Attachment Always Hurts Quotes

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Non-attachment is not complacency. It doesn't imply a lack of caring and commitment. The philosophy of non-attachment is based in the understanding that holding on too tightly to those things, which in any case are always going to be slipping through our fingers, hurts and gives us rope burn.
Surya Das (Letting Go Of The Person You Used To Be: lessons on change, love and spiritual transformation from highly revered spiritual leader Lama Surya Das)
For optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happiness—should such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconception—that can compensate us for life’s hurt. As a worst-case example, a pessimist might refer to the hurt caused by some natural or human-made cataclysm. To adduce a hedonic counterpart to the horrors that attach to such cataclysms would require a degree of ingenuity from an optimist, but it could be done. And the reason it could be done, the reason for the eternal stalemate between optimists and pessimists, is that no possible formula can be established to measure proportions and types of hurt and happiness in the world. If such a formula could be established, then either pessimists or optimists would have to give in to their adversaries.
Thomas Ligotti (The Conspiracy Against the Human Race)
A general word of advice: It’s always more effective to assume the best in conflict situations. In fact, expecting the worst—which is typical of people with insecure attachment styles—often acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you assume your partner will act hurtfully or reject you, you automatically respond defensively—thus starting a vicious cycle of negativity.
Amir Levine (Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love)
it feels like a precious wound, like a heartbreak you won’t let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same, David; settle for living in misery because we’re afraid of change, of things crumbling to ruins. Then I looked around in this place [the augusteum], at the chaos its endured – the way it has been adapted, burned, pillaged and found a way to build itself back up again. And I was reassured that maybe my life hasn’t been so chaotic; tt’s just the world that is and the only real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift. Ruin is the road to transformation… We must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation. Both of us deserve better than staying together because we’re afraid we’ll be destroyed if we don’t.
Elizabeth Gilbert
You are not really dying,” he said, the oddest tone to his voice, “are you?”Jem nodded. “So they tell me.”“I am sorry,” Will said.“No,” Jem said softly. He drew his jacket aside and took a knife from the belt at his waist.“Don’t be ordinary like that. Don’t say you’re sorry. Say you’ll train with me.” He held out the knife to Will, hilt rst. Charlotte held her breath, afraid to move. She feltas if she were watching something very important happen, though she could not have saidwhat.Will reached out and took the knife, his eyes never leaving Jem’s face. His fingers brushedthe other boy’s as he took the weapon from him. It was the rst time, Charlotte thought,that she had ever seen him touch any other person willingly.“I’ll train with you,” he said. Jem, Will’s parabatai, treated her with the distant sweet kindness reserved for the littlesisters of one’s friends, but he would always side with Will. Kindly, but rmly, he put Willabove everything else in the world.Well, nearly everything. She had been most struck by Jem when she rst came to theInstitute—he had an unearthly, unusual beauty, with his silvery hair and eyes and delicate features. He looked like a prince in a fairy-tale book, and she might have considered developing an attachment to him, were it not so absolutely clear that he was entirely inlove with Tessa Gray. His eyes followed her where she went, and his voice changed when hespoke to her. Cecily had once heard her mother say in amusement that one of theirneighbors’ boys looked at a girl as if she were “the only star in the sky” and that was theway Jem looked at Tessa.Cecily didn’t resent it: Tessa was pleasant and kind to her, if a little shy, and with herface always stuck in a book, like Will. If that was the sort of girl Jem wanted, she and henever would have suited—and the longer she remained at the Institute, the more sherealized how awkward it would have made things with Will. He was ferociously protectiveof Jem, and he would have watched her constantly in case she ever distressed or hurt him inany way. No—she was far better out of the whole thing.
