 |
 Pain and Emotion transferrance -
Damaged Shields
Over the years, and after several abusive
relationships, including some with members of my own
family, I have come to realize, with healing and inner
searching, that I am a pretty okay person. I'm not
addicted to drama or crisis, when I'm by myself I'm a
happy, content person. I am a very sensitive and caring
person, so when I'm around someone that is hurting, or
feeling some strong emotions, I tend to become empathetic
with them.
I just wonder if on some other level of conciousness,
if people who are miserable seek out people who are like
me, sensitive, caring, etc... (or who knows, visa versa)?
I have noticed in my experience, that after a while, when
I've spent some time with people who are miserable, that
I myself start to become miserable. And I've also noticed
that some of the things these people do, verbally,
physically, would cause such an obviously painful
reaction in anyone. Here is just a fictional example:
Someone drops a book on their foot, and it is painful,
but because they lack certain communication skills,
rather than talk to their partner about the pain and
embarrassment, they walk up to the partner and drop a
book on THEIR foot, just so they can 'see how it feels to
hurt like they do'. So on a more extreme level, if people
are miserable and lack the skills to communicate and
heal, then it seems to me that they do everything in
their power to cause their partner to feel just as
miserable as they do, just to show them, "See,
that's how I feel inside."
This is basic in alot of situations, and a reason why
there are abusive people in the world. They are acting
out how they were treated as children and young adults,
and it's a big chain reaction. It goes so far back it's
almost scary.
I just feel inside, that to an angry, miserable
person, because I'm a happy, loving person, I remind them
of the child they were once, a long time ago, and it
either makes them jealous that I'm a kind, gentle person,
or it makes them want to destroy my 'child-like'
attitude, the same way their's was destroyed when they
were a child.
I've had it rough throughout my life, including my
childhood, but somehow I've managed to hang onto that
pure, 'full of life' attitude. Everyone can mope around,
bitching and moaning and complaining of how harsh the
world is, and how society is out to get them, etc... but
I choose to see the sunlight, and listen to the birds
sing, and laugh and smile and play, even while I'm
working 40 hours a week, and dealing with grumpy people
on a daily basis. I still find time to enjoy who I am and
find pleasure in life.
What's with these miserable people? And why do they
choose to transfer their dismalities onto others? If they
know how bad it hurts to be hurting then why would they
want to do it to someone else? Should we just walk away
from people like this? Should we try to help them? If we
ignore them, and they don't get better, then won't they
transfer their misery onto their children and just keep
creating generations of grumpy miserable people?
Thanks for letting me share, it's been on my mind.
 From: Bernd
Your insights hit a lot of echoes inside me. Here's a
few of my guesses to some of your questions.
My guess is that we do things because they work better
than anything else we’ve discovered. When people
around us aren’t willing to share our pain or show
empathy and compassion willingly, then we use what
we’ve learned from others’ example - we FORCE
the issue, to try to get what we want and need.
And yes, we DO get some comfort - probably all the
comfort we feel we are able to - from knowing that the
other person hurts as much as us.
An emotionally abusive person has developed a very
finely tuned radar that can pick up where the sore spots
of their victim are. The more healed a person is, the
less emotional abuse “works”, because those
sore spots are much harder to find - and when they DO
find them, the recovering person has more of an awareness
that they are usually old wounds the abuser is picking
at, not new ones they’re creating.
Emotional abuse works because it rips open buried
hidden beliefs about ourself that are wrapped in old
pain. If someone calls me stupid, it doesn’t cause
me pain unless somewhere inside I believe that, and
believe it’s a bad thing, or that it makes me less
lovable. If I call you an apple, it doesn’t do
hardly anything, because you don’t have any doubt
that you AREN’T an apple, and even if you were,
being an apple is ok!:)
But if I call you ugly, or fat, for most women this
strikes a deep nerve, because beauty and ugliness is a
struggle many women deal with deep inside, and being
“ugly” definitely puts a woman’s
“lovability” at a disadvantage in our society.
An abuser knows as well when our minds and our hidden
beliefs don’t ring in harmony. We may convince
ourselves consciously that we are beautiful, or say that
“beauty is on the inside as well as the
outside”, but inside we are still terrified of being
“ugly”.
The irony is, in my opinion, that the abuser’s
words have a ring of truth to them, which is what gives
them the ability to cut thru our defenses like butter. I
AM ugly and beautiful - both at the same time. Inside and
outside. And ugliness can be a bad thing, or a good
thing. It is really neutral; it depends on how I use it,
and how I view it. Like water, I can either use water to
quench my thirst, and give me life, or I can drown in it.
Not only is it ok for me to be ugly, but I can rejoice
in it. It helps me look into the disfigured face of a
burn victim, and have their face fill me with wonder and
magic. Why would I want to deprive myself of that?
Being comfortable with my own ugliness brings me to
the next step. Whatever I’m “okay with” in
myself, I’m “okay with” in others. I
can’t fake this, and when I do, an abusive person
will always be able to ferret out what I truly believe
inside, and what I “think” I believe.
To me, the we are only able to give the kind of
compassion and empathy an abusive person is REALLY
looking for when we are able to be okay with the ugliness
inside THEM. And THEY feel that ugliness, because they
keep trying to slice it out of their souls, by dumping it
on others. If you really want to make an abusive person
feel the pain of what they are doing, there is no surer
way than by responding with acceptance and compassion.
Genuine love is a mirror that terrifies someone who is
trying to send out pain, because it gives them an
unmistakable reflection of how much they are hurting
themselves in doing so.
An almost final thought. I don’t believe
happiness is the absence of pain. I believe it includes a
real willingness to share the suffering and pain of
others at the deepest levels. To be able to do so, we
have to be first willing to feel our own suffering and
pain at those deep levels, and be able to STAY with that
suffering and pain. It’s only by embracing it that
it becomes transformed, and we no longer feel the need or
urge to run from it.
Sound impossible or hard? I think we do this naturally
every time we watch a tear-jerker movie. We cry, we feel
for those suffering in the movie, but yet we LIKE this
kind of pain. It feels different, alive, and it
transforms us. We are drawn to the next movie that
generates the same kinds of feelings in us. We also do
this at funerals, and quite willingly.
Now the final thought. The line “love your
enemies” doesn’t mean we should cooperate in
letting them hurt us, because if we do so, it means we
cooperate in helping them hurt themselves as well. To me,
it means recognizing that the amount of love I have for
myself is still very incomplete, and so the amount of
love I can give to those that try to hurt me is also
incomplete. Accepting this also means I don’t try to
give more love than I’m capable of, and admit when
I’m unable to handle a certain level of abuse. If
I’m honest about what I can handle and what I
can’t, I find I can make better choices about how
close or how far I need to be, in my relationship with an
abuser. I find that my choices get better with time, and
those choices are helped because I’m judging the
abuser less, and discovering more of the sore spots on me
they’ve uncovered.
Whatever hopes I have that they’ll
“change” are being taken care of without any
extra work on my part. They notice acutely when someone
has found a way to deal with their attempts in healthier
ways. They notice, and puzzle about it. The little voice
inside them whispers a bit louder, and they find it
harder to quiet it down. They become more aware that
their gameplan isn’t as foolproof as they once
thought, and that the other person is getting more of
what they wanted all along - freedom from a cage of pain
and confusion inside. Nothing you can do to an abusive
person - striking back, leaving them, putting them in
jail, etc. - will generate more suffering in them than
the realization you’ve found a path that brings you
closer to heaven, while they’re still stuck in hell.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
My 2 bits, for what they’re worth.
|
