Betrayal

When you are the betrayer, you justify your action's, rationalise them. They hurt me, they would do it too given a chance, just this one time, I'll make it up to them, and the worst of lie of all, no one will know! But you know. If you have any humanity inside , you will carry this for all your life. You know the treachery you have partaken in, and the devastation it has left in its wake.

If you like me have any amount of moral fibre in you then will carry a heavy burden within. The weight of it can drive men to terrible places, to maddness and even death. The most famous example is when Judas betrayed Jesus, and being unable to live with himself he took his own life. The penultimate circle in Dante's Inferno, just before which lucifer is reserved for those who have committed treachery. This suggests its the worst sin we can commit. It is true after all to be truly betrayed we must completely trust and love the one who deceives us.

But what if your the one who is betrayed. What if someone in your life who you trusted implicitly, who you believed would never harm you in anyway betrays you.

Well it has happened to me recently, and it broke me, and I'm still trying to pick up the pieces. It is truly one of the most traumatic events of my life. I'm unsure how to even put into words, what this has done to me. However I shall still attempt to do so now.

Imagine for a moment a person in your life, who your trust absolutely who your belive trusts and loves you in return. This is no passing acquaintance this is your person, you share everything and are fully certain that wonderful person will never harm you, never from now until the end of time. This statement sounds terribly naive I know, but this is how I saw them.

It was this person who betrayed me. Betrayal is the opposite of trust, and the deeper the trust the worse the betrayal. It demolished me, my entire world view has been shattered. The past was all a lie? Who were you really? What the hell is going on now? How could you do this? Someone I loved has the capacity to do this to me, this dark insidious deed, not once but over and over again. I questioned everything in my life.

Who am I?, did I deserve this? Why didn't I see this coming. What is wrong with me? How could they? Do I just attract evil people. My entire Identity was completely destroyed, my sense of who I am? who others are? This has shaken those beliefs to their core. Now I question every relationship in my life, are they out to get me too. Can I trust them? Am I safe? Truly the paranoia is exhausting. I feel as though I haven't drawn an honest carefree breath in weeks.

Must I continue in life alone and guarded forever for fear of this happening again. This seems a lonely path and one forged out of fear. So how do continue now? How to go on in the world trusting no-one? The answer is I can't I have to learn to trust again and be prepared for the next snake I meet masquerading as a friend. With distance and time I see there were signs of this coming, little red flags I didn't acknowledge, perhaps didn't want to see because I didn't want them to be true. I will not be so blind again.

I heard once everything is a lesson or a blessing. It a nice thought be it true or not. It gives purpose and reason to the mad random events that make up our lives. I cling to that today, it give me a purpose. To try again, to fail again. As the great Samuel Beckett said "fail better". I don't know my lesson yet, I'm still looking. But I know my blessing is that I got free before it was too late.