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3))
We’ve all encountered those people who when we look them in the eye, when they’re right in front of us, in broad daylight, appear astoundingly attractive, even god or goddess like: the way they move, the way the light hits them, invokes reverence and awe, the definition. And then the closer we look. Waw. We take flight. Good from close, better close up. Some people get more attractive, have a greater impression on us the more we see them. The closer we look in that light at that time in the way we see them. When our hopes are highest and our wish fulfillment is fully let in. They will always look better the more clearly we see them. The definition, the close-up. Some relationships are better in a close up. More impressive with more definition. Like the woman whose photograph doesn’t turn you on but in real life she does. Like our children. Like our spouse. Like our best friend. Like God. Like ourselves when we’re authentic and true. They’re better up close with more frequency, with more intimacy. Sometimes we need to be near. It’s love. It’s literal. Closeness is the quiet moments together. The pain shared. The beauty seen. The honesty. It’s authentic. It’s reality. The constant relationship because we can see it. We’re sure about it. We know it. It’s making love. It’s attachment. It’s togetherness. It’s private. It cost us. It hurts. We own it. And we like it that way. Because sometimes it’s better with the lights on.
Matthew McConaughey (Greenlights)
He wasn't the sort of person you interacted with and fluttered away from; he was the type of man you fell for. People got hurt when they got attached to other people, because people always left or were taken away. Falling in love, therefore, was just a set-up for inevitable failure. She knew all this. But logic is fallacy when it spars with instinct. So she fell anyway.
Angela Panayotopulos (The Wake Up)
A child, with parents who are unable or unwilling to provide safe enough attachment, has no one to whom she can bring her whole developing self. No one is there for reflection, validation and guidance. No one is safe enough to go to for comfort or help in times of trouble. There is no one to cry to, to protest unfairness to, and to seek compassion from for hurts, mistakes, accidents, and betrayals. No one is safe enough to shine with, to do “show and tell” with, and to be reflected as a subject of pride. There is no one to even practice the all-important intimacy-building skills of conversation. In the paraphrased words of more than one of my clients: “Talking to Mom was like giving ammunition to the enemy. Anything I said could and would be used against me. No wonder, people always tell me that I don’t seem to have much to say for myself.” Those with Cptsd-spawned attachment disorders never learn the communication skills that engender closeness and a sense of belonging. When it comes to relating, they are often plagued by debilitating social anxiety - and social phobia when they are at the severe end of the continuum of Cptsd.
Pete Walker (Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving)
Nothing’s over, ever.” And this is both a blessing and a curse. The past that ties us to people in ways that hurt us also ties us to people in ways that make healing possible. Sometimes we wish that the past could be over; sometimes we are grateful that it is not. It stands in the middle, “partially completed” but not over, poised between radical otherness and utter likeness. And that is why, as Weil says, “Our attachments and our passions do not so thickly obscure our discrimination of the eternal in the past.” We can see what really matters—“the eternal,” what always matters—because of that middle distance.
Alan Jacobs (Breaking Bread with the Dead: A Reader's Guide to a More Tranquil Mind)
Craving Is Always Craving To avoid suffering we cultivate detachment. Being forewarned that attachment sooner or later entails sorrow, we want to become detached. Attachment is gratifying, but perceiving the pain in it, we want to be gratified in another manner, through detachment. Detachment is the same as attachment as long as it yields gratification. So what we are really seeking is gratification; we crave to be satisfied by whatever means. We are dependent or attached because it gives us pleasure, security, power, a sense of well-being, though in it there is sorrow and fear. We seek detachment also for pleasure, in order not to be hurt, not to be inwardly wounded. Our search is for pleasure, gratification. Without condemning or justifying we must try to understand this process, for unless we understand it there is no way out of our confusion and contradiction. Can craving ever be satisfied, or is it a bottomless pit? Whether we crave for the low or for the high, craving is always craving, a burning fire, and what can be consumed by it soon becomes ashes; but craving for gratification still remains, ever burning, ever consuming, and there is no end to it. Attachment and detachment are equally binding, and both must be transcended.
