Notes From The Dark Side
Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D.
A few weeks ago I stopped by an elementary school to check in on a case that I'd worked on with some teachers there. While I was waiting for our group to convene, I watched some teachers in the cafeteria as they tried to maintain order. Several children were being rowdy and one of the teachers appeared to lose her temper momentarily. She yelled at the group of third graders and restored order. She was doing her best and had a momentary lapse of temper - nothing outrageous. But, if she only knew what I know, I think she might have had more patience.
I often feel like I have my feet in two different worlds. One is an overt world where everyone else lives and interacts. This is the world we all see as we go about the business of life, but the other world is a dark place full of secrets and suffering. I can never look over a crowd of children without recognizing that I'm only seeing the overt world. I know that for many of them there is another world just beneath the surface.
Most of the children who come through my office are very aware of both of these worlds. They do their best to put on a presentable face for the public to see. Alfred Adler called our public face our "persona." I like that concept because that is exactly what my clients feel like they have to do. They try to be a person that others want them to be - others who can't begin to understand the other world in which they live most of the minutes of their days.
It is very hard to maintain a persona in the overt world when one is possessed by the troubles of the darker world. Imagine being six or seven years old. Your stepfather sneaks into your room at night and takes sexual advantage of you when everyone else has gone to sleep. Or maybe you are nine and you have to always be careful to wear long sleeves and long pants so bruises don't show - bruises that are always being renewed each time your mother has a little too much to drink.
Maybe you are a ten year old whose parents are divorced - something totally out of your control. You go to sleep every night wishing - hoping - they would get back together so you could be a family again. You love them both and just want things to be "like they used to be."
Or maybe you are just a lonely kid. You have few friends and despite how some grownups tell you to ignore the teasing from other kids, you know you are different. It isn't so much that the other kids don't like you. It is more that they don't even notice if you aren't there. Nobody calls you "best friend" or invites you to private parties. Every day when you ride the bus or walk the playground, you are reminded that you just don't fit in.
If you were a child like one of these, life is very lonely, very unsafe, and sometimes frightening. The best you can do is pretend that things are OK. Then, when for just a few minutes you let your pain drift into the shadows in the back of your mind, you find a joyous interchange with other children. In that moment of relief, your laughter is just a little too loud or you stand up just a little to long. But without warning a grown-up's stern voice brings you back to reality. "How dare you be so loud or get out of your seat." The adult is completely unaware that his or her momentary lapse of temper serves as a perfect tool to drag you back into your troubled world - the one you have worked so hard to forget.
The point of my thoughts here is not to say we should never make children feel bad or that we should let them do whatever they want. Instead, my purpose is to remind you that things are not always what they seem. A careless word could easily do far more damage than you ever imagined. This knowledge is what gives me patience and helps me always measure my words and actions around children. Maybe this truth will help you as well.