Betrayal.

Is thinking about Betrayal constructive, or destructive?

I guess from my perspective: It's a constructive thought, to a certain point.

Betrayal is not all black and white. Betrayal could be the horror at knowing a best friend told a deep dark secret, or when an ally isn't at the "meet up point" at the crucial time, or when a lover doesn't return your attempts at contact. There are small betrayals everywhere, all the time, if one looks at life that way: the "I thought I could make that street light and didn't." or "What do you mean you have no more chocolate croissants?" or "I can't believe this ATM is charging me $3.50!" Small betrayals can exist in everyday life, but mostly after the first shock of the experience, one lets that go. Oh, well. Guess today wasn't my lucky day. I think obsessing over how the universe is out to get you because the route you take to get to the train has a construction site on it and you have to take another route, is destructive.

The other bolder, badder betrayals: the ones involving someone else going against your once established trust to do something different, I think, are the ones that could be constructive to think about.

I had a dream last night my Best Friend got up and told a room full of my peers that I had slept with someone I shouldn't have. I was mortified. I started screaming in rage, I was the laughing stock of the room and I felt so helpless in my agony over the idea that the person I trusted top-secret information with went and publicly humiliated me. I woke up with my jaw clenched and my body rigid, like I had just been beaten and was bracing for blows. What a dream to have! That's awful. I would never trust that friend with important information again. I lay away in my jet-lagged, early morning drowsiness and reflected on where in my body I felt the anguish of the betrayal. My heart. What does that mean to wake up to such a tremendous amount of adrenaline and horror on such a beautiful Summer morning in New York? Who knows. Probably not much. That dream was not even rank-able in terms of "think ability" because it was all a drama played out by chemicals in my brain as I dreamt.

Betrayal is scary. It's a fear our inner selves feel from time to time. It's a reminder that the world we live in is never as predictable and safe as we want or believe it could be. I mean, living in fear of it is not something I recommend. That's destructive. But, when a lover doesn't respond to contact attempts and all but falls off the face of the earth... then what? Imagination is the playmate of a break in the norm. scenarios get created and reasons for this and that become established as a brain frantically tries to make sense of the chaos. Real reasons exist: Imagination can come up with a million and more. But, the facts that a person once trusted is no longer meeting your expectations is rough, and an aspect of relationships in the Human experience that no one wants to be a victim to. Thinking about it can be constructive as a coping mechanism. Dwelling on it can be destructive.

Well, the dream made me thoughtful if nothing else... Betrayal is a juicy subject to hear about, but a nasty one to experience.