When you CAN'T care anymore

A just-released research study by Loyola University and the University of Illinois at Chicago examines links between exposure to community violence, depressive symptoms and violent behavior among 285 African-American and Latino males in Chicago who were studied for five years, starting in the 5th or 7^th grade.

“Researchers found that as black and brown teens are exposed to more community violence, their symptoms of depression subside and violent behaviors increase,” reports the Chicago Sun-Times. “Community violence might cause young men to initially feel sad or worthless, but over time there is a ‘numbing’ of those feelings.”

As the lead author of the study, which appears in the Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, explains, “Witnessing or being a victim of community violence multiple times throughout childhood and adolescence can be so traumatic that boys begin to cope by numbing negative emotions or they develop symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, one of which is emotional numbing.”

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For years I’ve either read about or come across people who tell you, in one way or another, that because of hurt/abuse in their childhood and feelings of being unloved and/or rejected, they learned early on to “numb out” so they couldn’t feel anymore. This became the root of their unbelief.

A colleague of mine in New York City who I repeatedly gave the gospel to once told me that sometime in his mid-to-late teens he “learned to be indifferent” to dissolve heartbroken feelings he suffered throughout his youth as his military father regularly moved the family around the country, thereby causing dropped friendships and loneliness in trying to cope with constantly having to try and make new friends in foreign towns.

This co-worker told me this as his explanation for why, even though his mother was a true Believer who wanted the same for him, he never came to want the relationship God offers through Jesus Christ.

I realized from my talks with him about the Bible that he didn’t have a real feel for God’s Word and that it held no real emotional sway even though he was raised in it. He wasn’t opposed to what it said necessarily; it just didn’t grip him to any place of conviction.

(new article tomorrow)