J. Krishnamurti (The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti)
The first step in retracing our way to health is to abandon our attachment to what is called positive thinking. Too many times in the course of palliative care work I sat with dejected people who expressed their bewilderment at having developed cancer. “I have always been a positive thinker,” one man in his late forties told me. “I have never given in to pessimistic thoughts. Why should I get cancer?” As an antidote to terminal optimism, I have recommended the power of negative thinking. “Tongue in cheek, of course,” I quickly add. “What I really believe in is the power of thinking.” As soon as we qualify the word thinking with the adjective positive, we exclude those parts of reality that strike us as “negative.” That is how most people who espouse positive thinking seem to operate. Genuine positive thinking begins by including all our reality. It is guided by the confidence that we can trust ourselves to face the full truth, whatever that full truth may turn out to be. As Dr. Michael Kerr points out, compulsive optimism is one of the ways we bind our anxiety to avoid confronting it. That form of positive thinking is the coping mechanism of the hurt child. The adult who remains hurt without being aware of it makes this residual defence of the child into a life principle. The onset of symptoms or the diagnosis of a disease should prompt a two-pronged inquiry: what is this illness saying about the past and present, and what will help in the future? Many approaches focus only on the second half of that healing dyad without considering fully what led to the manifestation of illness in the first place. Such “positive” methods fill the bookshelves and the airwaves. In order to heal, it is essential to gather the strength to think negatively. Negative thinking is not a doleful, pessimistic view that masquerades as “realism.” Rather, it is a willingness to consider what is not working. What is not in balance? What have I ignored? What is my body saying no to? Without these questions, the stresses responsible for our lack of balance will remain hidden. Even more fundamentally, not posing those questions is itself a source of stress. First, “positive thinking” is based on an unconscious belief that we are not strong enough to handle reality. Allowing this fear to dominate engenders a state of childhood apprehension. Whether or not the apprehension is conscious, it is a state of stress. Second, lack of essential information about ourselves and our situation is one of the major sources of stress and one of the potent activators of the hypothalamicpituitary-adrenal (HPA) stress response. Third, stress wanes as independent, autonomous control increases. One cannot be autonomous as long as one is driven by relationship dynamics, by guilt or attachment needs, by hunger for success, by the fear of the boss or by the fear of boredom. The reason is simple: autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything. Like a leaf blown by the wind, the driven person is controlled by forces more powerful than he is. His autonomous will is not engaged, even if he believes that he has “chosen” his stressed lifestyle and even if he enjoys his activities. The choices he makes are attached to invisible strings. He is still unable to say no, even if it is only to his own drivenness. When he finally wakes up, he shakes his head, Pinocchio-like, and says, “How foolish I was when I was a puppet.
Gabor Maté (When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress)
The attachment to parental figures I am trying to describe here is an attachment to parents who have inflicted injury on their children. It is an attachment that prevents us from helping ourselves. The unfulfilled natural needs of the child are later transferred to therapists, partners, or our own children. We cannot believe that those needs were really ignored, or possibly even trampled on by our parents in such a way that we were forced to repress them. We hope that the other people we relate to will finally give us what we have been looking for, understand, support, and respect us, and relieve us of the difficult decisions life brings with it. As these expectations are fostered by the denial of childhood reality, we cannot give them up. As I said earlier, they cannot be relinquished by an act of will. But they will disappear in time if we are determined to face up to our own truth. This is not easy. It is almost always painful. But it is possible. In
Alice Miller (The Body Never Lies: The Lingering Effects of Hurtful Parenting)
Attachment is not Love. Attachment hurts. Love liberates.
