A small child cries out after hiding in terror for so many years. She is unable to speak her pain. She has been taught she has no voice, that her opinions do not matter. She has no value except to serve or mirror the needs and desires of the caregivers. As she grows up, she works harder and harder and gives up more and more of herself, her dreams, her time, waiting on that parental validation she so desperately craved. But it is never enough. The validation will not be forthcoming.
As an adult, some of us still have a small child within us that bears the pain of a dysfunctional upbringing and unmet needs. The child yearned to speak her truth but could not. She had been taught by default that her feelings were invalid. She had been taught that her opinions meant nothing because she was just a child; therefore, she did not matter. And to seek a different path than the one pre-chosen for her was wrong.
Some of us have our own vision of Hell. Some of us may even believe there is no Hell in the afterlife, that it is here on earth. Perhaps that is where that phrase, “Hell on earth” came from: the burdens that people carry into adulthood from an anguished childhood. This child had learned about Hell, damnation, Purgatory, Limbo, and Heaven in catechism school. But, yes, this burden must be part of Hell on earth.
The child learned about the Ninth Circle of Hell described graphically in Dante’s “Inferno” as a student of Catholicism. From that Ninth Circle, as a pre-damned soul, one could only ascend, rung by rung. Each soul would be allowed to grow in its’ understanding of what happened to land them there. There were many circles or levels of punishment of Hell in Dante’s “Inferno.”
However, deep within the bottom circle of Hell, there was no respite at all. But this torture seemed so hideous and permanent to the inquisitive and innocent child. Was there any growth allowed? Was there any mercy granted? Could this circle and its punishment in Hell be compared to a soul’s life on earth?
Is this narcissim? To be Continued…