When you feel betrayed, it hurts. It hurts because you experience pain. You experience pain because a part of you dies in that betrayal.
A part of me has died after weeks of exploration to the chance of revival of the old bonding, a deeply rooted friendship I once had shared with someone.
For two and half years that person and I remained apart from each other. The conflict that had come between us was caused by some third party who had ulterior motives.
To be separated from your loved ones because of the third person is what I have often experienced in my life and that suffering is of the most vicious nature because it makes you question the strength of the bonding you had shared with that person. Should the third person be able to sabotage this strong bonding, then was it even really that strong? And then you start questioning if is this your fault because it was, perhaps, all in your own head and not the same for your counterpart.
Why does everyone you try to connect with end up becoming a stranger with a shared past?
Are you carrying it within you? Because when you face betrayal it forces you to see that person differently. Because when you are constantly in touch with that person, through conversations, chats, calls, and the stories that you tell each other about your life, build up a model of that person in your head. It builds up a certain persona of that person who is so close to you, who is becoming so important to you.
But when the betrayal is caused by that very person, what do you feel? Pain? Yes. Because this exact model that you had built of this person is dying within you, taking along all the sweet good memories with it. That part of your life, when you felt loved, cherished, and accepted by someone, turns into an even more excruciating source of suffering.
The expression of such manipulation, that person was deprived of me out of the insecurity of the third person had only ignited a furious chain of reaction. All I felt within me was a wave of anger and the whim to inflict suffering on those who caused it. And undoubtedly I felt extreme anger and disappointment in that person who was influenced by such people. And to see if there is still that spark remaining in this deprived relationship that you could ignite and revive what once was there with this person.
You are consumed with happiness that ultimately what goes around comes around and you start to feel that there is some rhythm in the events of your life. In the end, everything falls into place, is what you tell yourself and you begin to get happy with this new return of that old force in your life.
But then you notice some shady nature and something really doesn't add up with their nature and a part of you is warning you that something isn't quite right. You need to find out what's really been going on.
As I often say to people that I don't only read books, I read people too. Reading people has some scope for you when you have a deep conscience and a greater hold on articulating your own emotions. Most people fail to understand their own emotions. Emotions tell you what you really need but your mind tells you what you have to do in life. And in this practice of reading people I have come across some findings about human nature.
Relationships go through the difficult tension of being honest to the next person with all our flaws and insecurities and hope that they would love us all the same but we are crept by insecurities that once they know our flaws they would abandon us for a better option.
So this kind of fear drives us to act and pretend to be the more acceptable version of ourselves to win the approval of the next person. We can’t truly be ourselves before the next person and the silence about what we really are is the price we pay in such relationships.
No matter how much the next person claims how open-minded they are, very few really make room for the complexities in their lives.
That's why people often create a persona for the people around them, to appear as the more socially acceptable person.
If the trick is to victimize yourself, appearing as a poor innocent creature and the product of the misconduct of society has created some complexity within you is what some people might use as their persona when they know that the next person does have some soft spot for them. Such people try to wield the power of bleeding your heart by the idea that you could have stopped it all from happening to them if only you were there for that next person.
Such gaslighting is horrendous in nature because men, by nature, are protective. They offer security to their counterparts. And such gaslighting only provokes that nature. Which often results in late realization in the relationship, which consequently ends up falling apart.
Then every coin has two sides and you can't afford to wear colored glasses when seeing through people.
What are colored glasses?
When my curious mind was trying to find peace, that search had led me to a Zen book, which contained information about Zen Philosophy. So there was this part in that book, "In Zen we say, don't wear colored glasses. It is a strong admonishment against judging people only on preconceived notions. If you base your evaluation of someone on just one piece of information or a negative idea or emotion you have from a single facet of what you've seen of him, you will inevitably misjudge him."
So I met that third person who, by the story that I was told, had created conflicts between me and the person I was deeply involved in. And the facts and different angles that came before me after listening to the side of that third party had done nothing but blew my mind. Because the image that I had over the years for that person with whom I had shared a very close friendship was getting shattered with the information that a third person, who was also deeply involved, at one point, with that very person. And that third person saw the side of that person which I couldn't, or most probably didn't.
The experience of betrayal, which I would have experienced had this incidence of conflict not happened, was turned into the third person, who was involved with that person. The third person's side was telling me how much damage it had caused to the third person who was accused of creating conflict. The funny thing here I realized is the one who was actually creating conflict was the one with whom I and even that third person had shared a deep friendship or bonding.
After heeding that third party's story, I felt nothing but shame for how I was gaslighted and how the fire of hate and contempt was kindled within me for a false cause. So many factors came to light that was painful to hear but the truth has the nature of being unkind to any of us.
When the facts and the story told were verified by other sources too, breaks your thought setup and cause you pain. The person you thought something to be in your mind and heart, is not at all in real life. So, at that time what do you feel?
Betrayed?
Betrayed by your own thoughts and emotions? Ashamed that you failed to see through this person whom you deemed so close to you. And now you wonder, if the fault lies with you? Because the person who betrayed you was close to you, someone who reflected your connection with them, a part of you was with them and still that person did this to you? So, does this also make you equally guilty of this betrayal?
This is painful when you learn that person you cherished is not what you thought them to be. This is painful because a part of you that was connected with them is now dying within you and that's why it is painful. What you wished after all this time with that one person is time to spend together, not for the sake of the pleasure of being around them but for the opportunity to see if you can still love this person who was long gone from you and has returned with so many changes and complexities. And then get this opportunity to know them, understand them but above all understand yourself, by finding the answer to a very crucial question, "Can you still love this person after all this time?"
But in the world of manipulation, it is better to trust things only after verifying them. And most of the time in your life, what you wish to believe in, what you wish to be true, turns out to be the falsest thing ever.
For me what is the way of relief in this torment? The first thing is to forgive myself, which is the most difficult part but I am working on it. And second, is to let that person go from my life for my own better condition. But above all, being kind to the third person, for whom you felt nothing but contempt and envy.
When I was in Vippasshana training, I learned one thing there that, help those who have hurt you, for they do not know how ignorant they are but for how kind you are. "The best revenge is to not be like those who caused you hurt." said Marcus Aurelius. It is the stoic way, to take revenge on them by not acting, feeling, or becoming like them.
In order to do that I must forgive myself and I must engage myself in the service of helping the third person, whom I thought wrong for no good reason. And I serve this third person by offering a hand of friendship. How it serves me is that I can let go of all those heavy emotional baggage from my heart. No more do I want to hate other people for the one who is carrying all the fault with her. Yes, my dream is shattered once again but I've died many times in my life and life is the constant process of dying and rebirth. So let's die a little each day and rebirth to the better version of ourselves.
