BUG: Deaf Identity and Internal Revolution

Stuck

B U G 93 Stuck I dreamt that I wanted to go home. I lived in the middle of town, but the cabs only took you to the trains, and the trains only ran from one side of town to the other. I couldn’t get home. Empathy Is Not Pity Quite a few times in life, I’ve had people say, “Quit feeling sorry for yourself!” or “You’re so full of self-pity!” Usually the people who said this with the most force were, at the time, people I considered to be close friends. I’ll tell you something; that’s a disturbing thing to have happen to you. On the one hand, you’re wondering—what if it’s 94 C H R I S T O P H E R J O N H E U E R true? Am I crossing a line here? Being too helpless? Am I draining this person too much? But on the other hand, your reality is what it is, and somehow you have to make your way through it. Sometimes you can become so lost, you’ll never find your way out of your problems unless you can safely express your feelings and thoughts. Especially to those you love and trust the most. Now you can argue that people can pull themselves out of almost anything without help if only they try. And I agree. People can get through being fired, a divorce, the death of a parent; whatever. Boo-hoo. They cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it, sure. The catch, however, is that recovery, if it’s honest, happens in pretty much that exact order: First you cry, then you build your bridge, and then you get over it. Anything else is a textbook example of putting the cart before the horse. Bellowing at people to drop the self-pity routine can have the effect of freezing their recovery in its tracks. Because if a person isn’t allowed to cry around you, what river will he have to build his bridge over? In one of my counseling classes, my professor once showed us the highlights of a counseling videotape. On it was six months worth of sessions with a woman who had Battered Wives Syndrome. That is to say, the first ten sessions took place with her in a hospital bed. The next ten showed her insisting (yes, really!) that she was a bad person and deserved what she got. The last nine showed flickers of doubt playing across her face. I would like to describe that face. During the first week of counseling, her right eye looked like a swollen, rotten grapefruit ready to burst open. Her nose was splinted, and most of B U G 95 her upper teeth were gone. This was once a beautiful woman, I’d like to add. On her thirtieth session, the counselor finally got through. The woman realized (in however small a way) that she wasn’t bad, didn’t deserve what she was getting, and was, in fact, living in a deadly situation that she now had to somehow find a way out of. Her natural reaction? She broke down and sobbed. Now pay attention, this is important: If I had been that counselor, and you had been in that room with us, and you had seen her tears and chosen that exact moment to tell her to stop feeling sorry for herself . . . . . . I would have tossed you out on your ass. Grief, confusion, anger, and fear are natural emotions. Yes, there are times when people abusively wallow in them in order to get attention. Maybe the goal is to receive unhealthy caretaking from others. Who knows? Each situation is different. But there are also times when feeling these emotions and expressing them is a step forward. At those times, “Stop feeling sorry for yourself” is a statement that makes it sound like you blame them for even having negative feelings! Perhaps being exposed to these emotions is uncomfortable for you? Okay, fair enough. Just remember something—your discomfort is your own issue and not theirs. You have the right to set boundaries. You do not have the right, however, to punish other people for your discomfort or to shame them for feeling bad about bad things. That’s not empowerment. That’s emotional abuse. And while you’re chewing on that...