Consistently in my office when I challenge someone to sit with their emotional experience and hurt related to something that someone else did (or didn’t do), my people dismiss their experience, believing that they shouldn’t feel hurt, angry, sad, etc, because “they [the other person or people] were doing the best they could”. (Interestingly, this grace that is extended to others, people rarely can give themselves, to hold that they are/were also doing the best they can/could.) The reality is, both things can be true, someone could have been doing the best they could and we can still have needed them to do better, more or different. This doesn’t mean we fault, blame or judge them; simply a statement of fact: we had needs that weren’t met.
Think of it this way… imagine you and I are hiking and you fall and break your leg. I have some basic first aid training, nothing extraordinary, but I know how to manage the bleeding and I create a splint using this knowledge I gained 10 years ago. I give it all I have and truly am doing the best that I can with what I know and have at hand. This doesn’t negate that you still need a doctor and if you would have been hiking with a doctor instead of me, they probably could have done a much better job than I did. I don’t imagine that you would blame me for not being a doctor. This wouldn’t be a failing on my part. You’d be able to appreciate that I did what I could and tried my best, while also still needing more.
It is so hard in a culture of either/or and extremes, for us to realize that we can hold two things, at the same time, and they can both be true. I can know my coworker didn’t mean to hurt me with the comment they made and still be hurt. I can be okay with my husband not feeling up to going out and still be disappointed that we aren’t going out (or going out together). I can know my friend didn’t realize I was struggling and still have needed her support and wished they had known somehow.
We often believe that if acknowledge we needed more or different, that it is the same as us harming that person or it is unfair to them…that it is them, or us. As a result, we dismiss our own experiences and place judgement on ourselves for feeling what we feel. The reality is, it is both/and, not either/or. Sometimes the best someone can do isn’t good enough or what we need, regardless of who they are, how hard they are trying or how much we care about them and they care about us. We get to feel angry, hurt, sad. And let’s be honest, as I’ve said in other posts, even if we say/believe that we don’t get to feel these things, that doesn’t mean they aren’t still there, they just feel worse and come out in other ways…at least until we can allow ourselves to feel them and move through them.
I know this sounds easier said than done. I’ve struggled with this also (still do at times). As I embarked on my own journey of healing, I worried that if I acknowledged that I was hurt by something people in my life did (or didn’t do), or that I needed them to have handled things differently, that it somehow meant that I didn’t appreciate all they did do and understand that they were doing the best they could with the knowledge, skills, resources and support they had at that time. For example, there were points in my life that I have really struggled. While I am pretty open about it these days, I didn’t used to be. I felt my job was to protect the people that cared about me from my pain because if they knew I was hurting, then they would hurt. I also had gotten very good at telling myself that I didn’t have a reason to feel what I did, that others had it worse, that others mattered more…
I recognize that I was good at hiding it, so often the people in my life couldn’t have known that I wasn’t okay, and even when I wasn’t good at hiding it and they tried to check in, I wouldn’t let them in. It also may be that I displayed my struggle in ways that looking back with what they know now, they would have recognized, but they didn’t know they needed to be looking then or that’s what those things meant. They could only have known what they knew, both in terms of what I shared and in terms of how to handle it. At the same time, in those periods of my life, I needed them to know I wasn’t okay and to know how to break through my walls. It may not be a “fair ask” and in my adult perspective, I can both know all the reasons why they couldn’t, and it doesn’t change that younger me still needed that.
I also needed to not be placed in a role of protecting them. I know that the people in my life did not knowingly or intentionally place me in that role, and heck I hadn’t even realized how much I existed there until several years ago, so I doubt they could have. It just was, and part of protecting them, also meant protecting them from knowing I was protecting them. It isn’t their fault, I’m not upset at them for it. And, I did need to allow myself to be upset that that was my reality and hurt came from that. When I was younger, I also didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I didn’t know to say that that was my experience; even if I would have had the words or understanding. If I would have known how to conceptualize and share my experience, I also trust they would have done what they could to get me out of that role. Even as I write this, I can identify plenty of situations in which the people in my life tried their best to support, empower and protect me so I didn’t exist there…I didn’t often accept that or allow them to. The point is, I know they did the best they could, with what they knew and I am so thankful for so much that they did. And there were things I wanted and/or needed that didn’t happen.
As I talked to my partner about this last night, we discussed that this still rings true in our relationship with each other and with others in our life as adults. I can see it with my kids too. I know that as a mom, I have done the best that I could do, every step of the way, always working to learn more and do better. And, I also haven’t known what I didn’t know, may not have had the information, modeling or support that I’ve needed to show up the way they have needed from me. One place I see this a great deal is around the impact of bringing my cousin’s daughter into our family.
I didn’t know that she had reactive attachment disorder and as much as I knew about trauma, I was in no way prepared for what life had in store for us all. On one hand, I know that I have always done my best with her to be the mom I felt she needed to me to be and I was capable of being. I have worked to nurture her, teach her, and guide her. I have loved her deeply. And without the information about and the understanding of her disorder, without support, there is so much I realize that I have done, that didn’t help and at times made things worse. I have had the best of intentions, and worked from what I knew but if I would have known earlier what I know now, I imagine things wouldn’t have gotten as bad as they did (or maybe they would have…but I know I would do things differently).
Also, despite my best efforts, my other two kids have gone through hell and I missed a lot of the damage that was occurring and even in the things I knew were affecting them, I didn’t know how to protect them fully. I know they hold moments where what they needed from me and what they got, haven’t been the same and I know this will continue to happen no matter how hard I try. Both can be true. All I can do is keep trying to know more and do better and hold space for their hurts without allowing shame to overtake me.
I encourage you to allow both things to be true. To acknowledge, even if people were doing the best they could, even if no ill-will was meant, even if it’s not rational to expect someone to know what they didn’t know…you still experienced hurts, you still had unmet needs, and that gets to matter. It doesn’t have to say or mean anything about the other person. It just is. You needed more, whether or not more was even possible.
Moving into the present tense…you can know that someone in your life is doing the best they can and it can still not be what you need or deserve. It doesn’t mean you fault them, it doesn’t mean you don’t care about or love them, it just is. This is where we then set boundaries and either they can and will work to meet those needs (and you have to evaluate whether what they can do is enough for you), or they can’t/won’t. These boundaries aren’t a matter of being selfish, but instead allowing the people in our lives a chance to show up for us the way we need. It is a kindness and respect to tell them so we don’t build resentment. For the people who love and care about us, they usually want a chance to know what we need and when they aren’t meeting it, because they can’t meet a need they don’t know exists or understand. And yes, there is risk in sharing these needs, in setting our boundaries, because the people in our lives may not be able or willing to meet them. However, at least we’ve given them the chance and choice, which creates a possibility that things can change and/or gives us the information we need in order to decide how to move forward in the relationship.