Working through abuse: One size does not fit all
"More
often than not, this pattern of thinking doesn’t stop with childhood. Many of
us have counseled abused women who conclude that the problem was that they
didn’t adequately alleviate their partner’s stress. A spouse who is cheated on
sometimes concludes that he or she wasn’t attractive enough, or is in some
other way to blame for what happened. This often happens in church situations,
where people sometimes find it difficult to see—sometimes until years
later—that what they assumed was just 'the messiness of dealing with people'
turns out to have been a toxic and harmful environment."
I have sometimes thought maybe we were all too sensitive nowadays, name too many things abuse, and wallow in our own experience too much. Now I know better. I don't have the right to claim to "feel anyone else's pain." Empathy is not feeling another's pain; if that is how it's defined, I think that's counterproductive. I don't need to go around feeling, or claiming to feel, another's pain. I've got enough of my own, but more to the point, I might be diminishing theirs. Empathy is giving them the right to feel their own without judgment or kneejerk advice.
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