Manoj Arora (Happiness Unlimited: How to be happy always)
A promising path to security, even though it may seem paradoxical, is letting go. When you are attached to nothing, there is no pathway to hurt. When you are attached to nothing, happiness appears in abundance. There is nothing passive or cold about letting go—it actually helps you live a much more active life, except that now you are living in alignment with the truth of impermanence. Yes, there are things and people you love, but they are always changing. They will be with you for some time, and eventually they, too, will be gone, just like everything else. If we embrace the truth of change, letting go becomes more clear-cut. We can enjoy things when they are around and we can help and be of service whenever possible, but we won’t expect anything to last forever, especially in the same way that things currently exist, because that is simply not possible. We can also have goals and plans for the future, but not expect to achieve all of them in a specific amount of time. When we stop fighting the truth of change, letting go of our attachments feels more natural, and, in the act of letting go, the love you have for whatever you hold dear will become purer because the element of control won’t be as predominant. Serenity is possible when we are no longer carrying the ever-growing baggage of mental images, fueled by craving or aversion, everywhere we go. Without realizing it, we are weighing ourselves down by existing in a state of judgment—judgment of the present moment. These mental cravings become like rocks in the mind. If we recognize what we are holding on to, we have the opportunity to let it go.
Yung Pueblo (Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future)
So, whenever someone nowadays displays the slightest bit of attention in my direction i always get hopeful and find myself attached and always end up getting hurt in the end that is why the majority of my developmental years were so problematic.
Ieisha Brown (The words I have yet to say out loud)
I'm guilty of this, Holding on to the past, By not letting go of the paint, once you been hurt in the past by someone you love, you begin to feel determined to get attached to someone again, because your always thinking that someone out to get you.
Shaneika Marie
How to Make Bone Broth Being stocked up on bone broth means you’re always just a few steps away from a flavorful and nutritious meal. I use it for simmering grains and beans, steaming vegetables, making sauces, and as a base for soup. And since reliable brands like Brodo and Bonafide Provisions have made bone broths accessible (always shop for your bone broth in the freezer aisle), I rarely make bone broth at home. But I always store spare chicken backs and clipped wing tips in the freezer and end up making a batch whenever I have enough. The process for making bone broth is simple; the main ingredient is time: 1. Use bones with a lot of meat/cartilage attached, like wings, backs, knuckles, and feet. 2. Cover the bones with 1 to 2 inches of cold filtered water. 3. Add ½ tablespoon vinegar per 1 pound of bones. (Recipes I’ve seen claim this maximizes collagen extraction. I don’t know if it actually does anything, but it doesn’t hurt!) 4. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook, skimming any froth/scum/fat regularly and topping off with water as needed, until the bones start to fall apart (12 hours for chicken, up to 18 hours for beef, pork, and lamb). 5. If you want to use aromatics (like carrot, celery, onion, and herbs), add them an hour before the cooking time is over. 6. After simmering, strain through a fine-mesh sieve and taste. If looking for a more concentrated flavor, return the bone broth to
Sohla El-Waylly (Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook)
... the following example for this type of neurotic love relation to be found frequently today fleals with men who in their emotional development have remained stuck in an infantile attachment to mother. These are men who have never been weaned as it were from mother. These men still feel like children; they want mother's protection, love, warmth, care, and admiration; they want mother's unconditional love, a love which is given for no other reason than that they need it, that they are mother's child, that they are helpless. Such men frequently are quite affectionate and charming if they try to induce a woman to love them, and even after they have succeeded in this. But their relationship to the woman (as, in fact, to all othe people) remains superficial and irresponsible. Their aim is to be loved, not to love. There is usually a good deal of vanity in this type of man, more or less hidden grandiose ideas. If they have found the right woman, they feel secure, on top of the world, and can display a great deal of affection and charm, and this is the reason why these men are often so deceptive. But when, after a while, the woman does not continue to live up to their phantastic expectations, conflicts and resentment start to develop. If the woman is not always admiring them, if she makes claims for a life of her own, if She wants to be loved and protected herself, and in extreme cases, if she is not willing to condone his love affairs with other women (or even have an admiring interest in them), the man feels deeply hurt and disappointed, and usually rationalizes this feeling with the idea that the woman 'does not love him, is selfish, or is domineering'. Anything short of the attitude of a loving mother toward a charming child is taken as proof of a lack of love. These men usually confuse their affectionate behavior, their wish to please, with genuine love and thus arrive at the conclusion that they are being treated quite unfairly; they imagine themselves to be the great lovers and complain bitterly about the ingratitude of their love partner. In rare cases such a mother-centered person can function without any severe disturbances. If his mother, in fact, 'loved' him in an overprotective manner (perhaps being domineering, but without being destructive), if he finds a wife of the same motherly type, if his special gifts and talents permit him to use his charm and be admired (as is the case sometimes with successful politicians), he is 'well adjusted' in a social sense, without ever reaching a higher level of maturity. But under less favorable conditions -and these are naturally more frequent- his love life, if not his social life, will be a serious disappointment; conflicts, and frequently intense anxiety and depression arise when this type of personality is left alone.
