But when someone you love reduces you, a wholehearted being, a child, to an “It” for their own selfish pleasure or gratification, it messes with your sense of self. Against your will, this “It” moment gestates within you, and it can make you crazy. Even trying to forgive doesn’t take it away. The “It” moment is within you and you can never be the person you were before they acted on you.
Some people replay the moment, doing to others what was done to them - just in new ways. Others struggle with their own power-and-powerless-ness. Mania and suicidal ideation may be symptoms of an inability to make peace with the monstrosity done to you, now within you, now a part of you.
When you encounter a person or a group of people who treat you as an “It,” especially when they are someone who you loved or admired, this can gestate inside you as agony.
But, when you and I encounter one another in the present moment as in relation with the infinite within the finite (ie. in a person’s face), there will be authentic gratification, healing, and of course, love.
* See Martin Buber's I and Thou
