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I really
appreciate your site... it has been very helpful and refreshing. But may
I make a suggestion? I recently visited it to see if you had anything about
excessive anxiety, as I tend to struggle with that. I am a very scrupulous
person, and although I frequent the Sacraments regularly, I tend to agonize
over the state of my soul. So to be presented immediately with the phrase
[b]ut by continuing in your self-sabotaging behavior
you show that you would prefer to send yourself to hell just to prove to
someone how much he has hurt
you was just about enough
to give me a heart attack. Don’t equivocate the truth on your site,
but out of charity for those of us with such crosses, you may want to consider
softening the corners of your presentation a bit and reassuring us that the
mere presence of depression and/or anxiety is not an automatic ticket to
hell. I now have twice the anxiety I did before visiting, a panicked lump
in my throat, and no more courage to continue reading, although I am in a
state of grace!
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 rom what you say, I don’t
think your problem is clinical anxiety so much as
scruples. The clue to this psychological deduction
can be found in your saying that you almost had a heart attack in reading
about self-sabotaging behavior. Now, the irony here is that “almost
having a heart attack” is itself a manifestation of the very sort of
self-sabotaging behavior that so troubled you when you read about
it.
Self-sabotaging
Behavior
So, why is “almost having
a heart attack” a form of self-sabotage? Well, consider your unconscious
intent in saying it to me. The implication is that something I have done
has offended you. So, if you really were to have a heart attack, then you
could turn to me and say, “See? Look what you did to
me!”
Thus we can see that there is
a certain satisfaction in your “almost having a heart attack”;
that is, your pain is intended to hurt me. You carry this dynamic even further
when you conclude that “I now have twice the anxiety I did before visiting,
a panicked lump in my throat, and no more courage to continue
reading.”
Consequently, the truth of your
anxiety reveals itself: the satisfaction that you throw at me comes back
to hit you as a disability in which you are afflicted with anxiety,
scruples, negative thinking,
and despair.
Sending Yourself
to Hell
This, then, illustrates the
psychological meaning of preferring to send yourself to hell just to prove to
others how much they have hurt you: someone hurts you, and you, whether consciously
or unconsciously, sabotage yourself in the hope of hurting the one who
hurt you. In most clinical cases, “the one who hurt you” is your father
or your mother or both—and they hurt you either with outright abuse or because they
were not emotionally present to you and so failed to understand your emotional
needs.
All of this returning of hurt
for hurt is a form of unconscious anger, and it’s
called revenge. Moreover, because revenge is a form of hatred, and because
hatred is a form of
murder,[1]
revenge—that is, unrepentant revenge—will send you not just to
psychological hell but also to the real hell.
And the desire for revenge, as I describe in the
answer to another question, is the basis for
scruples.
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Note that all of this anger
is really an unconscious attempt to make someone say, “I’m sorry” and then begin to
start showing you real love. For as long as you cling to the desire to make someone
say “I’m sorry” you will be stuck in anger, because anger is the desire to cause enough
harm to others to make them stop doing something you don’t like.
Your freedom from anger will begin when you realize that “I’m sorry” needs to be said to
God, not to you, and that if it ever is said to God it is none of your business. Your
responsibility is to stop sabotaging yourself regardless of whether anyone might say,
“I’m sorry.” |
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Proving, not
Preference
After reading the shocking truth about
preferring to send yourself to hell just to prove to someone how much he has hurt
you, some persons worry that I’m saying that all people will go to hell when
they self-sabotage, regardless of how they do this or what they do.
Well, the answer is “No, that’s not
what I am saying.” Perhaps that goes to show how profound the issue really is. Let me
explain.
The focus of my statement properly belongs
on the matter of proving, not on the matter of preference. In the dynamic
I describe, the person in question has not just been hurt by mistreatment, and is not
just feeling frustrated at the unfairness of it all, but he or she also clings to the
hope of somehow regaining the affection of the offender. Thus the victim reasons, “If
I can make [the offender] realize how much he (or she) has hurt me, then maybe he (or
she) will feel sorry for me and have pity on me and start being nice to me.” Consequently,
the victim seeks to prove to the offender that the mistreatment has had harmful
effects.
Now, for some persons, that proof of an offense
can be expressed through criticism or nagging. “There you go again. You’re always [making
me late, getting in my way, insulting me, embarrassing me, etc.].” Or perhaps it will take
on an accusatory tone. “What’s wrong with you? Why do you keep making me look bad before
the children?” Or it can become rude. “You [expletive deleted] jerk! You almost caused
an accident!”
But for other persons the proof of an offense
can take on a veiled quality, such that the harm is self-inflicted, and the unspoken
implication is, “Look at what you made me do to myself!” The self-harm can take on
many manifestations, such as alcoholism, eating disorders,
drug addiction, smoking, masturbation,
academic failure,
criminal activity, or whatever. Even some physical illnesses can
be caused in this way. Regardless of how it manifests,
though, it’s all self-harm, and it’s all a sin because self-harm
is a defilement of love. It’s all a sin against love, and if
it isn’t recognized as a sin and repented, it can send a person to hell. It’s not that
the person wants to go to hell but that the person would go to any lengths, even to
hell itself, to prove something to someone.
The
Solution
So, what can you do? Well, in general, it
is necessary to give up the satisfaction harming yourself and others in order to make
them say, “I’m sorry.” To give up this
satisfaction, it will be necessary to accept the fact that the root of
anxiety is a lack of trust in God’s providence,
and the root of anger is a lack of trust in God’s justice. When
you are in a state of anxiety, you are preoccupied with what others think or do and so
you are stuck in fear of the unknown. But when you trust in God’s providence, the focus
of life shifts away from what others do, and when you trust in God’s justice the focus
of life turns away from an angry seeking of justice from your own hands—and so you are
freed to experience the protective bond of love between you and God.
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Keep in mind that
this bond of love will never be broken by God, and that God never rejects anyone,
but that we can reject God by defiling love with sin. |
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When you have surrendered your life to
this love, there will be no more anxiety, no more depression, no more self-sabotage,
and no more desire to send yourself to hell to prove a point to anyone.
Love, after all, never misses the point, and so it never needs to prove anything.
Misery
Still, if you reject this advice, then
you will be like myriads of other Catholics who go from priest to priest, confessor to
confessor, spiritual director to spiritual directior, and psychotherapist to psychotherapist,
looking for help while staying stuck in a life of despair and misery.
Notes.
1. “Everyone who hates his brother is a
murderer” (1 John 3:15).
Related pages:
Low self-esteem
Unconscious sin
Blind to your own anger
What is “anger without sin”?
Recommended
Reading
A treasure of a resource for psychological and spiritual healing. Information
gathered from my websites (including this webpage) is now available at your fingertips
in book form.
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Falling Families, Fallen Children by Raymond Lloyd Richmond, Ph.D. Do
our children see a mother and a father both living in contemplative love for
God with a constant awareness of His presence and engaged in an all-out battle
with the evil of the world? More often than not our children don’t see living
faith. They don’t see protection from evil. They don’t see genuine, fruitful
devotion. They don’t see genuine love for God. Instead, they see our external
acts of devotion as meaningless because they see all the other things we do that
contradict the true faith. Thus we lose credibility—and when parents lose credibility,
children become cynical and angry and turn to the social world around them for
identity and acceptance. They are children who have more concern for social approval
than for loving God. They are fallen children. Let’s bring them back.
Ordering
Information |
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