you cope with what’s happened and how you go forward.

If you chose to hold onto the bad, that’s okay. Sometimes it’s better to be bitter than sad. Being angry will ensure that you will never cave on your vulnerable days. That’s not to say that vulnerable days won’t happen, but you will never be tortured about missing them bad enough to give into what you’re feeling. Truthfully, when someone can catch you on your vulnerable days, if you haven’t healed, you open yourself up to the risk that they will hurt you all over again. This is why we shouldn’t stay in the place where we forget the pain.

Unless they find you, (which they know where and how to), and want to make it right, it’s better to remember that what you are likely missing is not an actual person, it’s a feeling. Missing how someone made you feel, especially when it’s a hot passionate mess, is not the same as missing an actual person and everything they are. And more importantly, even though no one seems to be “them” to you, there will always be people that can and will make you feel the way they did-good. But without the bad.