Reflecting on Life’s Difficult Questions
Introspection is often an uncomfortable & difficult process, but without the development of this essential life skill, the general tendency is for a human being to exist in a relatively primal state: avoiding situations which inspire negative feelings, and seeking out anything that gives pleasure — no matter how fleeting or temporary it might be, and regardless of the long-term consequences. When someone brings up a topic or behaves in a way that elicits a strong negative emotional response within us, the primal reaction, then, is to find some manner of controlling this person and forcing them to stop — rather than attempting to change our perspective or beliefs or seeking to understand the reasons why we find it uncomfortable.
Many adults have children before they themselves have done the inner work necessary to overcome this primal instinct, and so as their children grow up, many of these topics are introduced as forbidden, and remain so throughout their adolescence. But when no one discusses topics like healthy relationships, the importance of boundaries & self-worth, abusive behavior, sex & sexuality, spirituality, emotional well-being, or mental health with a teenager in a candid, non-judgmental, non-fear-based manner, the issues surrounding those things and the questions they have about them do not simply go away; rather, they linger in the back of their mind like a cloud casting a shadow over the sun. Lacking the words to fully articulate what it is they do not know, unsure of whom to trust, the opinions they form are often clouded in shame and judgement, and based upon inaccurate stereotypes from less-than-ideal sources.
With so little support and so much pressure, shame, & misinformation surrounding mental health, sex, and relationships, it is not surprising to me that traumatic & profoundly negative experiences such as sexual assault & abuse are commonplace; these issues are seldom discussed, the harm they caused seldom recognized, and the ones who inflict it seldom punished. When discussions about abuse, sex, & mental health do take place, the conversation tends to be shallow, judgmental, and limited to whatever points of view are deemed socially acceptable at the time, rather than based upon a scientific understanding of human nature or actual evidence of effectiveness. The most common question survivors of abuse hear isn’t, “How can I help?”, it’s “Why didn’t you leave sooner?” or “Why did you let it get that bad?”
The cluelessness revealed by those who ask these questions is insulting, considering how many times these questions have been answered, and the way they compound the suffering of the person in pain rather than attempt to hold the abuser accountable. Our society deals with uncomfortable truths by denying they exist, rewarding those who conform with our assumptions & expectations, and shaming those who refuse to conduct themselves in a manner which aligns with our comfort. Nothing conveys a message louder than silence, and it is the pain we refuse to acknowledge in ourselves which we tend to inflict upon others.
With so much blame surrounding victimhood, and a general lack of sympathy & compassion for others’ trauma in society, remaining silent is a common & understandable choice, and sadly, one we never realize is unhealthy & deeply damaging to our sense of self-worth. The stigmatization against candid discussions about abuse & trauma is an attitude that only benefits the abuser and ensures those who have been through it continue to suffer while those who have not remain ignorant, unprepared to identify & respond to it personally and unequipped to help others. Those who fail to receive adequate support often develop unhealthy beliefs and/or coping strategies, which we then label — mental health issues as “disorders” and the chronic use of substances such as drugs & alcohol as substitutes for unmet emotional needs as “addictions” — placing psychological barriers around our understanding of the root causes of these conditions and impairing our ability to address them effectively. When we see the diagnosis first and the person second, it’s all too easy to dismiss their humanity and the suffering that they endured. If receiving compassion is at war with admitting the truth, neither one is likely to occur.
Similarly, while it doesn’t excuse their decision to harm others, I think it is important to recognize that most abusers were themselves abused as children or suffered severe trauma as adults… when a developing brain is traumatized by abuse & neglect, or an adult brain suffers through extended periods of emotional pain, it reacts in one of two ways: by focusing inwards, or by focusing outwards. Focusing outwards leads to people-pleasing, codependency, echoism, and anxious attachment styles… focusing inwards leads to depression, narcissism, lack of empathy, egotism, and avoidant attachment styles. Both result from feelings of helplessness and a need for safety, manifesting as a desire to control the world around us in order to ensure that safety, and both can result in a sacrifice of one’s True Self, an over-dependence upon others to maintain our own self-worth, and low self-esteem.
Physical trauma to the brain in adults has been found to increase the likelihood of them becoming violent and abusive; should we judge these people less harshly than people who became abusive in response to emotional trauma they suffered as children? Should we judge anyone, at al? For only when we remove our judgement and our emotional response from a situation are we able to see it clearly and respond with love, as we ought to do in every situation. When we focus inward, we judge ourselves more harshly than others… when we focus outward, we judge others more harshly than ourselves. Both lead to problems. Is the answer to seek balance & fairness in the application of our judgement, or is to remove judgement altogether and seek understanding instead?
Most people are content never to question the world that is handed to them. They accept the circumstances they find themselves in and do not look deeper into the reasons why we view things the way we do. They are content with their superficial, pragmatic perspective, and for the most part, they adapt to it well. When things do go wrong in their lives, they tend to accept the easiest and most convenient explanations — which typically involve blaming external factors and other people.