Erich Fromm (The Art of Loving)
what do they do? They try to escape. They get drunk because they don’t like themselves. They don’t like their life. There are many ways that we hurt ourselves when we don’t like who we are. On the other hand, if you take action just for the sake of doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you do. Rewards will come, but you are not attached to the reward. You can even get more than you would have imagined for yourself without expecting a reward. If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life. We are having fun, we don’t get bored, we don’t have frustrations. When you do your best, you don’t give the Judge the opportunity to find you guilty or to blame you. If you have done your best and the Judge tries to judge you according to your Book of Law, you’ve got the answer: “I did my best.” There are no regrets. That is why we always do our best. It is not an easy agreement to keep, but this agreement is really going to set you free. When you do your best you learn to accept yourself. But you have to be aware and learn from your mistakes. Learning from your mistakes means you practice, look honestly at the results, and keep practicing. This increases your awareness. Doing your best really doesn’t feel like work because you enjoy whatever you are doing. You know you’re doing your best when you are enjoying the action or doing it in a way that will not have negative repercussions for you. You do your best because you want to do it, not because you have to do it, not because you are trying to please the Judge, and not because you are trying to please other people. If you take action because you have to, then there is no way you are going to do your best. Then it is better not to do it. No, you do your best because doing your best all the time makes you so happy. When you are doing your best just for the pleasure of doing it, you are taking action because you enjoy the action. Action is about living fully. Inaction is the way that we deny life. Inaction is sitting in front of the television every day for years because you are afraid to be alive and to take the risk of expressing what you are. Expressing what you are is taking action.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
Doing your best, you are going to live your life intensely. You are going to be productive, you are going to be good to yourself, because you will be giving yourself to your family, to your community, to everything. But it is the action that is going to make you feel intensely happy. When you always do your best, you take action. Doing your best is taking the action because you love it, not because you’re expecting a reward. Most people do exactly the opposite: They only take action when they expect a reward, and they don’t enjoy the action. And that’s the reason why they don’t do their best. For example, most people go to work every day just thinking of payday, and the money they will get from the work they are doing. They can hardly wait for Friday or Saturday, whatever day they receive their money and can take time off. They are working for the reward, and as a result they resist work. They try to avoid the action and it becomes more difficult, and they don’t do their best. They work so hard all week long, suffering the work, suffering the action, not because they like to, but because they feel they have to. They have to work because they have to pay the rent, because they have to support their family. They have all that frustration, and when they do receive their money they are unhappy. They have two days to rest, to do what they want to do, and what do they do? They try to escape. They get drunk because they don’t like themselves. They don’t like their life. There are many ways that we hurt ourselves when we don’t like who we are. On the other hand, if you take action just for the sake of doing it, without expecting a reward, you will find that you enjoy every action you do. Rewards will come, but you are not attached to the reward. You can even get more than you would have imagined for yourself without expecting a reward. If we like what we do, if we always do our best, then we are really enjoying life. We are having fun, we don’t get bored, we don’t have frustrations.
