I Don’t Know The Reason It Happened — I’ll Make Up My Own

Sometimes I have to baffle myself with bull crap.

W. C. Fields said it best when he said, “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls**t.”

While this perfectly sums up how we often deal with others, I have discovered it’s a great way to get through things internally, too.

Grief, traumas, and mental illness take a great toll on people. I’ve been through a lot of it myself. Between PTSD from extensive abuse, bipolar, autism, ADHD, DID, blindness and a lot of arthritis, I have run through the gamut of emotional and physical turmoil.

When talking about these traumas to other folks, a common phrase I hear in response is, “Everything happens for a reason.”

I admit I am guilty of it, too.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the phrase. I truly believe there is a reason for all the things that occur to us, though we may not recognize in that moment what those reasons could be.

Sometimes, it’s because of choices we made in the past. They led us on a direct path to the experience we end up enduring. Often, it’s because of the actions of others that make us go through what we do.

In either case, the existence of “reasons” is there.

Unfortunately, though, many people use the phrase to gloss over what you’ve been through. They don’t know exactly how to respond to it, so they’ll say the phrase to quell what you’re telling them.

Maybe they’re uncomfortable hearing about it. Perhaps they’ve been through something similar and don’t want to experience it again through vicarious means.

Whatever the case, they’re not necessarily being “mean” with it. They just don’t know how to acknowledge the information.

Other times, when people use the phrase, it is because they, perhaps wrongly, think they are doing you a service. They see you’re in distress and want to help.

“Don’t grieve over that. It happened for a reason.”

I heard that once when a friend of mine passed away. My mother saw me upset and felt that was the best way to handle my grief over the loss.

I’ve discovered I use it on myself, too.

As I have grown older and gone through more and more horrible experiences, I’ve found my brain using this phrase against itself.

I had X thing happen to me. I need to have an explanation for why it occurred, because I don’t want to admit, perhaps, the genuine reasons.

So the phrase runs through my head, soothing those internal mechanisms of grief and sadness over things I go through, because I don’t want to admit things are wrong.

See, that’s the power a phrase like this one has. It allows you to bullshit with yourself until you accept whatever happened is normal.

I feel grief for something? Well, it happened for a reason.

It’s like the ever-present “They” some people, especially in the conspiracy networks, tout.

I am poor, and it’s not my fault. It’s because “They” are trying to keep me down. It’s not my problem I am unsuccessful. “They” are stopping me.

It allows for a disempowerment of self. It removes responsibility for the actions we do. Instead of focusing on what we’re doing incorrectly, or things we might need to change within ourselves, we’re putting the blame on something external.

Then we say it all “happens for a reason” so the cognitive dissonance can begin.

It’s rather insidious, isn’t it?

Some have their hearts in the right places.

I appreciate when people try to help. It’s nice to know there is some sort of empathic response happening if they say the phrase.

The trouble is, it’s not really all that helpful.

It also allows for the status quo to be maintained.

Take, for example, someone who is homeless. They’re going through all they are, asking for help, trying to find a way out of their situation.

Then a person comes along and, instead of giving assistance, they say, “Well, everything happens for a reason, dude. Sorry.”

That’s not helpful, and it doesn’t allow for acknowledgement of the societal or financial barriers currently in place that allowed that person to get put in that situation to begin with. It’s eviscerating to the sufferer, and assuages any culpability of the person seeing it happen. They maintain the “norms” that are keeping the individual down.

It’s a bullshit excuse to not be of real help.

A person going through mental hell because of past abuses talking about what they’ve been through doesn’t need to hear that it happened for a reason. They require real help in that moment to get them through.

Once the crises are over, then a substantive discussion can take place to find the reasons those feelings were there. That’s when healing can begin.

It’s hardest when it comes from within.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying to process the grief I have over the person I could have been.

The abuses of my childhood, leading to the abuses I endured in my adulthood, took away the potentials of the person I might have become if I hadn’t gone through them. Most of my early years I can remember little of, because my brain has erased over the traumas to protect itself.

I’ll never get those memories back, I am sure. But saying to myself, “Everything happens for a reason” is a great way to soothe that part of my spirit tripping the void.

I’ve fertilized enough bullshit on these fields of my soul.

Now I need to find a plow.

Everything might happen for reasons. Do I really have to lie to myself about them?

Other stories from me:

About me:

I am an author with over a dozen books and dozens of short stories published. I have experience with both traditional and self-publishing and love to discuss the pros and cons of both.

I am blind and live on low disability payments each month. The government graced me with trying to live on about $700 per month, and I decided to start publishing because it’s a way to supplement.

If you like my work and feel inclined to support it, please consider buying me a Ko-Fi.

Thank you from the depths of my soul for being here. Keep striving to “be the best you that you can be” at this moment.