Cynical take #1 (when pessimism isn't enough): It doesn't really feel good to do good

From time immemorial, until today’s post, human beings have accepted the following psycho-meme:

“We feel good when we do for others.”

I believe this is a delusion, a misreading of what people really feel – in their body – when they perform a giving act. “People” is specified to mean those with any amount of a troubled history.

The psychological law that belies the meme is:

“A benevolent, other-centered act triggers inside us an opposite, fundamental truth, a deeper wound: one’s past deprivation pain.”

This law is actually a corollary of a broader principle encompassing almost any productive act, personal good or accomplishment. That is, any behavior that “should” make us happy.

“An act of fulfillment or success is likely to trigger a deeper truth – one’s deprivation pain from childhood.”

I have seen an extreme example of the corollary in a client who schedules sessions whenever his one crisis cycles back: vitriolic, hateful Revenge Wars with his wife. She remarked to him one day that following any generous act by him, he will get angry. Mostly, the paradoxical unearthing is more subtle. It can be seen in these examples:

Ψ A 1950’s-era housewife cleans the entire house, should feel the satisfaction of accomplishment, but instead is deflated: “Is this all there is?” she feels.* Ψ Codependent women or men follow Robin Norwood’s psycho-logic: “Almost nothing is too much trouble, takes too much time or is too expensive if it will ‘help’ the person or project you are involved with.”** Being an inveterate caregiver, or doormat if you will, does not come from a place of health or happiness or even benevolence. It comes from need and an emptiness to be filled. Ψ Many troubled clients tell me they give good advice, that people often come to them with their problems. We’ve all heard it: “I’m good at helping other people, but I can’t help myself.” The “molecules of emotion”*** these wounded healers feel are not the element of “positive” on the Periodic Table.

Even giving a small gift, or giving of our time, will trigger the truth of our critical losses in childhood.

Why is this so? Picture a sixth- or seventh-grader whose parents fight much of the time, where the home atmosphere is often frightening and depressing. He has a room full of toys and video games, good food, friends. He is intelligent. His mother tells him he has nothing to be depressed about: Look at our great family and nice house and our vacations. And yet he will not do well in school. He may sometimes complete the homework but “forget” to turn it in. Picture him – not his thoughts, but his feeling which he cannot name either to himself or to his parents: “I’m not going to pretend to be happy. I can’t be better than my family which is sick. I can’t leave my pain behind, forget about it.”

I’ve seen it countless times, where someone sabotages himself to be true to himself. It happens when a future schizophrenic finishes high school and enters college. He drops out early, part way through the first year or the first semester and cannot say why. The gravitational pull of cumulative crazymaking in his childhood has tug-of-war’d with the imperatives of adulthood and he has broken. “I’m not able to move on,” his spirit says. I’ve read that many students working toward a doctoral degree struggle most on the last leg. “Success is wrong,” their psyche says. I’ve heard that my father quit Johns Hopkins University medical school just before he would have graduated.

What ties the corollary to its law? The body wants to heal. Splinters, bullets, diseased organs, snot, tears need to come out. Emotional pain needs to come out. When we are hurting, we must know it, say it, feel it, express it. Anywhere along that continuum will help at different levels, just as anywhere on the opposite continuum – denial – will do harm. To say “something’s wrong” in response to an inflamed appendix is better than saying “I’m sure everything is fine.” To say “I’m needy of the love I never received” in the face of childhood devastation is far healthier than saying “I have no needs and I will serve you.” The body’s and psyche’s injuries know when we are calling them a liar, when we try to sail over them. They will let us know the truth.

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* The Primal Scream, 1970. Arthur Janov died on October 1, 2017 at the age of 93.

** Robin Norwood – https://ta-tutor.com/sites/ta-tutor.com/files/handouts/ram167.pdf.

*** Candace Pert, The Molecules of Emotion – https://www.amazon.com/Molecules-Emotion-Science-Mind-Body-Medicine-ebook/dp/B003L77V74.