“That monster stole my childhood!” Anne stormed.
I agreed. “Anne” lived through an abusive and frightening childhood. Her father was violent, angry, vengeful, and controlling. The mood in the house completely turned at 4:30 p.m. every day. That last hour before her father came home would be the last peaceful moment until he left the next morning.
Anne’s father hit the door angry and was looking for a target. Anne’s mother, in an attempt to calm him, met him at the door with a beer. Proving not to be a good drunk every night, Anne’s father became sloppy angry after several beers. He broke furniture on a regular basis, slapped Anne’s mother, shook Anne, and threatened everyone.
Every morning, Anne was happy to escape to school. She was a straight A student, reveling in the calm and support of her teachers. It was the only place where Anne felt loved. At home, everyone was focused on surviving and avoiding injury. At school, Anne sought approval through her work and attitude.
Later, Anne’s efforts were aimed at getting out of her home and into college. In spite of her father’s assertions that Anne would amount to nothing, “like her mother,” Anne saw her chance. She graduated at the top of her high school class and received a full scholarship. From there, Anne made sure she rarely had to go home.
In fact, for the most part, Anne never looked back. She would call her mother and beg her to leave her father. But she pretty much avoided home as much as possible. When her mother’s pleas and guilting lured Anne back home, mostly on holidays, Anne’s father quickly reminded her of why she stayed away.
Anne finished college at the top of her class and followed up with law school. Then, right out of law school, she became a public prosecutor and specialized in domestic violence.
For the most part, Anne felt she had escaped her childhood. Until Anne’s mother called her late one night to let her know her father had suffered a massive heart attack, was in the ICU, and would probably not survive. Anne left immediately to support her mother but had no intention of seeing her father.
After lots of begging, Anne’s mother convinced Anne to go to her father’s bedside. Anne told me that throughout her childhood, her father looked like a tightly wound spring, ready to pop at any point. Even drunk, he always seemed on the verge of flying out of his chair, propelled by anger, toward anyone in the room.
With wires and tubes connected to him, he looked more like a deflated balloon, more sunken into the bed than having any clear shape. And he looked terrified.
No matter, thought Anne, he deserved this. She secretly wished for years that he would die, leaving Anne and the family in peace. But now, she was faced with that reality, and Anne found the smallest bit of conflict within herself. Anne’s father dominated so much of her thoughts — not in loving ways.
Barely audible, Anne’s father looked up and said, “I’m sorry.” Anne knew what she heard, but refused to accept the words. “NO!” she exclaimed. She fled the room, nearly tripping over a nurse coming into the room. She didn’t stop until she was at the elevator. Even as she stood there, Anne heard the “stat” call to his room. Anne stood in the hall for a few minutes, summoning several elevators, only to let them close without her.
Anne knew. Her father died less than half an hour after whispering those words.
“He was a monster. I never had a pleasant moment with him. He was never kind, never affectionate, and never supportive. So what am I supposed to do? Just forget all that and forgive him?”
“Anne,” I started, “you can’t just forget. That isn’t possible. You don’t need to, though. In fact, what I am about to ask of you is far beyond that. It is to consider something else.” I paused.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Anne guardedly told me.
My request of Anne was simple. I asked her to do some background research. “Play the part of a reporter, trying to gather information on a subject. What was his background? Who was he and what made him?”
Anne and I discussed this for a few moments before Anne admitted this was part of her legal training. When she took classes in defending a client, the first thing she learned was to get behind the action and to the person — to learn about the person. The hope was to “humanize” the defendant to the jury.
My own background training is in Systems Theory, especially as applied to family systems. In culture, we often like to look at a single person, in micro-focus. That is the approach of individual therapy models. It is what we learn in Psychology 101.
In Family Therapy 101, we discover that all of us live in a web of relationships that form us. Our early relationships shape us and direct our actions. And many of our actions come in reaction to others in that web — at least until we become aware of this and decide to not let that web pull us around.
I remember sitting in a room, hearing the lecture, and realizing the implications. “Fault” became a little less sure. Multi-generational impacts became much more clear. While some might point to their parents for some issue or hurt, the parents had parents. And those parents had parents. And those parents had parents. And… well, you get the idea.
Another point became very clear in my studies: hurtful people have been hurt. Hurtful actions come out of hurt.
CLARITY POINT: This process is NOT about excusing the person from their actions. It is about understanding the actions in context. It turns out that “mean” people have a history of how they got there. This is not so much about the actions as the actor. There can still be consequences. But there can also be understanding of context.
Several weeks passed before I heard from Anne. In fact, I had begun to wonder if I had chased her off. Perhaps she was not ready for the process. Maybe she was too rooted in her hurt to take it on right now.
Then the phone rang, and Anne rescheduled.
The Anne that came into my office for that second visit was far different than the one who first visited. Her presence was lighter, more relaxed, and far less angry. Her brow was not quite so etched.
Anne sat quietly for a few minutes. Then she began to tell me about her research. Anne spent that month calling friends and family. She pieced together the story of her father. She looked up at me and said, “By the time he was my father, he was broken. I had no idea.”
As Anne dug in, she discovered her grandfather had been a heavy drinker and was very abusive. Several times, he broke ribs and arms of his children, including Anne’s father. According to family members, Anne’s grandfather died still spitting venom. And it appeared that Anne’s father caught more of the abuse than others. He repeatedly stood up to his father and paid for it. Until he was drafted and sent to Vietnam.
