Turning Emotional Pollution into Significance
He held onto hope that things would change and his Dad would begin to pay more attention. He watched as his father moved further and further away from him emotionally. He wanted to yell out, to ask his Dad to not change, to continue to love him and find him important. He felt as if he were standing on a ledge and there was no one to catch him if he should fall and it wasn’t a feeling he knew how to deal with. He decided to be brave, to go to his Dad and try to explain, in the best way a 10 year old can, that he was hurting and needing his Dad’s attention.
Catching his breath and pumping out his chest, Alan, mustered up all his courage. He was afraid of hurting his Dad so he put much thought into what he would say. It was important to be gentle because the last thing he would ever want to do is hurt his Dad’s feelings. So, with courage and a great love for his Dad he writes these words in an email. “Dad, I love you and when you don’t call me or come to see me, it hurts my feelings.”
He checks his email daily, several times a day. Alan is certain that his father will understand and that things will begin to get better. After all, when things are bad, doesn’t talking about it always help?
Two days after he sends his email he gets his much awaited response from his Dad. He writes, “Alan, your feelings aren’t my responsibility. If your feelings are hurt then you just need to change your feelings.” When Alan read that email he knew in his heart that his Dad had moved to far away emotionally for things to ever be normal again.
When we hear such stories as the one above it can take our breath away. We can feel the pain and confusion of that child. Our imaginations lead us down the road into the future and we wonder what path such an emotionally polluted and injured child will take. The truth is, this is a narrative about the narcissistic behavior of a father and how his son is victimized by it.
Both sides of the exchange above suffer damage. The father who responds to his son in such a way has already suffered a narcissistic injury as a child that enables him to have so little concern for the feelings of his child. The child damaged by his father’s inability to empathize with his feelings. For Alan the world could become a place filled with enemies and he needs help in turning his suffering into significance.
The little boy in this story is dealing with the same thing so many of us find ourselves dealing with in life, a difficult person which can leave us afraid and apprehensive and needing to find a solution to the problem that will help push the worry out of our mind.
I believe there is only one answer for people struggling with emotional pollution and trying to find tranquility and peace of mind in their lives. That answer is love. Only love can liberate us from the resentment created by fear and mistrust that comes from being so cruelly treated by someone we love. Love has an extraordinary power to unlock the resentment that keeps our hearts frozen. A loving person could be said to be small and weak but love gives that person the ability to overcome emotional pain and pollution of any size. Love and being able to return it to those who do you harm can turn your world right side up again. emotional pain and pollution of any size. Love and being able to return it to those who do you harm can turn your world right side up again.
I’m not talking about being spineless and giving into the demands and pressures of difficult people. Love combined with boundaries and insisting on being treated correctly can be an awesome answer when dealing with such devastating pain. When the ultimate goal is love for yourself and others, we may be able to help, not only ourselves but also the difficult people who are causing the pain.
Attempting to love people, in spite of their cruelty does not always have a happy ending. It does always set us free from the pain though. Dealing with Narcissistic people can rattle us. It can produce fear, anxiety and pain and if we are not careful those feelings can be projected onto to others, which creates a cycle that perpetuates itself through generations.
Love can put an end to the cycle because we learn to see others as people and not objects. No matter how hurtful a Narcissistic person can be he or she is still a human being and if we see them in that way we don’t take their actions so personally. They are, after all, damaged individuals projecting their fear and anxiety off onto others. They are not icons of unmitigated malice or deceit, just damaged individuals who would benefit from love.
It’s easy, when someone hurts us or attacks us to feel guilt, to feel as if we deserved it in some way or did something wrong. On top of being humiliated by the treatment, we can feel guilty for having been the target of such behavior. This may sound strange, but if you have spent hours wondering what you could have done to cause someone you love to be so cruel, you would understand.
During World War II Victor Frankel was a Jewish psychiatrist imprisoned in a German Concentration Camp. His only crime was being Jewish. He faced staggering struggles and terrible torture and didn’t expect to survive. While toiling away at the meaningless jobs that the Germans gave him he made a remarkable discovery. He had the mental ability to attribute meaning and purpose to his horrible surroundings. He could think about people he loved and cared for. He got back in touch with precious memories and used them to transform his present condition. Memories of love and what it had meant in his life freed him from the meaninglessness of his present situation. He survived through the power of love because in the midst of his suffering, love elevated him to a new level of humanity.
We may not be able to change the situations in our lives that cause us pain, nor the people who play a role in it anymore than Viktor Frankel could change the fact that he was a prisoner in a Concentration camp but we can, with thoughts of love, give any situation new meaning and purpose for our lives.
No matter how painful our emotional injury has been, we should not allow resentment to linger inside us. Only the best thoughts and intentions will transform and govern our lives in a positive way. It’s an individual decision we can all make. We can chose to maintain a level of love and meaning regardless of what has happened to us in the past or is happening in the present..
Remember Alan? His father had sent him the message that his feelings didn’t matter. In time, he came to see that, that message was a false message. Alan learned that not everyone cares about his feelings but he also learned, from those in his life on a daily basis, that his feelings did matter and were worth attention. He is 14 now and has learned that a difficult father did not have to undermine the entire direction of his life. I believe one of his greatest lessons in life will be the fact that giving love and feeling responsible for the feelings of other people frees you up to live a life of meaning and significance. Love, really can set anyone free, no matter the circumstances.
