Discussion Character development?

[anonymouswebuser]

do you think the hardships you've faced have at least taught you something that stayed with you in the long run?

i used to doubt that kind of thinking. when you're suffering you're not looking for lessons you're just hoping for a break. the idea that pain could somehow teach you something felt almost insulting. i mean no one is gonna pause to philosophize in the middle of drowning. the last thing on your mind is reflection or philosophy, you just want it to stop

but over the past year i started noticing some changes in myself. after spending a lot of time in self-imposed isolation and feeling the weight of its consequences i began to reflect especially on my former psychologist's thoughts of my isolation. things didn't exactly get better but i started changing in small ways

one thing that really stood out to me is i used to assume everything someone did in a relationship—good or bad—was fully intentional. if someone showed love i believed it was deliberate. If they hurt me i believed they meant to. but i've come to think again that we don't have complete control over all of our reactions and outer elements could subconsciously affect how we react. i've hurt people without meaning to—a lot—while believing i wasn't doing something hurtful and and yet i never stopped to think that maybe someone else didn't mean to hurt me either. i never gave others the grace of an excuse but i expected it for myself
it's still hard for me to do so when my lovely mind can effortlessly list 20 different reasons why [person] meant what they did but i didn't use to even spend any effort in giving someone an excuse

looking back my behavior a year ago was pretty toxic honestly but lately i've been noticing a shift. i'm a little gentler with people now, more aware maybe not perfect but definitely not the same person i was

so yeah, have you ever experienced a moment like that? a hardship that slowly changed something about you? i'd be interested to know

 

[getoutgirl]

I agree most change comes when you step out of your comfort zone. Even though while you are in pain and struggling there is little time or energy to reflect on big lessons, you just want it to end. True. But with enough time there has to be some a-ha! moments, or just change that deposits slowly.

You know already :P but I've isolated too for the past 5 years or so, on and off. It's a bad habit I can at least now recognize. Back then I just knew it felt good, and safe, and I couldn't face people or all the dread and tension and anxiety out there, I crumbled, inside it all felt okay, so I thought that might be the life for me. I still isolate as a means of survival for those very reasons, but my experience taught me that I cannot be happy like that, I won't fool myself however alluring that comfort is, in the end it's a slow numbing and meaningless asphyxia. I know that now, and I'm glad I do even if sometimes I can't put it to practice.

I don't think I've changed much in the past years tho. That's what happens in comfort, isolation, and that sort of numbing slow pain, not big event pain just... depression and so on. But I'd like to think I have changed in small ways. I've learn a lot about people too. How they and their interactions are confusing not just to me, but by nature. It's complex stuff and it feels better to realize that instead of despairing thinking it's just you against everyone. Ppl are a big confusing mess, everybody hurts, yadda yadda but sometimes hard to swallow for our neurotic lil brains.

I'm glad you can see some change in yourself, even if you went through such bad moments. And that you also recognize some toxic traits on yourself. That's harder. Believe me all that is worth being proud of.
hugs <3

 

[LostWay]

Your thinking was incorrect, what you learn while drowning is not how to philosophize but how to act. In extreme situations, you learn/perform the action, then the reflective thought follows. You've probably already started making core changes in how you act, and after noticing that you've now changed your thoughts. The reason people say you learn in those situations is because you are provoked into doing something that you wouldn't normally do and end up experiencing something that never would've happened otherwise. As a teaching style though it can fail more than acceptable and is mentally overwhelming to the student.