Miguel Ruiz (The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom)
First and foremost, it is important to recognize another important reason that arguments with our loved ones can cause so much pain. Most of us think that we are arguing about being right versus being wrong. The truth is, we are almost always arguing about being seen, heard, and understood by our loved ones. It is painful to feel as though someone you love does not understand you in the heat of the moment. It often feels like we are disconnected, and usually that is what hurts more than anything else. This is where a beautiful first step comes in. It is possible to validate a person’s feelings without validating their behavior. If Liam used this tool, he might say to Faith, “Hi, honey. I can see that you’re hurting right now, and I’m sorry for that. However, I don’t like the way you are expressing it, and I would be able to listen better if you could change your approach to become gentler.” Although this might seem like a small trick, it works wonders. The impact of being able to validate a loved one’s emotions in the heat of the moment is profound. It completely removes the helplessness, feelings of being misunderstood, and feeling shamed. More importantly, it prevents the defense mechanism from being tripped due to the stored subconscious associations around conflict. As a result, the individual on the receiving end of this statement is likely to be calmed down instead of fired up.
Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
An important strategy here is to actively practice separating one experience from all experiences. If you notice yourself using words like “always” or “never,” this is a sign that you are overgeneralizing. This can be painful when we generalize traits about our partner or loved ones as well. Some other important cognitive distortions include mind-reading, fortune-telling, and personalization. With mind-reading, you assume you know what others are thinking. Fortune-telling is the act of making assumptions about the future that produce negative emotion. Personalization is the act of assuming blame or fault for any situation that takes place. An example of this would be getting upset at yourself if your child gets hurt during recess at school. Take some time to write down which cognitive distortions are most prominent for you. Which ones cause you the most grief or unhealthy habits in your relationships? Follow up by using the strategies described above to return to a fair and balanced perspective. You will know you have reached this place because you will feel as though your emotional charge around the situations has lessened and you are operating from a grounded, realistic frame of mind.
Thais Gibson (Attachment Theory: A Guide to Strengthening the Relationships in Your Life)
A well-conditioned oarsman or oarswoman competing at the highest levels must be able to take in and consume as much as eight liters of oxygen per minute; an average male is capable of taking in roughly four to five liters at most. Pound for pound, Olympic oarsmen may take in and process as much oxygen as a thoroughbred racehorse. This extraordinary rate of oxygen intake is of only so much value, it should be noted. While 75–80 percent of the energy a rower produces in a two-thousand-meter race is aerobic energy fueled by oxygen, races always begin, and usually end, with hard sprints. These sprints require levels of energy production that far exceed the body’s capacity to produce aerobic energy, regardless of oxygen intake. Instead the body must immediately produce anaerobic energy. This, in turn, produces large quantities of lactic acid, and that acid rapidly builds up in the tissue of the muscles. The consequence is that the muscles often begin to scream in agony almost from the outset of a race and continue screaming until the very end. And it’s not only the muscles that scream. The skeletal system to which all those muscles are attached also undergoes tremendous strains and stresses. Without proper training and conditioning—and sometimes even with them—competitive rowers are apt to experience a wide variety of ills in the knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, ribs, neck, and above all the spine. These injuries and complaints range from blisters to severe tendonitis, bursitis, slipped vertebrae, rotator cuff dysfunction, and stress fractures, particularly fractures of the ribs. The common denominator in all these conditions—whether in the lungs, the muscles, or the bones—is overwhelming pain. And that is perhaps the first and most fundamental thing that all novice oarsmen must learn about competitive rowing in the upper echelons of the sport: that pain is part and parcel of the deal. It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you.
Daniel James Brown (The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics)
In the conscious world of suffering your body may hurt or your mind may be uncomfortable, so you want to get something pleasant or escape from something unpleasant. You may find temporary relief from the transient aspect of life, but your needs and desires can never be satisfied for long because your life is based on impermanence. Your body and mind, your needs and desires, are always changing, so there is nothing to attach to, nothing solid for you to hang on to, and nothing that can give you permanent satisfaction.
