Families full of emotional pain and anger seem to be everywhere. If you are in one, here's what you can do.
By David Fraser
"By the time he was through with me, I was spitting blood all over the ground and blood covered the front of my T-shirt.How am I supposed to forget that?"
How indeed?
Later that evening, as I thought over the memories this young man had of being physically and emotionally abused by his stepfather, I couldn't help being overwhelmed by sadness. He was a big-hearted guy, with great potential, yet he was emotionally chained to the past, to the whirlpool of pain, anger and violence that had engulfed his teen years.
As many of you well know, he is not alone. Millions of homes are plagued with pain and anger.
Here is a sampling of letters we've received:
"I've got a big problem I don't know how to solve. My dad hates me. I try so hard to please him, but no matter what I do, there's always something wrong with it. I can't sit down and talk with him because he'll get really mad.... Please help me."
"I have a problem that is troubling me night and day. It's with my parents. When they get mad at me, they call me hurtful names, curse words and awful things I wouldn't repeat. [My parents] yell at me every day, so I cry either inwardly but usually outwardly.... My parents hate me! What can I do?"
"I'm a deaf teenager but my parents don't care about me. My dad told me when I finish high school he's going to kick me and my things out of the house. I don't know what I can do to tell them I love them and that I don't really hate them. Can you help before it goes farther down the hole?"
Some bad solutions
If you're now living in a 'toxic' family, you're probably feeling pain. And pain produces anger. Lots of it. Chances are you may wake up angry and go to bed angry.
If you're a girl, you probably find yourself crying a lot. If you're a guy, you're probably getting more and more aggressive toward whoever is causing your pain, even toward people who are not responsible. (Psychologists call this displaced anger.) One thing's for sure, you're not happy.
There are solutions, both good and bad. First let's talk about some bad solutions. When we're in pain we try to do something about it. If somebody is causing you pain, you often attack or withdraw.
This leads some teens into pretty bad coping mechanisms. Guys and some girls will find themselves verbally abusing the parent that is causing the pain. (Often that parent is the father.) Sometimes they will start retaliating physically.
The opposite approach is withdrawal. Withdrawal can take a number of forms. Drugs, alcohol and sexual intimacy may seem to provide relief from the pain. Some teens run away from home. Others attempt suicide. Sad to say, some succeed.
If you're in pain, you may have tried one or more of these solutions already. They are all bad. After the drugs, alcohol, sex and outbursts of anger, the pain remains. These solutions really solve nothing at all.
Breaking down the barriers and trying to communicate can be hard. But it's worth the effort.
- Reach out for help. When we're having difficult times, we all need help. It's important to get help from the right people.
Teens often want sympathy from their friends. Often they get it. But that's all they get. Teens rarely have the resources and maturity to constructively help their friends through serious personal difficulties.
If you are in an abusive home, get help from a family member, a teacher or a minister you trust. Don't stop until you find someone who will listen. (Most phone books have child abuse hotlines that can help you.)
But when the danger is gone, the anger remains. In many cases physical abuse is not involved, but teens still feel unloved, unwanted or even hated. These teens often also feel anger. Overcoming that anger and hurt is our concern here.
- Reach out to your father (or mother). Sure, this is tough. But you need to ask yourself some tough questions. How do you know he doesn't love you? Maybe he's been trying to re4each out to you, but he doesn't know how and you can't see it because you've built a wall around yourself.
Parents and teens can get caught in a downward spiral of pain and anger and fail to notice when one is trying to break the spiral. You have to do your part.
Many years ago, Jesus Christ, the one who created and who best understands the human mind, said we should love those who make life difficult for us (Matthew 5:44). That was, and is, totally practical advice, because love removes hate and anger. And hate and anger make you unhappy.
Reaching out is how you start loving your father. It means thinking about how to make his life more pleasant, not more painful.
Sometimes we think we're the only ones with problems. But parents have problems also: financial problems, job problems, health problems. And they have feelings too!
What can you do to start making your parents' lives a little easier? There are a thousand things you could do to help, if you put some creative thought into it. And in the process of helping, you start becoming happier.
It's not easy. It's easier to get angry and stomp out the door. It's easier to get drunk or stoned. But then, that doesn't make you happy, does it?
Until you realize that you choose your emotions -- that you can choose to love or hate, to be angry or happy -- nothing will fundamentally change in your life. The downward spiral will continue.
And how many times do you keep on trying to reach out? When asked that question Christ replied "seventy times seven" (Matthew 18:22). That's 490 times! In other words you can't ever stop showing love.
- Reach out to your Father in heaven. What if your best efforts come to nothing? There are some parents who are so emotionally crippled that they can't respond to their teen's attempts to break the barriers of bitterness.
But pity, not anger, is the response of love. You must keep on trying to reach out to your father. You also have to be realistic. At this point, he may be incapable of love.
The Creator of life and love is always loving, though. You're not too young to start adding a spiritual dimension to your life. When he was only 12, Jesus explained to his stepfather that he already had a close relationship with his Father in heaven (Luke 2:49). The Creator wants to have the same relationship with you.
He wants to love you and help you the way no human father ever can.
He may seem distant, but in reality he is "not far from every one of us" (Acts 17:27), if we want to reach out and make contact with him.
You may feel like you're in a hole right now. But you can start pulling yourself out. There are solutions. But you must choose the way up.
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