Button pushers and Bandaids

Have you ever had a wound that scabbed over? And the scab would be there for days. Eventually it would either itch to such an extend that you would start picking at it or the scab itself would start cracking, with pieces falling off on their own or with a bit of your assistance.

Sometimes the scab would build back up, depending on how madly you picked at it. Going through the same process over again. Eventually though, it would get smaller and smaller, fading from a bright pink into a barely visible pink and then your layers of skin would cover it. Some scabs would leave a permanent discoloration, not quite a scar, just a tiny difference at that spot you picked at. You’d forget about it until maybe years later someone would point it out and you would remember that you totally forgot about this incessantly itching scab.

Well, people are like scabs to me. Or rather, they are scab pickers. Not all of them, of course. But I have often asked myself why certain people have entered my life. The aggravation they cause reminding me of any real scab I ever had. As I managed to deal with any of those particular “scabby” people, essentially removing them from my life, someone else would come along, falling into that category of “itching the hell out of me”. It was an arduous process for me to recognize the cyclic repetition of these people coming into my life. Hadn’t I just dealt with this issue? Hadn’t I just flicked off that bothersome scab? Why was it coming around again?

It’s because I hadn’t completely grown over what could and still did hurt me. Like the oozing coming from my skin after I peeled that scab off. I was still oozing, still trying to deal with issues, that at times I wasn’t even aware I had. I have learned to recognize those people that will make me pick at my scabs. It’s not really the people. I have learned to recognize particular patterns within myself that get tripped by specific people. Slowly I am unlearning to pick at the scab. I’m not sure how many more scabs I really have. I won’t know until I encounter people who make me aware of my scabs. But I have learned to leave the scabs be.

It’s not that I am not willing to deal with whatever issue it is that arises. It’s rather that I have learned to recognize that this is an issue that needs tender attention, and not the constant picking at it to keep it oozing. Leaving the scab be allows myself to come to a better understanding of my reactive factors and to come up with different ways of dealing with the issue. Instead of my lifelong habit of picking it off and causing it to ooze, which would lead to calling forth more people to represent that same itchy scab.

What helped in tending to my scabs more efficiently are the other sort of people. The ones who would see the scab, especially the scabs I wasn’t aware of, meaning that they would recognize the issue I had difficulty growing from and would assist me in dealing with it by loving on me, and not rubbing on it and therefore causing it to become irritated and oozy again.

I guess it takes both sorts to help us become scab free.

heart image via Girish

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