There's a fine line between what you might call helping someone but they'd call hurting. A point where too much help turns into harm. What's the distinguishing factor? I can't answer it with certainty, but I can share my experience of it with a certain someone who's motto is like that song--Cruel to be Kind.
Father always insisted that he was driven by love. Love for me apparently made him have all my best interests at heart because from the divorce onward, I was not included in any decisions concerning me. I was his little robot to do whatever he liked with, his puppet. He'd convinced himself that his motives were purely love and it blinded him.When I'd try and explain to him that his actions clearly were not showing love, he got annoyed and deflected it, saying things like did your mother tell you that? His actions simply did not convey his supposed love. It kinda made me think well if that's what love is, I really wish you didn't love me.
In school if there is nothing else I learned, there was a lot on bullies. A lot on how parents often times cause more harm than help when they assist their child too much. There's a point where if they go any further, they're living the child's life, not letting them take in experiences themselves and learning from the bad. It's over-protection and it's not healthy. Often that happens when the parent misses out on their own childhood and so forces the lifestyle they wished they'd had on their kids.
I don't know much about his childhood so I can't say his motives with certainty, but he seems to have low confidence. Always fishing around for support from others, his self image is bad. I think he wanted involvement and a feeling of accomplishment. His efforts would have been better spent elsewhere. Independent and strong willed from a young age, I had little need nor want of his sudden insistence to help me and become a part of my life. When I denied him that satisfaction, that's when the love became an issue. He believed so strongly that he was correct that he decided if anyone said something that challenged what he believed, they had a mental illness. It stung, especially after years of ignorance to everything I did, there was something wrong with me because I no longer respected him.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because I love you."
"Then stop loving me. It hurts so much, it's killing me. If you loved me, you'd let go."
"I can't, I love you too much."
"That's like saying, 'come, let me chain you and throw you to the jail, it's for the best, I love you, be happy about it.' It's impossible. That's a binding love, one I can not return. It would take all of me just to pretend."
"And that's why I can't stop. If a child asks for something dangerous, the parent isn't going to give it to them just because they want it because they love them."
"That's completely beside the point, I'm not asking to do anything dangerous at all."
"No matter what you think, I do it because I love you. I know you don't like to hear it, but someday you'll understand."
Some form of this hideous conversation popped up nearly every day. It sure crushed my idea of love. It would have been kinder for him to ignore me. There were two things that could be done. He could begin to look at himself instead of denying all blame, or I could try to appease him without too much toll on myself. Recently, I've become resigned to the fact that whatever happens, it will have to be me. I have figured out where I must learn to stand in these seemingly endless visits with father. It will be a dismal Christmas indeed if I cannot learn to cope with him. I used to think that there were two options. I either loved him as was always encouraged, or the opposite. But those are two extremes so the new aim is nothingness. I would be completely content to have absolutely nothing trigger at the sight or thought of him. I simply cannot love him, yet it is forbidden that I hate. Still, I feel like I must always be leaning in one direction or the other. But wait, I thought, there's a middle! Neither love nor outright dislike can be penalized. It's vital that I at least be able to balance the two and in the long term, he will no longer hurt nor help me.
Still, if he ever became open to try something else, all it would take is a little doubt at his own stubbornness. I can always hope. Learn to let go, holding on tightly with a steel grip will only clench the chains. You insist it's love, but it can't be love for me, if it were, you'd control it because you'd see the hurt it's caused me. Love doesn't kill. It isn't forced or stubborn. Your so called love is crushing and overbearing. Love is unconditional, if you want examples, there's a fair few in the Bible.
On a last note, my last court imposed appointment with the shrink and father was yesterday. It was painful and definitely did more damage than help. It only assured them of the psycho problems I was trying to disprove and made me vulnerable to the one person in the world I would most want to hide from. Those visits were some of the longest minutes in my life. I could tell you that there's five windows in the office, four in front, one on the left, all with the shutters pulled three fourths of the way down. I could tell you that his desk is on the left with pictures of his children on it and the no doubt symbolic Nautilus shell on the edge that represents the whole facility. Then there's the ugly plant hanging from the ceiling and the spiky one on the ground. I could tell you how there's three cushions on the victim couch and two elegant, hard looking chairs facing it. On the left is the bookcase, filled with unread reference shrink books no doubt. And don't forget the table in the center, that loathed table with the timepiece in the center that I would always stare at, willing it to go faster. And how I could hear in those year long silences, the way the two clocks in the room were just a tick off from each other, causing an unsettling syncopated rhythm. I could tell you how there's forty eight squares on the shelf beneath the table with the clock. And the lamp behind the clock with the five spirals circling the neck of it. Also the fact that it was always on when there was no need, causing me to burn from the effort of not asking him to turn it off. All this and more, I could tell you from barely a glance around, but nothing useful. It must be my least favorite room in the world. Honestly. Think twice before going to a shrink, try resolving whatever it is among yourselves. I found that my church, friends, and kitties were ten times more helpful, and 100% cheaper.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud. 5 Or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
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