The lack of any emotional attachment has become the golden standard of today's societal demands. Seemingly in contrast to the political-correctness movement which get offended by all and sundry, we also live in a time, where we are supposed to be "cool" with everything - cool with every type of douche-bag behavior. We are supposed to pretend like, “hey, I didn't even notice” - like, “I am so cool, you can't even get to me”. And that, right there, is the issue. When we give in to this nonsense apathetic BS pattern, we lose. Not only do we lose ourselves and our standards of how we are willing to be treated, we become liars. Everyone knows, yet we all pretend, that we are all so goddamn fine with these sick no-standard standards. We don't date anymore: we hang out. We don't wait anymore: we hook up. We don't talk anymore: we text. We don't feel anymore: we have sex, we do drugs, we eat too much, too little, or we purge our food and emotions up.

It is a society defined by too many lies, too few people who can be emotionally raw and naked.

However, we also live in an era with drama queens and kings en mass addicted to the constant dopamine rush of creating drama in every aspect of their life - like an addict. It is a weird contradiction and yet it makes perfect sense. It is an emotional rollercoaster either defined by no outward show of emotion - everything is in grey and rosy shades of fine. It's fine, I'm fine, you're fine, we're all fine. When it's as far from fine, as it could ever be.

We pretend we are so fine, we become apathetic.

We might once have tried to invest ourselves emotionally in someone, and we got our heart all shattered, scattered and spread into a million, trillion pieces. And we might have fallen so hard, that our blood eventually drained and left us pale from any trace of feeling in sight. Stone cold. We might have decided this felt better than what heartbreak feels like. And who can blame us.

A broken heart is, without question, one of the most excruciating physical pains we can feel. And yes, people can die from it. But many more live with it buried inside, never fully recovering.

Worse still is knowing you caused it.

Addiction often breeds heartbreak, not just inward, but outward. Those in the grip of self-destruction tend to operate in emotional apathy. It’s a survival mode that numbs their own pain, but also blinds them to the damage they inflict on others.

Almost everyone has a story: the loyal one who stayed through the chaos, until one betrayal too many pushed them past the point of return. Meanwhile, the addict - still detached - walks away unshaken. Only later, in recovery, do they realize what they lost. But by then, the damage is done.

We cannot keep breaking people and expect them to stay whole. They may forgive, but the imprint stays. It lives in their body, in their cells. That memory is there for a reason: to protect them from returning to the source of their pain.

That’s the lesson. If we’re willing to learn it.

Some things cannot be repaired, some things cannot be undone.

Time doesn’t heal everything. Far too many of us live lives determined by a past traumatic incidence. We developed apathy to deal with it in order to survive. We might have felt, that we were so close to drowning, to complete destruction. We promised ourselves to never let that happen again, so we caged ourselves off. And now we live lives of apathy.

The way to move on after realizing the damage one has done in apathetic addict-mode is to choose to feel all the buried emotional stuff, the losses, the broken promises… the wounds may bleed as we relive them, but if we never acknowledge them, feel them, they never heal, and we never move beyond our trauma. Our trauma becomes our destiny.

We decide which way we go after being broken.

Do we choose to get softer, more loving, less judgmental, more compassionate or do we harden up and turn to stone? We choose the path we walk in life, just like we choose recovery.

Everything is a choice, and the more we recognize that, the closer we are to creating the reality we want in life, and allowing our scars to fade, rather than dictate our entire future.