Sympathy The Never Ending Cycle - Page 2

The story continues and there are probably readers of this article right now that can relate to all or part of Patsy's dilemma. The good news could be that Patsy grew up, left home, and lived happy ever after. Nevertheless, we all know this was not the case. The reality is no one really wanted Patsy to be happy ever after. The wheels were already set in motion to produce a sad woman.

Patsy's friends who dropped by her home heard and saw the 'Poor Patsy' routine and her dysfunctional family. Before too much time had passed, the cruel teens struck again. Telephone lines rang with the gossip of how 'Poor Patsy' had to take her little sister to the park because her invalid mother could not do it. Her high school teacher Mrs. Crutchfield saw bruises on her face and went to the principal saying, "do you think we should check into this situation? This is the fifth time Patsy has come to school with what looks like child abuse problems." The principal seemed worried but felt he had no recourse because Patsy's father was his friend... he put off the investigation. What really no one knew at the time was that it would take years to diagnose the fact that Patsy was an early starter of hypochondria, which had turned into self-mutilation.

"Why in God's name would someone hurt themselves in such a way as to bring about bruising, cuts, scraps, etc.?" people ask. "Where does her mother's harm start and her harm end?" is another great question to ask. Well, I can relate all too well with this portion of the disease of hypochondria. I understand how Poor Patsy can, does, and will for a while, bring harm to her own body. The constant thinking, "if I hurt myself it will all stop." In fact, I remember the day at the treatment center when everything was removed from my suitcase; purse and room. They took what I could possibly use in order to make a new cut or scratch on me. Sure, I was angry at first; but then relieved to be found out. My thoughts at the time were "Maybe, just maybe, I can be stopped now."

Self-mutilation! You might be asking how in God's name did we get from Poor Patsy to such a severe subject... why bring that up now?"

This article is to share with you just such an escalation of how the horror show begins. First, others hurt us emotionally. Then we are taught to be felt sorry for gets us attention. Then we are hurt physically. Then we hurt ourselves to keep the wheels in motion. Patsy and I (not since 1990) learned that the attention we would receive from most of the people in our lives was going to be sympathy. When the dry period arrived and the sympathy would run out, we would get the feeling of being ignored or no longer noticed. Hence, we would need a reason for sympathy. Oh many methods were tried. The problem though is that the intensity of our need for attention escalated as we got older. By the time we reached adulthood, our minds were so dysfunctional that our ability to approach life, find a job, or land a husband and move on... just was not a natural life process. Disease searching began instead. With each new illness, with each new accident, the reinforcement of sympathy occurs. Poor Patsy actually equated to "Patsy you are loved, cared for and needed" in her mind. Without sympathy, there was no validation process, no reason to go on.

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