Protection

Don’t be misled by the title into thinking this is a post about reasonableness and caution and safety or anything like that.  Not my kind of things, exactly.  

Instead, here are some lyrics from Massive Attack’s “Protection”:

 

This girl I know needs some shelter

She don’t believe anyone can help her

She’s doing so much harm, doing so much damage

But you don’t want to get involved

You tell her she can manage

And you can’t change the way she feels

But you could put your arms around her

I know you want to live yourself

But could you forgive yourself

If you left her just the way

You found her?

 

I wonder what life would be like if more people understood, like this?  I’ve been this girl countless times (as well as also being on the “I’ll stand in front of you/take the force of the blow” and the “I’ll take on any man here” side of the song’s lyrics, but being there too doesn’t make me any less this girl, somehow).

 

I wonder how it would be if more people knew the power of the sheltering, non-shaming,non-“fixingtheproblem” embrace, the willingness to just be near another’s pain?

 

I wonder how often I fail to do this for someone else?  There’s nothing more healing or more simple, and yet more rare. 

I’ve been reading some attachment theory, and Bowlby describes the function of attachment behavior as seeking protection.  Some of us, unfortunately, don’t seem to quite know how to do it right, apparently, or so my experience has been telling me.  I seem to drive people away when I’m needing them to come closer.  I wish I knew what to do differently.  But then sometimes people aren’t driven away; sometimes they can stay close–even the same people that might have fled shrieking or panicked on another day–sometimes people can stay with a person in pain, even with me, sometimes.  This is a new thing.  These are not the same people that laid these crazy foundations in the first place.  It’s just that they have their own sticky and soft spots, and my moments of depthless woe pull at their own.  This is frightening, I know.  I might flee too, if I could.  But maybe not, maybe that’s what the pain and shame of being fled from has given me–the fortitude to stand firm enough to stay.  I hope so.  

Explore posts in the same categories: Change, Coping strategies, Depression, Failure, Fear, Living, Moods, Psychology, Recovery, Sadness, Shame, Social Experience, Therapy, despair, trauma

Tags: attachment, bowlby, compassion, empathy, Fear, healing, massive attack, pain, protection

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