Identify one person, group of people, or type of people you believe doesn’t deserve your compassion. now try to empathize with why those people may be like they are or may do the things they do. Think of all possible factors that may have contributed – their past struggles, their physical or emotional health, their disadvantages. Write these things below to help you challenge the belief that this person or these people don’t deserve compassion.
I bet you can’t tell who I’m going to write about!
My therapist says I keep going after the big fish instead of working up to them, and it’s true.
I should be considering how other health activists with whom I don’t get along interact with the world or how Donald Trump does… I don’t consider him worthy of my time, but hey.
Instead, I try to focus on my mother.
The issues that I have with my mother are many. I knew that the day I helped protect my sister and my niece would end the troubled relationship I had with my mother. I knew shit would go down.
Hell, I had the cops on standby.
I thought that there would be physical violence, threats, but what happened was almost worse.
I was denied the ability to control my story still, even as we disbanded this ‘family’ I grew up in.
I can understand why my mother has made certain choices, and yet others baffle me…
Refusing to get your daughter on medications that could’ve changed her life? Neglecting medical treatment in general?
I will acknowledge that my mother has had a hard life. I acknowledge that her family – her mother – was not awesome. There are prevailing mental health and medical issues she needed attention for that were not addressed. I believe that she deserves compassion, but quite frankly I’m unable to give it now.
I’m not sure if I will ever be.
Understanding those things also brings me dangerously close to making excuses for her, though, and there are no excuses for our treatment growing up. I refuse to explore this compassion towards her further until I fully feel safe from her.
In reality, I don’t expect this to happen while she’s living, and I can be okay with that.