Advice from the Trenches: Living in the Maelstrom

Dear C and Dr. B:

My 16 year old daughter, Samantha, is the sweetest, nicest, most heartfelt person I know. She literally weeps for others worse off than her. Unfortunately, she also cuts herself and restricts food to the point of hospitalization. I am at my wit’s end: no medications or therapy have helped her and we’ve tried everything, including antidepressants and Adderall. She stopped going to school because she was unable to focus or concentrate; she is constantly anxious and agitated. What can I do to understand what she is experiencing and how can I help her? There is no history of abuse, trauma or mental illness in our family.               

– Mom

Dr. B says: 

Your daughter is an empath and empathy is at the root of most human suffering. It is a gift, but without an understanding of how to process it, an empath can develop severe depression and anxiety. Many spiritual disciplines reference teachings on this, but in our society, we rely on serotonin re-uptake inhibitor antidepressants to help the overly-empathetic cope.

One way these medications work is by decreasing empathy – too high a dose results in numbness. Currently, Samantha cuts herself or restricts food to dampen her sense of empathy. It is an inefficient and uninformed but partly effective way to control emotion. 

Indian folk legend has it that the world is carried on a turtle’s back. Like that turtle, your empathetic daughter is carrying the world on her back. Because empathy is the basis for relationships, your daughter gets energy from relationships with people – but as she is open to their suffering, she’s also drained by them. She is dealing with this by withdrawal and self-harm, which cuts her off from others.   

She knows how to empathize and have understanding towards others’ pain but she needs to learn how to be present for them without being invested in them. Presence is a more neutral state, which accepts without taking in. This attitude does not require people to be happy or to resolve their issues; there is no pressure on the empath. A good example of this is in the Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hears A Who. Horton may be the only one who can hear the cries from their invisible world, and he can bear witness – but he can’t solve Whoville’s problems; they must do that for themselves. They need to learn how to understand and cooperate with one another. Horton cannot act to change their world from within because he is not part of it.  

 C says:

Your daughter is in trouble, Mom. I have known people who exhibited Samantha’s behavior – one of them died by suicide before turning 17. Don’t take this behavior lightly.

From my experience, most self mutilation is a dysfunctional attempt to somehow control pain – pain that really originates on an emotional level – by hurting oneself first. It can also be an attempt to drain perceived poisons, or make atonement for the self or others. It isn’t healthy and it shows a disregard for one’s own physical body.

But anorexia is the biggest danger here – it has the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.Your daughter may be “gifted” but anorexia is not a gift she should share with others. She could develop osteoporosis, muscle loss, fainting, fatigue, and even heart failure if she persists.

As to help for your daughter – I wish I had faith in our medical methods, but I have seen too many deeply disturbed people enter that system over the last 50 years and walk out with a prescription for medication and some practiced, professional reassurances which are much more of a comfort to the insurance companies and doctors than to their patients.

I respect that a great deal of higher education and research went into therapy methods, but doctors forget something: all those words are usually forgotten the moment the patient leaves the office. There are no words that can alleviate the internal shit storm that goes on inside so many people’s heads. They have to go back to their same crappy lives, surrounded by the same problems and demands. They have another stress filled day to get through and they know that the habits they’ve depended on to deal with that pain always work – and far faster than any abstract words of advice. 

I’m not a doctor, but I believe that what would help your daughter the most would be to find a good teacher and develop a discipline that builds strength and coordination in both her body and her mind. Aikido or another non-aggressive martial art, or yoga, come to mind. She needs a system to hold onto, in that maelstrom of emotions. It’s a tremulous place to live.

What can you do in the meantime? Give her empathy and compassion, Mom. She needs it too.

– Cathren Housley 

You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com