An addendum - when emotion becomes destructive (Sunday Forum)

by Oh Yet We Trust, Brisbane, Monday, May 18, 2009, 08:08 (1462 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust

As an addition to the whole thread I just want to add something else: When I visited my youtube homepage there was an 'associated' video which really disturbed me. It was there in association because the original title of my video included the words 'bleed' and 'church'. The video was hideous to me, evil. It was a heavy, heavty metal song which I started to listen to but couldn't, such music truly disturbs and frightens me.

The image that went with the title was of a Christ-like figure but with horns holding a bible, I think, and the music was pure hate and anger. From where does this type of music stem? My guess is that it is the perfect expression of a whole generation of dispossessed (some would say 'possessed' youth, particularly males. Why are they 'dispossessed'? Because this generation more than most has grown up in a world in which family and general social breakdown and fatherlessness have been major factors. Erich Fromm believes that if you ant to understand the psychology of a society, a generation, a nation you have to start with the society of the individuals in these. What is going on in the minds and hearts of the creators and performers of the kind of music that is heavy metal and similar?

I know that my Charo friends and the more conservatively frightened in the church would say it's the devil, satanism, blame it on the devil. That's a cop out. It is society, abuse, breakdown which is the blame. People do not get into destructive mentalities and behaviours naturally, it can't be, there is always a reason.

I have discussed the role of emotions in the spiritual and psychological life of myself, people in general. A priest friend once said that emotions are like the horses that pull your carriage of life along - they must be kept in check, controlled or else they will 'bolt' and run wild. This is so true, hence my choice to retain control for the most by submitting my emotions, my spiritual/psychological life to a therapist, and, to Doctors of the Church, learned and holy men and women. On this forum there have been a range of people who have tried to express the emotions that have controlled their lives and which they have tried to understand and come to grips with to a greater or lesser degree, emotions which have originated as an effect of abuse. My experience has been that the less such people are heard, or the more such people feel they are made to be silent, once the cat is out of the bag or the horses are bolting, one of tow things can happen: they can try, usually with the aid of others, to regain control and maintain self-love and compassion or the horses can really bolt which can and often does lead to a process of destructive anger, rage and hatred, a crossing of the line so to speak, and we end with such music as the heavy metal piece I have referred to, or suicide or even violence to others or the desire that others be severely punished, revenge. And as a wise Jewish saying goes, if you seek revenge, you'd better dig two graves - one for yourself as well.

May the fire within be a phoenix force, a fire in the belly to change, fight, heal, grow, not a destructive one which annihilates everyone and everything in its path, like the recent fires of Victoria, some of which were possibly started by such a traumatised person.

Thank you Catholica for keeping me in check, for allowing the safe release of what is still emerging - I am entering a state, new to me, very new; anger, and it is growing because of the growing realisation of what has occurred, not just to me but to thousands and thousand of others. It was this anger that prompted me to do the video; I need this anger to come out of me instead of being directed at myself in the form of depression, anger turned inwards but I must not let my 'anger turned outwards' become a destructive force. I won't let it. But, and if you are possibly reading this, priest-who-walks, you know who you are, your unwillingness to get back to me, to answer my plea to talk, close, deal with what happened, this time on my terms, this attitude is only fuelling my hurt and anger. By being a priest you have had provided for you all that you've needed. Who knows you may well have sex on the side. I, on the other hand, have had to live with the effects of what you and others who abused my trust and innocence have had on me and those in my life. Please try to see things through my eyes. Have the courage and humility to put things right to give me closure, so I can get on with my life more completely and wholely.

Thank you all.

Stephen

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill