A TROUBLED YOUNG MAN

I know a troubled young man. He's a good guy but circumstances beyond his control have not been kind to him. He witnessed his parents being murdered during a home invasion attack and the trauma of that has remained with him. Left an orphan, he grew up with a family that didn't care about him. They never sought out professional help for the bitterness and resentment he held inside over the fact the man who murdered his parents was never caught, never got justice. There was plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing to the culprit, but not enough to affect any action by the authorities.

And so, over time, this young man's bitterness festered and became anger. Left to dwell on it as years passed, he determined to act in revenge. He would find the murderer and kill him. The young man reasoned that evil people like him didn't deserve to be in the world and killing him would be a heroic service to others, most certainly preventing other such crimes and the follow-on heartache they cause, exactly as what he had suffered. The young man shared his plan with two of his friends. And now they had a decision to make. He wanted them to help him find the murderer but they knew that wasn't the kind of help he needed.

They convinced him to speak with someone they knew, a counselor, who saw clearly the self-destructive path he was on. The counselor explained to him how he was being tortured by past events he couldn't change. Far from going deeper into them, he needed to heal from it and let it go. Of course he had suffered a trauma and his feelings were valid but the way he harbored them over the years, the way he let them amplify and take hold of his emotions and reason was pathological. If he acted out on his negative obsession driven by post-traumatic stress, if he drove forward into his revenge plan, far from being the hero confronting the malevolence in the world, he would only find the rest of his life and his peace of mind destroyed.

The counselor's prescription was studied but textbook. He needed to find forgiveness in his heart in a way he could move past the hurt and recapture his life going forward productively. All of his bitterness and resentment, hatred and a desire for revenge would not bring back his parents. Out of despair, he would only pull his life apart and even the revenge, if successful, would give him no rest. Afterwards he would find the act hollow for his parents would still be dead and once again he would confront a deepening despair in not being able to change the past. The only healthy way forward was to validate his feelings but proceed with forgiveness and a maturity in knowing that some things once done cannot be changed. Forgive, heal, and let go of the past. That was the only way to secure a positive promise for his future.

It took many sessions but in time the young man came around. There were many tears, much shouting at times, but he slowly learned to integrate the shadow emotions that had gripped him for so long. He surrendered to a healing, giving into what the counselor suggested, thereby finding a way forward without the hurt that had controlled his life.

And to this day, as a result, Lord Voldemort lives.