Thursday Prompt
One Drunk Helping Another Works as Healed People Heal People
I’m here to tell you from personal experience, this model works!
You’ve heard, hurt people, hurt people.
Meaning that people who have been hurt, perhaps deeply, may go on to hurt others. It’s not used predictively so much as diagnostically. Someone who bullies most likely has been bullied. Someone who’s abusive to children most likely was abused as a child.
A good example, though fictitious, is Billy Bob Thorton’s moving film, Sling Blade. His mentally challenged character, Karl Childers, is quite likable and gets attached to a single mom and her son.
During the course of the story, we find out he was tied up and kept in a dog house as a child. So when we see him put an end to the man that attacks his new family, we’re not surprised. Sadly, he ends up back in the mental institution he started at.
So now Diana poses for us: healed people heal people.
While no film or fiction immediately comes to mind, though I’m sure there are tons, my experiences in twelve-step recovery come to mind.
In fact, the whole concept of sponsorship is based on this model.
