Helpers Shouldn't Hurt

 

This is something that has been bothering me the past couple of days.

Something which needs to be acknowledged and talked about. 

Something which permeates all of society. 

Something which fools and harms a lot of people. 

Something which warrants accountability and correction.

It is this:

 

Not all ‘Helpers’ are trying to actually help the others.

Many are simply trying to save themselves.

 

Human behavior is incredibly complicated.  Neurobiology is incredibly complicated. Societal interplay and ‘herd mentality’ and the impact that environment and cultural conditioning have upon mental conditions and psychological responses are deep and wide.

Therefore, if you want to truly protect yourself and have all information available to you, to base your decisions upon in life, please know that not all people acting in ‘helping roles’ are truly there for you or for the good of the people they are attempting to help.

A lot of people have deep wounds in the core of their being that cry out that they aren’t good enough and that they have to serve, serve, serve to earn their worth.

That isn’t them acting to help others.  It is them trying to save themselves.  

The energy behind that belief is very different.  It is desperation.  It is a lie. It frequently leads to abuse and harm, to fear and to control, and to injustices all around.

You see this on the news in the cases of police officers who use their power to abuse their spouses, to abuse their captors, to control their own children, to justify using fear and domination as a means to their ends. 

Helpers don’t use power and control to dominate others against their will.  Abusers do.

But it’s not just there. 

When I was a religious person and was very involved in the church, I saw it there, too.  

‘Helpers’ only being willing to ‘help’ if it was THEIR WAY.  ‘Helpers’ refusing to listen to the person needing the help and insisting that the ‘help’ be delivered in unsafe or illogical ways to those in need. And the judgement – OH MY GOSH, the judgement!  As if everyone suffering has brought that suffering upon themselves. As if everyone deserves what they are getting. The self-righteousness being used to keep the status-quo or to justify abuse was just off the charts and unreal.

When I was doing emergency fostering, I saw it there, too.  Our social worker told us once that when he got a very difficult birth mother or family, that he always called us because we were the most equipped and able to manage the contact with the birth families and we showed the most empathy.  I was honestly surprised at first by him saying that because I thought, “but aren’t all emergency foster families empathetic?”

I didn’t understand exactly what he was referring to until we attended our first Christmas dinner with all of the other foster families.  As we all sat around the huge table at LeMont that night, a shocking number of the other families spoke cruelly about the birth mothers and birth families that they had worked with. They spouted off angry judgements and laughed and mocked some of their decisions and actions.  They rejoiced at babies being taken from their families and families being torn apart, instead of longing for any help or reconciliation. Many wanted to punish, not help. Some wanted to help only the baby. Few bothered to even consider the mother or birth family or the fact that regardless of what they believed about that babies’ mother, it’s still THEIR mother.

I will never forget sitting at that table that night. I literally felt shock sitting there listening to them.  It was the same ‘help’ I saw from the ‘very, very dedicated religious folks’ before. 

Not help for the people receiving the help.  ‘Help’ to uphold their mental belief that they were better-than.  ‘Help’ to show how great of a person they were, but how awful the other was. ‘Help’ to allow them to prove their own worth to themselves and uphold the hierarchies that had created in their mind.

Recently someone close to me started working as an EMT for an ambulance service.  Fresh from his training and schooling, it is his first experience working in the medical field.  He’s going in with young, fresh eyes, very excited for his future.  So excited to help others!  He came over last weekend and was sharing stories of his first few weeks on the job – the things that made him sad, the things that brought him joy, and the things that really shocked him. 

He reported that the thing that honestly shocked him more than anything else that he had seen, is that he expected the people with whom he would work to share his beliefs and his empathy and his kindness, but that instead, there were a tremendous number of people that he worked with who are actually very cruel and judgmental.

He shared of how they had visited the home of an individual who weighed in excess of 500 lbs a few weeks earlier to help her move from her bed to a chair. He shared with me of the sadness he felt for her – the sound of her frail shame-filled voice, the smell, the piles of fast-food trash, the paleness of her skin and lack of life within her, and the framed pictures all around the room that he noted of her before she had gained so much weight. Her with a husband and a family. He felt sadness and compassion for her and the extreme loneliness that she must have been living and the sadness of all she must have endured to have gotten to that point.

Then he described his shock after they returned to the squad house and a bunch of the guys began laughing and making fun of “The Land Whale”.  He said he expected caring empathetic people in this field, but instead it felt like the frat house at college.  Then he shared about how much more shocking it was the next weekend when they were called back to that same person’s house and this time they weren’t able to bring her back and she died. 

He felt extreme sadness, but also relief that the soul that he had witnessed the week before suffering so greatly was now at peace. Some of the other guys continued laughing and joking about "The Land Whale" until someone finally spoke up and said, "geez guys – have a little respect. She literally just lost her life.”

 

If people are in ‘helper roles’ but lack empathy, they represent a special kind of danger in this world because everyone expects them to make decisions for the good of those they are helping, but they won’t.  

They aren’t considering that person at all.  They are doing it for their own egos.  They are doing it to prove that they’re better than, that they’re right, that they get to be in charge and in control because they know more. 

They lack Emotional Maturity to the point that they are a danger to the rest of us at times, because they are incapable of managing feelings and emotions so much that they miss a whole lot of other very important information in this world!

 

Actions matter more than words.

Actions matter more than titles.

Actions matter more than positions.

Actions matter more than beliefs.

Empathy, Understanding, Honesty, Kindness – those are the qualities of TRUE HELPERS AND HEALERS!!!

 

Do not be fooled by those who actually need healing themselves.