Posted by:
Human
(
)
Date: May 23, 2022 12:59PM
I love Dr. Gabor Maté! And his son Aaron, one of the great truth-tellers of his generation, is a particular hero of mine. I admire them both immensely.
When we see the homeless, the addicted, the mentally unstable on the streets, we too often are only aware of our own discomfort, our own disgust even, rather than aware of the pain of the one suffering from being unhoused, addicted, unstable. Too many of us just blame these people for making *our* life uncomfortable. We hire cops to remove them from our sight to God only cares where. Given this, allow me to give the larger quote from Maté:
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The question is never “Why the addiction?” but “Why the pain?”
The research literature is unequivocal: most hard-core substance abusers come from abusive homes. The majority of my skid row patients suffered severe neglect and maltreatment early in life. Almost all the addicted women inhabiting the Downtown Eastside [Vancouver] were sexually assaulted in childhood, as were many of the men. The autobiographical accounts and case files of Portland residents tell stories of pain upon pain: rape, beatings, humiliation, rejection, abandonment, relentless character assassination. As children they were obliged to witness the violent relationships, self-harming life patterns, or suicidal addictions of their parents—and often had to take care of them. Or they had to look after younger siblings and defend them from being abused even as they themselves endured the daily violation of their own bodies and souls. One man grew up in a hotel room where his prostitute mother hosted a nightly procession of men as her child slept, or tried to, on his cot on the floor.”
—Gabor Mate, M.D.—
—In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts—
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And these stories go on forever. Of course, not all of us that have suffered these kinds of childhoods go on to be addicted and dysfunctional, but what does that matter? Some of us do.
An understanding heart is a way of stepping outside our own concerns and actually concerning ourselves with others.