Borrowed Tragedy

We all have our own pain, solitary, and heartfelt. It is human nature to wish to bridge the divide between souls and share the result: how we feel - what is left. 

What is left is a person forever altered; perhaps more wary, or jaded, or shy, distrustful, or a combination of these and so many other things.

I have actually been accused of murder, (really - me personally - in published print) and in trying to understand why someone would do that, I stumbled across something profound, something that has seen a resurgence as of late: personal agony undergoing a metamorphosis into borrowed tragedy.

A woman (successfully sober a number of years) who's opinion I value highly articulated this very well when she said (and here I must paraphrase), "Imagine having something occur that is so completely awful that you are crushed into a new form - something unrecognizable even to yourself. The outcome of this are emotions you didn't know were possible, but are forced to endure.

Image further, trying to connect with others, trying to convey these emotions, but what you can observe of their reactions, when others hear your story, are not the emotions you feel, or are feeling - so the connection to others is never made.

Imagine having the strength to try again.

This time, in a desperate bid for understanding, you alter the story ever-so-slightly, to make it conform to a known tragedy, one that makes people respond the way you feel.

This time the connection is closer, but still a gap remains... so the story is altered again... the gap narrows... and again... until one day you see the full impact of horror in their eyes and you both stand on the same side of the bridge, breathless."

Unfortunately, it does not end with her words. I have seen the next step more than once: the story takes on a new life, for a story well-told becomes history, and soon it is your history - irrefutable... and a new reality is born - and you must cast away the idea of ever coming to terms with the tragedy you once faced, because it is not the reality you have created, and you now must inhabit. You cycle through, over-and-over, but never past the critical parts, because those parts aren't yours - they are someone else's story, and they are not yours.

With the overload of data that social media now offers it is easy to borrow someone else's tragedy.

There has been another shooting in another state. It was senseless and vile. How long did it take for people to compare it to their own tragedy - to say that theirs somehow exceeded this?

Pain has one constant: it is personal.

When a person borrows tragedy, they are feeling disconnected - that they have not been understood before when first trying to express pain, sorrow, and grief. They are looking for a way to say, "I can see the shock in you this time, the numbed horror, and this is how I have been feeling all along."