"Get Over It."

I'd like to erase that sentence from human vocabulary. When someone says, "Get over it," the tone sounds condescending and lacks compassion. "Forget about it," they might say. "Let it go. It's the past." How little they know what they're saying.

If deciding to get beyond our pain was all it took, wouldn't we already have been freed?

I used to get angry at people who spoke that way, but one day I heard the words differently. They were speaking to me out of their discomfort. Their meaning was, "I can't handle this, so if you avoid this in my presence, I'll feel better."

That's why I say it lacks compassion. And sometimes our issue may also be theirs but they can't or won't face it. Being with us reminds them of their own unresolved pain, and that makes them uncomfortable.

My advice: When someone talks that way, it's my signal not to speak to them again about my childhood. They can't handle it.

One time I apologized to a person I thought would have understood and heard the get-over-it response. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

That was the wrong approach; my apology made her even more uncomfortable. She denied discomfort. "I just don't want you to be in pain," she said. I think she was lying to herself.

We can't erase pain from our past; we can accept it and heal.