How can this life be real if it doesnt hurt?

Its all we know. We have no memory of anyone ever showing us kindness. A hug, a cuddle, a warm embrace where we felt safe. Nothing never. There was no safe place to hide, every where we went there was hostility and pain. This is the life we know. We know the pain, the shame. When there is no safe place to turn, you can find your home amongst the pain. It becomes the right way to be. It becomes life. It becomes home. Without it things just don't seem right, we feel uncomfortable, like we are wearing the wrong clothes. Constantly fidgeting and feeling unsettled. Until it returns and with its sting, peace. A calmness with its bite. We know it is not good, we know it is not how we should live, but it is all we know. It is not home unless it hurts. Pain is what has damaged us so badly but is also now our friend. To be humiliated, abused, brings us back to what we know how to handle. We know where to go with this, we have the skills and the knowledge to get through it this way. But without the pain we feel empty, alone. We feel numb, like nothing is real. We feel homesick, we long for how we "know" it should be. How we need it to be. They have trained us this way.