Animals often hide when they are in pain. Prey animals especially strive to be quiet when they are injured because they know they are at their most vulnerable. I admit I feel some frustration when I see people in my rabbit Facebook groups comment that their rabbit was injured, but they're pretty sure they're okay because they're not making any sounds that sound like they are hurting. Tells me they haven't done the necessary research into the animal they have brought into their home, to learn that their pet could quite literally have a broken bone, and still be silent. Because to communicate weakness is to invite predators to come take advantage of that weakness. Even dogs, who we don't typically think of as "prey" animals, will often hide their pain because natural instinct tells them that in the wild, that weakness would still invite attack from larger predators and perhaps even from fellow members of their pack.
In humans I think we see that same survival instinct. When we don't feel safe, we do not communicate our weaknesses. When we do not trust the people around us, we do not often express things about ourselves that make us feel vulnerable. We generally don't ask people for help unless we have been given a reason to trust that they might care. And this is where we often get it wrong.
When someone comes to you saying "I am hurting" or "I have a request I need to make from you though I know it may not be convenient, but I cannot do it on my own" or "I feel hurt by this thing you did" .... This is not at an attack, nor is it meant to be a burden. If that pet rabbit cried out and whimpered, would you react with anger, or would you seek to understand what you could do to help? As a general rule, people only come to other people when they are vulnerable, with the intent to express how they have been hurt because they trust that that person cares enough about them to care and to want to help or repair. The very act of reaching out to express a grievance or ask for help is a love letter in its own right. It's a message that not only does that person love you, but that they believe you love them too. That you care as much as they do about maintaining the relationship.
And when that call for help, that admission of vulnerability, that message that says "I felt hurt when..." is met with dismissal or anger or defensiveness... then that hurt person hears something else entirely. I thought you were safe, but you are not. I thought you would care enough about my feelings that when you understood you would want to do your part to protect our relationship, protect me, but you must not care about me the way I hoped you did.
That is the moment when that person goes silent. The person isn't better, the relationship isn't better when they no longer come to you when they feel hurt or need help. The relationship is dying from the inside out because they have given up the hope that explaining how they feel will result in consideration.
Consideration is the highest form of love. And when it is lacking, it can be real hard to feel loved anymore.
May we all strive to hear people's grievances not as something that would make us pick up our sword and shield, but instead as a love letter from someone full of hope and loyalty who desperately wants their bid for connection to be reciprocated. May we feel honored that they love and trust us with their pain, with their needs, with their vulnerability, and do our best to respect it and honor it in return.