While in Vietnam, Anne’s father fought in some of the worst battles. Anne discovered that her father watched several friends die right beside him in a horrible fire fight. According to those around him, Anne’s father never spoke about what happened. They only knew through others. As it turned out, Anne’s father bravely fought to save and protect his platoon.
There were many other episodes of hurt and pain. And Anne gathered each as a puzzle piece into her father and who he was. She finished the biography and looked up at me.
“I get it. I understand his anger and hurt,” Anne said. “But I don’t see how that excuses what he did to me. I just understand he was hurting — and I guess it came out in anger.”
“Anne,” I told her, “this was not about excusing your father. It was about understanding your father. We tend to turn those who hurt us into a caricature that rarely truly represents them as a full human being. It reduces them to their worst moments. It ignores the moments that made them, formed them, into that person. That was all I wanted for you. To see him a bit more fully, with a little more reality and a bit more understanding.”
Anne sat quietly.
“I’m wondering,” I continued, “you seem a bit more relaxed, a bit less angry. Is that accurate?” Anne nodded. I offered, “I think that in the process of learning about your father, you discovered he was actually human. What he did to you was horrible. Why he acted so angrily is tragic. People are often more complicated than we want them to be when we see only their bad moments.”
Interestingly, we all want to be seen for the “why’s” and not the “what’s.” We want to be understood for why we do what we do, over what we did. Which is why people, in the midst of justifying an action, don’t speak to the action but the circumstances around the action.
Many times, I watch a couple do this dance: “I can’t believe what you did!” “Well, I did that because ____________.” “You are going to blame me for that? I did that because you ___________.” And on and on. If fact, left to their own devices, I am pretty sure they would track the conflict back to the moment when they met!
Each is pointing to the actions of the other, but justifying their own actions. That’s what we do. We humanize ourselves and dehumanize others.
Social scientists have a term for this: Attribution Error. The Attribution Error basically says that if I do something wrong, I see it as a mistake. If you do the same thing wrong, I see it as a character flaw. I let myself off the same hook I sink into you.
We all have a story, and we all do hurtful things. Step two is about context; not about the hurtful actions, but about the context of the hurtful person. Empathy is an awareness of the context of the other person.
Does this mean that you need to put on your “reporter’s hat” and dig into the story of that person? Do you need to discover the context of the person who hurt you?
Maybe.
But not necessarily. In the abstract, we all know what I just said. We just tend to carve out an exception for the person who hurts us. You can likely acknowledge that something is going on inside that person. However, you might stop short of empathy. But what if you extend empathy to that person? Even in the abstract. Even without knowing exactly why, but just because you know people have a story of their own.
I have a core belief that people do the best they can, given where they are. That belief includes you and me. It also includes people who hurt you.
So let me clarify this belief. It is not that I believe people are always operating at their optimal level. I don’t believe that we are always at our best. But I do believe, given what is going on in life at a particular moment, we do the best we can.
Never, not once, have I had someone tell me, “I am just not doing what I can; I’m not trying to do well.” Okay, admittedly, sometimes people are overly harsh on themselves and will say the words. But even that comes from a struggle to do better. As they process it, they discover they are doing the best they can — and wanting to do better.
Let me state the belief again: People do the best they can, given where they are. Right now. And at prior times. It might be better later, but right now, it is the best they can do.
When I look back on events (from a different perspective), it is often clear I could have done better. I could have acted, reacted, or responded differently. Why didn’t I? Because I was doing the best I could, from where I was then. That doesn’t mean I just shrug it off, excuse myself, and move on. I often see places where I need to be accountable for my actions, where I need to apologize and accept responsibility.
We live in a blame culture. Someone has to be blamed. And generally, we don’t want to be the ones blamed. That makes it easy to want to pin it on someone else and let them be solely to blame. This isn’t about blame, but understanding. It is an understanding that people simply do the best they can, given where they are. In an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, they may be at a different place and will act differently.
The sticking point for this belief is that we often want others to act better than they can, at any particular time. We want people to be at a better place than they are. We expect them to be different. The struggle is to accept they are really doing the best they can, where they are.
CLARITY POINT: This belief that people do they best they can does not negate consequences for behavior. Actions do have consequences, both in terms of natural laws and the legal system. They also have relational consequences. The belief that people do the best they can, where they are, is shared not to excuse the behavior, but to realize they are/were acting due to their own circumstances. I am not excusing behavior as much as building a path to forgiving the person for those behaviors.
ACTION STEP: Seek to see the person as human. See the actions as coming from their own struggles. Remember that hurting comes from hurt. You don’t have to research the person’s biography (although you can) in order to build empathy. You simply need to make sure you see that person as a human, struggling through life, as we all do. It is the risk of acknowledging we all can be hurtful, and we all are doing the best we can, given where we are. Even the person you are forgiving.
Building empathy and understanding may create some shifts within you. And you may resist, feeling that you are just letting them off the hook, giving them a free pass, or even excusing their behavior. You are not. I am not suggesting this as a step to necessarily re-establish a relationship. At this point, we are loosening the chains of hurt, so that you can forgive and release.
You may find that thoughts and memories pop up, gripping you tight. You may even notice thoughts you have not had in a long time, memories you had not remembered for a long time.
The next step is how you deal with those thoughts and memories, so they don’t continue to bounce around within you, keeping you both stuck and in pain.