It’s an interesting quandary, where to draw the line between personal responsibility and external influence… surely no one doubts that being abused results in certain effects upon the abused that are impossible for them to choose to avoid. And no one “deserves” to be abused, or chooses it… certainly, given the choice between being abused or not being abused, we would all select the latter. So if someone is being verbally abused and cannot choose to escape it, at what point could they be forgiven for resorting to physical force to make it stop? Should they be held accountable for their reaction, while the abuser is excused for their action, simply because one causes physical pain and the other emotional pain? If the victim is a man rather than a woman, why do we feel less sympathy for him than for her — is a man’s pain less important to us than a woman’s? Why do we value emotional pain less than physical, when our bodies interpret them as nearly-identical experiences that activate the same neurochemical pathways & regions of the brain? If someone is threatened with physical pain if they do not do what their abuser demands, we can excuse the choice made as being coercion under duress, but if someone threatens you with emotional pain, why is that choice then not equally excused?
If a man tells a woman he will hurt her if she leaves, we readily recognize that as domestic abuse & coercive control; if a woman tells a man she will commit infidelity if he leaves, why do we hesitate to label that as domestic abuse & coercive control? Financial loss under threat of physical pain is armed robbery; under threat of emotional pain, it is blackmail & extortion… forcing or coercing another to engage in undesired sexual activities through physical threats is rape, but forcing or coercing compliance with undesired sexual activity through emotional trauma is — marriage? After all, if we condemn premarital sex, then to avoid the emotional trauma of shame, we have no choice but celibacy or matrimony. Another culture that did not hold this same belief would not create the same circumstances — are we not all, by promoting abstinence before marriage and seeing sex as the obligation of a wife to her husband, thus guilty of coercing women into sex and inflicting emotional trauma on those who disobey?
People are doubtlessly influenced by their environment, but at the same time, we hold people responsible for the choices they make, regardless of the environment that influenced them: a murderer with a bad childhood is no less a killer than one with a perfect, idyllic upbringing. Some things are black & white, but even those things which are were the result of thousands of shades of grey coming together (or disappearing) until all we see is the end result. Dissecting all the nuances in every situation requires an incredible degree of willpower & mental fortitude, one which we are loathe to expend in situations which do not have an immediate, direct, & obvious impact upon our own lives. Our brains & bodies were wired for efficiency, and categorization & stereotyping are logical extensions of this tendency to draw from our own personal experiences & the information relayed to us by sources we chose to trust in order to make complex decisions rapidly & without expending significant resources which we may need elsewhere. We all do it, to some extent, every day… yet some ways are deemed socially acceptable & rewarded, while others are not.
Respecting men & women in the armed services, for example, and disrespecting criminals & drug addicts are both socially-reinforced stereotyping behaviors. Making the decision to join the military is no more likely to predict a person’s character than the color of their skin; serving in the military and being born black in America both come with challenges that can test a person & forge their will; both could produce an individual who emerges dependent upon a chemical substance to manage their emotional pain & PTSD from witnessing or participating in the murder of another human being; yet one receives a positive stereotype, the other negative. Racism & sexism are stereotyping behaviors which have (thankfully) become less socially-acceptable, yet it remains more or less acceptable to shame a person for refusing a vaccine, for smoking, for committing a crime, or for using certain chemical substances for non-medicinal purposes.
The chemicals which we deem socially unacceptable are often times not dangerous (marijuana, and psilocybin, for example), or the demand is driven or inspired by the high cost of socially-permissible pharmaceuticals (heroin & methamphetamine in response to opioid & ADHD medications), or influenced by sociocultural perceptions (the stricter punishments & social shame for using crack — typically used in poorer black communities — versus the way we glorify the use of cocaine — which is typically used more often by rich white people — when both are essentially the same drug), and even though the effect of some street drugs is virtually identical to “approved” versions (the effects of methamphetamine are indistinguishable from the effects of amphetamine —commonly known under the brand name Adderall — under uncontrolled conditions, and the effect of opiate is identical whether it is in the form of an injection or a pill — the only differences are in potency & regulation of use & manufacture), we deem the use of one version to be a moral failing while utilizing other versions as traditional medical management of mood or pain in young children.
Just like using an opioid-based painkiller to recover after an extensive surgery will not cause a person to suddenly abandon their morals, using alcohol to numb the emotional pain of grief, heartbreak, or abuse does not make someone into a bad person. Yet one we view as a dependency, the other as orthodox healthcare; one we condemn, the other we receive with compassion. Yet both stem from the same root cause — the desire of an individual to avoid pain and to artificially alter their mood. Our nervous systems experience both physical pain and the pain of rejection & loss as similarly traumatic events, using the same neural pathways… why is it considered okay to use chemicals to numb physical pain, but emotional pain must be endured with stoicism?
I do not know the answers to any of these questions… all I know is that it is remarkably easy to ask questions that do not have easy answers, yet incredibly difficult to change the beliefs we so easily accept.
Thank you for reading.