Dainin Katagiri (Each Moment Is the Universe: Zen and the Way of Being Time)
If an animal has previously suffered escapable shock, and then she suffers inescapable shock, she will be happier than if she has previously not suffered escapable shock — for if she hasn’t, she will only know about being shocked inescapably. But if she has been inescapably shocked before, and she is put in the conditions where she was inescapably shocked before, she will behave as if being shocked, mostly. Her misery doesn’t require acts. Her misery requires conditions. If an animal is inescapably shocked once, and then the second time she is dragged across the electrified grid to some non-shocking space, she will be happier than if she isn’t dragged across the electrified grid. The next time she is shocked, she will be happier because she will know there is a place that isn’t an electrified grid. She will be happier because rather than just being dragged onto an electrified grid by a human who then hurts her, the human can then drag her off of it. If an animal is shocked, escapably or inescapably, she will manifest deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her. If she has manifested deep reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her, she will manifest deeper reactions of attachment for whoever has shocked her and then dragged her off the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for electrified grids. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for what is not the electrified grid. Perhaps she will develop deep feelings of attachment for dragging. She may also develop deep feelings of attachment for science, laboratories, experimentation, electricity, and informative forms of torture. If an animal is shocked, she will manufacture an analgesic response. These will be incredible levels of endogenous opioids. This will be better than anything. Then later, there will be no opioids, and she will go back to the human who has shocked her looking for more opioids. She will go to the shocking condition — called “science” — and there in the condition she will flood with endogenous opioids, along with cortisol and other things which feel arousing. Eventually all arousal will feel like shock. She will not be steady, though, in her self-supply of analgesic. She will not always be able to dwell in science, as much as she now believes she loves it. That humans are animals means it is possible that the animal model of inescapable shock explains why humans go to movies, lovers stay with those who don’t love them, the poor serve the rich, the soldiers continue to fight, and other confused, arousing things. Also, how is capitalism not an infinite laboratory called “conditions”? And where is the edge of the electrified grid?
Anne Boyer (Garments Against Women)
How could you be so toxic and think you'd win against logic? I fought the war of trying to keep us together, not realizing my enemy was you. You used and abused me. You really deeply and permanently bruised me. I gave you my all and it was never enough. Instead of making my life easy, you made it even more tough. Why didn't you have the decency to stop doing the atrocities you did to my soul? How is it that when I was surrounded by darkness, you never tried to console? What did I do to deserve all of this? Seems you never were the road ahead, just a soon-to-be memory causing a fall on the abyss. You're supposed to help me up when I'm down, not break me down when I'm falling. Your way of trying to control me , by trying to lower me down never worked. All you received is a fight to make you see, that I loved you too much and that you should better use your influence on me. But being stuck-up gauged your eyes out. Although I was blinded by love , finally I see... I gave it my all but it seems you didn't deserve this side of me. I never requested much of you, just a bit of love to keep us going... while your superficial nonsense destroyed it all. You want nothing of what's within. Just fame and glory. Instead of striving and sacrificing for family, you say "fuck it"... but not with me. Your warped sense of reality, cut nearly all the strings attached. Now it's just reflexes and my broken soul that turn my mind-view toward you. Nothing have you become, and again have I allowed myself to become numb by someone. But it's better to feel the hurt brewing inside the deepest pit of my soul, than to continue having my soul devoured by superficial and superfluous nothingness. Money is made to serve you, not you to be a slave of money. Money, fame and power is all you seek. I just want love, empathy and peace. Family will always be my priority.
Klaudio Marashi
Rabih axiously attacks; Kirsten avoidandly withdraws. They are two people who need one another badly and yet are simultaneously terrified of letting on just how much they do so. Neither stays with an injury long enough truly to acknowledge or feel it, or to explain it to the person who inflicted it. It takes reserves of confidence they don't possess to keep faith with the one who has offended them. They would need to trust the other sufficiently to make it clear that they aren't really "angry" or "cold" but are instead, and always, something far more basic, touching and deserving of affection: hurt. They cannot offer each other that most romantically necessary of gifts: a guide to their own vulnerabilities.
Alain de Botton (The Course of Love)