I have this ongoing pain in my life, in my family’s life, that never goes away.
Before I launch into this topic, I want to make a couple of things very clear. First, I am fully cognizant that what I’m about to describe is not unique. Second, I know there are plenty of pains that are worse: a dear neighbor losing her husband and her children losing their father and the wreckage of medical bills and financial burden that they are left with; my mom’s ongoing battle with recurring breast cancer; Layla Grace’s battle with neuroblastoma. My humility in the face of these tragedies is enormous.
And yet. The reality of these situations doesn’t change my own.
Pain is intrinsic to life. Expecting to be exempt from it is pretty futile. The bitter makes the sweet, when it occurs, more poignant, more memorable, and even more meaningful.
Domestic violence, drugs, emotional cruelty, and serious fiscal irresponsibility permeate the borders of our life. I refer to the borders, because I want to make clear that my home, with my husband, and my children, remains peaceful. [Well, as peaceful as raising young children can be, anyway.] For this I am so very, very grateful.
For years, I intervened in every possible way, and promoted (and helped pay for) hours and hours and hours of therapy. Without divulging too much detail and completely compromising the identity of whom I speak, let’s just say I attempted to be extremely instrumental and involved in trying to find ways to help in every way a human being can.
It was never, ever enough. What makes it all even worse – worse than one young life destroying itself, taking everyone and everything possible with it, as it scratches and lashes and flails in its torment of pain and anger, battling with some undying fire that seems inextinguishable – is that now others, including very young children, are involved. And the word “cycle” takes on a deeper meaning.
The lesson you would have thought I’d have learned in the past ~2 decades would be that, in such circumstances, nobody wins. And me getting involved, no matter how creative my thinking, how well-intentioned my efforts, no matter pure-purposed or loving my motivation and gestures, the problem does not change. Oh, certainly, there ARE affects, they’re just nothing positive: my emotional exhaustion, my heartache, and my upset stomach and inability to shake the sadness from my mind. These do nothing for me.
More importantly: these effects do nothing for my children.
I used to think that the bystanders to such events (for lack of a better term) held a very distinct, very important role in the cycle of madness. I mean, HOW can any self-respecting person who believes in a higher power NOT intervene when innocent, defenseless children are falling victim to the cycle being played through yet again, in yet another generation. I also used to think I could change pretty much anything as long as I was completely focused and worked very, very diligently. I mean, ANYTHING. And oh, how bloody my head became slamming it repeatedly against that particular cement-block wall.
Well, I have revised my view on bystanders in the past year or so. I’ve decided that, yes, there are those who sit off to the side, and watch the horror unfold for some perverse satisfaction that I will never understand. Like, when I moved down to Metro Milwaukee nearly 20 years ago, I was flabbergasted at the rubbernecking that occurs with a freeway accident. How could people’s curiosity about someone else’s tragedy so consistently override them minding their own business and focusing on their driving and their own destination?
But no matter what my opinion, it still happens. It’s still fact.
So on the one hand, we’ve got those weird tragedy-watchers. On the other hand, I have decided that there is another category of bystanders. This entity is the one who have consciously and thoroughly tried everything in their power to help, and realized that they can change nothing. And in addition to being helpless to effect change, the costs of involvement, the stress, the anguish, and the emotional torment… those costs are just too expensive. If you look at your time and effort spent in a lifetime as a kind of bank account, where meditation and prayer and healthy relationships and true love are deposits, and crisis and lies and foolishness and denial are withdrawals… there may be situations where you need to decide too many withdrawals are making it difficult to keep that bank account afloat.
Sometimes, you just have to accept that, and move on with the rest of your life. The old “you can lead a horse to water…” adage? It’s cliché for a reason. And the pain? It’s as ever-present as the cliché is true.
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