The Problem with Pity

     Last week was Father’s Day. I don’t know how many of my readers know this, but I hate Father’s Day. I don’t have fond memories of my father, whom I don’t consider a father figure or anyone to be looked up to. He was what psychologists refer to as a vulnerable narcissist, bordering on malignant, if he didn’t cross that border in the end.

Crying Doll

      I remember when I got a severe infection when I was thirteen. I was so sick that I could see little white wax bubbles floating around my room, I couldn’t speak or open my mouth, and I could barely walk. Dad came into my room once a day to ask, angrily, if I was getting up yet, and when I didn’t respond, he would leave for the rest of the day. The doctor was never called, I never rode an ambulance to the hospital for treatment. No, I guess I was this sick because I wanted to attract attention to myself. Isn’t that right, Dad?

       Then there was the way I had to walk on eggshells whenever he did something nice for me, because there was always a price for that. He would watch me like a hawk afterward, just waiting for me to frown for one second, or mutter something when I dropped something on the floor, or something else equally as simple. That’s when the explosion would come. Because, after all, I was only “acting up” because he did something for me.

       You didn’t show any personality quirks to Dad. Inevitably, he would bring them up during another one of his many outbursts. They were not details of a unique personality, they were excuses for why you were stupid, or spoiled, or whatever else he was on about at the time.

        There were all the lies. Lies he told me about Mom and my sibling. Lies he told Mom and my sibling about me. They were all meant to keep people in the family at each other’s throats so that he could swoop in and be in charge.

       There were the four-hour-long eruptions. Once it was because we left him “all the ugly pieces” of taffy. Another time, he wanted my sibling and I to call Mom and Dad “sir” and “ma’am” like real Southerners, because he was pretending to be one at the time. Another time he made me stand at attention for over an hour, hitting me if I moved, while he insulted me and got Mom to parrot his words for a greater impact.

        These were not the behaviors of a father figure, but rather a sickly coward with no real grasp on reality. So you can see why I’m not exactly a fan of Father’s Day, and I never will be. When one can empathize with the characters in the songs “Drunk Daddy” and “Luka”, you don’t exactly look up to your father, nor do you miss him when he’s gone.

         I posted about this on my social media account, calling for a day to acknowledge those of us who had a monster for a father. I suggested that perhaps abused children needed a day of their own to come to terms with their experiences.

         A few days later, I received an email from someone I knew. She said that she knew that my father had a hard childhood. Though she didn’t say it outright, her email implied that I should feel sorry for him and see things from his point of view.

        I was furious. It took me a few days to calm down before I responded, because I wanted to give a reasonable, logical response, not type out the immediate knee-jerk reaction I had reading the email.

       When I finally felt I could respond appropriately, I responded to the email with a few things. I pointed out that Dad’s “hard childhood” was debatable, given his tendency to tell lies about everything. Furthermore, I heard from a relative on Dad’s side of the family that he mistreated his sister, too, and I suspected this was one of the big reasons he was cut out of his inheritance.  I added that having a hard childhood was no excuse for abusing one’s own children, and pointed out that there were plenty of other people who were abused as children who did not become abusers themselves.

      I never received a response to that email, nor did I expect one. The person who sent it to me wasn’t thinking about me or Dad when they sent it, they were thinking about themselves and how good they looked for sending it. That’s the problem with pity, though, it’s a very selfish emotion.

      It’s inevitable when there is an article posted about some horrible criminal who has claimed multiple victims. There is always one person who has to feel sorry for the perpetrator, telling everyone else that they should give the person pity. A man murders his three young daughters in cold blood, and he is a “poor man” because he must have PTSD from the military. As if this excuses his crime!

       Usually these self-righteous comments don’t even acknowledge the victims of the crimes. They are collateral damage, just a side detail about this “poor, poor man.” If the victims are acknowledged at all, they are lectured by pity-slingers about feeling sorry for the perpetrator instead of feeling bad for themselves. Their pain and trauma is invalidated, all for the sake of some self-righteous jerk looking for brownie points.

      Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with feeling bad for someone who did not get the help they need. A person who may have fallen through the cracks of society and responded with violence. That being said, this does not excuse their actions.

     A mass shooter should be held accountable for their choice to open fire on an innocent crowd. A serial killer should be tried and punished for murdering dozens of people. A child abuser must pay for their choices. A minister who rapes a sixteen-year-old girl on the floor of his office should not be forgiven for his crime.

      I felt bad for Kip Kinkel for slipping through the cracks and reaching a point of desperation, but I also felt sympathy for the victims he claimed in his school shooting. And I certainly wasn’t going to favor him over the dead children in his wake. He had to be punished for his crimes, and the survivors needed support for their recovery.

      This brings me to the next part of my essay- the difference between pity and sympathy. Pity means that you feel sorry for someone and kind of look upon them as a lesser being. Sympathy means you understand the pain someone is going through and offer your support.

       Victims don’t need your pity. They need you to understand what they are going through and, where possible, offer your support to their recovery. You have no right to tell them they need to feel sorry for the perpetrator or that they should forgive the criminal. It is not your place to tell anyone how they should feel!

      The problem with pity-slinging is that the pitier very rarely even acknowledges the victims. Did the woman who called for pity for the killer ever mention his girls? No, she did not. Not once. They didn’t even matter to her.

      This wasn’t about three little girls strangled to death by their own father. It wasn’t even about their father and his PTSD, to be honest. It was about the commenter. She found a way to look good and wise, and she was going to use it.

  I don’t care about Ted Bundy, except to study his past to try and figure out what created his future, for the sake of preventing it in someone else. I don’t give a crap about Jared Fogle and Bill Cosby, except to study their psychology to prevent other crimes in the future. Plastering their faces all over the place is not going to bring back victims of Bundy’s crimes, or heal the victims of Cosby and Fogle. Excusing these three men will solve nothing. Excusing any criminal, regardless of their story, does nothing to prevent their crimes in the future.

Understanding that this murderous father probably had PTSD is important, but it does not excuse his crime. And what about the mom now left without children? Does anyone show her sympathy? I bet most people don’t even know her name. We live in a society that throws away the victims to offer pity to their killers.

         That is the problem with pity.