|
|
|
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!
|
 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.
Sending Yourself
to Hell
This, then, illustrates the
psychological meaning of sending yourself to hell just to prove to someone
how much he has hurt you: Someone hurts you, and you—consciously
or unconsciously—sabotage yourself in the hope of hurting the one who
hurt you.
All of this returning of hurt
for hurt is 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.
What, then, can you
do?
The
Solution
Well, turn away from the satisfaction
of thinking that you are in a state of grace when you
unconsciously desire to harm yourself and others.
Turn away from all the specious
satisfactions of the world—as you promised
in your baptismal vows—and dedicate yourself
to love, to the suffering, self-sacrificial love
with which Christ loved us. 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.
Love, after all, never misses
the point, and so it never needs to prove anything.
___________
1. “Everyone who hates his brother is a
murderer” (1 John 3:15).
No
advertising—no sponsor—just the simple truth . . .
|
|
  
|
Huh? Freewill website?