Believe it or not there is a difference, for me what ever the object, I’m worth less than it, I can think of no better example than an incident that happened to me recently;
I was going out, I walked through the hall to the front door, there’s a step down and I lost my footing and fell, it was just one step and while I hit the floor but didn’t think much of it until I noticed blood I looked myself over to find the injury, my right foot was bleeding, it was just pouring and panic set in.It wasn’t the injury that concerned me but the mess it was making, everything that was readily available to cover up the injury was brilliantly white and I thought ‘Can’t use that, I’ll ruin it, blood is so hard to wash out of whites’
I found some napkins and used them so I could walk back into the living room and get the first aid kit as I limped through the hallway 3 drops of blood fell onto the hallway carpet, I was horrified and scared, I’d ruined the carpet, I felt awful.To me those 3 drops of blood were my fault, it was wrong and careless of me, all I could do was apologise to the homeowners for the mess caused.
My injury while painful and in need of urgent medical attention it was not more important than a small piece of carpet because as a human being I’m worth less than most other things.
Try and let that sink in, mull it over, think about what could drive a human being to believe that their safety and well-being is worth less than a small piece of carpet. What would it take for you to feel that way? Can you imagine what it would take for you too feel so small that you expect to be met with aggression over concern or kindness?
Think about the message I was sent: a little 7 year old girl who had been punched repeatedly in the face and afterwards told off with words like “LOOK WHAT YOU MADE ME DO!” and “Maybe if you weren’t so naughty daddy wouldn’t have to hit you”I was so little and so scared that once while being thrown down the stair I wet myself, when my father noticed I was punished further for staining the carpet – can you imagine the impact that had on me? Ask yourself what message I was being given, over and over and over again.
When I was very very young my mother told me that violence only counted as violence if the punishment was avoidable she said essentially if you’re a child and you get beaten for wearing shoes on the carpet this is only unfair if the child didn’t know not to, if that was a rule in the house then the child could avoid it and then it would be discipline – not abuse.
When so many people treat you like that, whose to say they’re wrong? My childhood was filled with people who abused me in some way and the only thing that kept me from despair was believing that it was my fault – at least then I had a chance to fix it or stop it, if I could only work out the pattern!
I know that I created this mental prison where everything is my fault and I deserve nothing as an individual or as a human being I did so to help justify my abuse and honestly things haven’t changed enough for me to stop this conditioning. Yes I get treated better now but that’s only because I’m alone, when I’m around people I fall back into my conditioning.
I had a friend who said “Sympathy is seeing someone fall into a pit and standing there showing you understand how they must feel and Empathy is seeing someone fall into a pit and then falling in yourself to stand beside them and experience what they’re experiencing, but only the Sympathetic person is in a place to help the person in the pit”
I don’t know if it’s true or accurate – more than likely it’s an excuse used to stop there from being emotional intimacy between people a reason stay detached. See I’m in the pit and I know no matter how hard I try I can’t get out and I know I likely never will but it would be great to have company, even if it’s temporary. Could you take a few minutes to imagine my life as a child, the fear, the loneliness and the pain.
I can’t read this the way you read it, it’s not new information to me its just something I’m reminded of regularly, so it may come across as a lecture, it may seem condescending to ask such a simple question but I don’t mean to be I would just really appreciate it if you could give it a few minutes thought, join me in the pit for a bit.
Survivng Life 