The People We Want to Hate

—or, the harm we name without becoming it

Some people do terrible things.
They lie. They betray. They harm.
Sometimes with intention. Sometimes with neglect.
Sometimes with a silence that cuts deeper than words.

And we—those who feel the aftermath—are left holding the pieces.
The rage. The ache. The disbelief.
The question: How could they?

It’s tempting to flatten them.
To turn them into villains, caricatures, cautionary tales.
It’s easier to hate than to hold complexity.
Easier to condemn than to wonder.

But here’s the tension I live in:
I believe in accountability.
I believe in naming harm.
I believe in boundaries that protect, not punish.

And still—
I remember they are people.
Flawed. Wounded. Sometimes drowning in stories we’ll never hear.

This doesn’t excuse them.
It doesn’t erase the damage.
It doesn’t mean we reconcile, forgive, or forget.

It means we refuse to become what hurt us.

I’ve learned to say:
You harmed me.
You crossed a line.
You don’t get access to me anymore.

And also:
I don’t need to dehumanize you to heal.

There’s a kind of power in that.
A kind of clarity.
A kind of rebellion against the binary of good and evil.

We are all more than our worst moments.
But some people never choose better.
And that, too, is truth.

So I hold both:
The right to walk away.
And the refusal to carry hate.