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 7th 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.”
*****
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)
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