The Sound Of Love

Chapter 3

It had been three months since the breakup and Michael was starting to feel like himself again. There was still the emotional scar that remained but it did not hurt so much that the pain pierced his very soul. No, the scar ached on occasion but Michael had started going to therapy and he had started to feel a lot better as a result. He no longer blamed himself for what had happened. He no longer felt like he was a bad person for letting someone take advantage of him. This was very important indeed because this was something that caused the most pain for people suffering from some kind of trauma, especially if that trauma was heartache.

People had a tendency to blame themselves for the things that happen to them, even if it was not their fault that the thing happened at all. Michael was not to blame. Michelle had been a proper scam artist. She had tricked him completely, brainwashed him into believing that she truly loved him. She had made him feel like he was truly in love with her simply so that she could take gifts, enough gifts so that she could sell some and live comfortably.

Every single one of Michael’s friends told him that this was not his fault. She was the one at fault for all that she had done to him. She was the one who had made him feel vulnerable to her for the purpose of gaining financial remuneration. However, in spite of the fact that everyone around him was saying that he was not at fault in the slightest for what had happened, he couldn’t help but blame himself. Even when he started to recognize that he wasn’t at fault, he still could not stop blaming himself.

The counselor that he had gone to had been the only person in his life who had been able to make him see that what had happened was not something he should blame himself for, and he did that by allowing Michael to feel what he truly felt. He allowed Michael to rage and storm at himself, allowed him to let out all of his emotions.

This was what had been lacking in the well meaning attempts of all of Michael’s friends to make him feel better. They were not allowing him to feel what he felt, they weren’t allowing him to express himself. They thought that if they allowed him to express his negative feelings they would end up making him feel worse instead of better.

This was not the case at all. The counselor that Michael went to told him to express himself as much as he wanted to. He told Michael to blame himself as much as he wanted. When Michael did this, when he expressed his emotions towards himself, he began to realize that what he was doing was wrong. He truly wasn’t at fault for what had happened. He truly wasn’t to blame. He was the victim here, and the victim is never at fault. It was always the person that took advantage of the victim in the first place.

Michael, at that point, still felt like he should have been at least a little more sensible about the whole situation. He should have realized that beautiful women would try to use him for his money. He tried to think of it in different ways but he couldn’t. He couldn’t help but think that he should have realized even if such a thing had never happened to him, even if a woman had never used him for his money before, it could happen.

The therapist dealt with this as well. Slowly but surely Michael began to realize he was still blaming himself, and this was something that he really needed to stop doing in order to keep his head clear.

The therapist broke down the various ways in which Michael could see this. Michael was surprised when the therapist told him that he could choose how he wanted to go about this. The therapist said that Michael could choose because he was the one that was truly in control of his feelings, instead of the other way around.

Michael decided not to blame himself. It was a very difficult process that involved a great deal of stress for Michael. Every time he caught himself blaming himself for what had happened he would have to write it down in a little notebook that he carried with him at all times. He would write down in detail what he was feeling or what he was thinking and why this thought or feeling gave him the impression that what had happened with Michelle had been in any way his fault. He would write it down in detail and bring it to his therapist who promised to give him honest answers about whether what Michael had written down truly made what had happened his fault or not.

The therapist was always honest. This was why Michael was surprised when every time he brought a thought of self blame to the therapist it would be completely invalidated. The best part was that the therapist would always do this so utterly calmly. He would do this in a way that made Michael feel like absolutely everything made sense. He was logical about it, and extremely objective. He did not phrase his arguments in an emotional context, he gave Michael facts.

And so, Michael healed. After three months he was a lot better. He decided to give dating a try. Or rather, he finally gave into his friend Carlos’s constant nagging that he should put himself back out there, that the ocean was full of fish and that he shouldn’t be hung up on one that had caused him grief. Michael didn’t quite know if he was ready or not but he was more than willing to give it a shot. He was very eager to put his past behind him after all.

The first date had been rather uneventful, but that meant that nothing good happened either. It had been with a girl named Tiffany. They had a mutual friend named Nancy. She was a fine girl, pretty and bubbly but she just didn’t excite Michael. He found himself utterly bored while he was with her and she felt the same way. They didn’t go out on a second date. Instead, they decided that it be best if both of them parted ways and chose to go out and see other people.

Tiffany had been a good choice objectively, but Michael thought that he would want someone that better fit his personal preferences regarding women. Hence, he asked his friends to look for a girl that would conform to the kind of standard he had set for the women he dated.

His friends did their job a little too well. Michael went out on a date with a girl named Christine but was horrified throughout the date because everything she did reminded him of Michelle. He found that he could not complete the date with her, and went home in the midst of a panic attack. It took him a whole week to get over the trauma of that date, and he had to go back to his counselor for a couple of sessions.