Have you ever said, “You’re killing me,” to anyone? Or perhaps some cognate of this expression like, “I’m dying here” or “I can’t live through this.” Or perhaps, you just thought such things and never actually said them to anyone. These kinds of statements can be frivolous, like being with someone who is severely besting you on the tennis court or in your sales department. It could even be a statement you might make with a project that you need to complete, whether at the office or a book you’re writing. As I say that, I am immediately reminded of the hard work Deb and I recently put in on the finishing touches, review, and revision of our latest book. My interest in the “you’re killing me” or its cognates like, “She’s killing him” or “She’s dying under his attention” or less damaging, “He’s killing her with kindness.’ The interest I have in this blog is to address the very real fact that people are, indeed, killing one another but not with kindness, meanness, guns, or pills but with being a severe emotional drain on them. Let me explain.

Kinds of “killing”

• Caring for a physically impaired person
• Caring for a mentally impaired person
• Being in an intimate relationship with someone who is toxic
• Being in a work setting that is toxic for you
• Being in an environment that is toxic for you
• Being toxic to yourself

In all of these circumstances there is never any conscious malicious attempt to “kill” someone. Yet there is a subtle effect that someone, someone, or you yourself has on you. Very importantly, there is rarely an actual intent to do harm to someone by the “killer.” They are not trying to kill someone or even bring them harm. Sometimes, like the “killing with kindness” is meant to do the very opposite. In most cases the “killer” is trying to survive in some way without actually meaning to do the “victim” any damage. These cases are like the proverbial person who can’t swim but drags someone down the water in an attempt to stay alive. The lack of intention to bring harm is central to the case I wish to bring here together with some possible understanding and remedies for such things. I would like you to be alive.

Examples of people being “killed” by the people in their lives:

• A pastor who has been working diligently, perhaps too diligently, to serve people in his congregation found himself emotionally spent but kept up his work only to recently be in a meeting where the congregation identified the “administration” (which means he) needed to be changed. In simple terms the congregation (by a very slim majority) of voting people (not all of whom had been in church for years) voted against him. In this case he was assaulted by several people whom he had diligently tried to serve over the years he was at this church. When I saw him recently, he admitted that he felt like so many people feel: he didn’t want to live. Not that he wanted to die or that he was suicidal but he felt like he was dying or would rather not live because his profession and his livelihood had been taken away from him. His antagonist people in church are “killing” him.
• Another pastor (yes, I see such people frequently) has cancer and the “numbers” are not good. He and his wife have been married more than 50 years and have served many churches, raised children, and have done well in their denomination. Due to what we might call too much kindness, this pastor was unable to deny his wife anything over these 50 years and ended up now well into retirement with an excessive amount of debt. The debt load has been hard to bear over the recent years, and importantly, his wife didn’t really that their purchases and traveling were on credit cards, now towering over them. I think some of his cancer has actually been exacerbated and to some degree caused as the result of his being overwhelmed by the debt. Perhaps more importantly, however, he has suffered under the nearly constant, but subtle attack from his wife of leaving them in such a state instead of enjoying being fun-loving grandparents. Most markedly, when I recently saw them together, the wife was far more worried about being “straddled with debt when her husband dies” than actually concerned about his health. I think she has been “killing” him for years, only now being quite obvious.
• My brother died nearly 25 years ago at age 59 from cancer, but it is my belief that the people in his life “killed” him, albeit without their intention or his knowledge. Bill cared for our aging, mother who suffered from debilitating Alzheimer’s disease for perhaps five years. There is a good bit of research on the care of severely impaired people, whether the impairment is physical, mental, or otherwise. Caregivers actually die sooner than they should die, or at the very least suffer physical and mental diseases as a result of caring for their loved ones. So, my mother “killed” Bill, at least to some degree, certainly without any intention to do so. Caring for a person suffering from dementia is like caring for a two-year old with a 70-year old body. It’s a chore. Additionally, my brother suffered for being with a mentally disturbed individual in his life whom we might say put a “drain” on him, perhaps “draining” him of his ability to sustain life. Indeed, he died specifically from liver cancer but it is my belief that the disease was exacerbated or perhaps caused by the mental strain of caring for people whom he loved but who were impaired.
• I see many people in my practice who are caring for impaired people, and all of them suffer. The woman who graciously adopted a young man who had been abandoned by his parents in India only to discover that this 13-year old had a mind of a 4-year old, and was found to have sexually molested several other children. He is “killing” his mother.
• I know of a child who was so outrageous and demanding that he was partly due to the early demise of his mother who died at 45, possibly due to the strain of trying to love and limit this child who was so demanding of her. Of course, he has no idea of the damage that he caused his mother nor would I say such a thing to him, but I am convinced that this young man, possibly in conjunction with his equally impaired sister, caused the demise of their mother.
• I have not spoken of the sad fact that there are some truly dangerous people in the world, like abusive husbands and wives, fathers or mothers, and the like. Certainly, there are these people.
• I have felt that someone was “killing me” a couple times in my recent life. One was a time when the two closest members of my family behaved in a way that I felt quite rejected. I didn’t feel “suicidal” but there was a kind of “I could die and that might be not so bad.” These feelings lasted for about an hour as I took a long walk. The feelings past but the memory remains as an important time in my life. I told my wife about the experience. She said that she had had a similar experience not so long ago. We are not immune to such feelings but have a way of processing them.
• Many men have said “I don’t want to live,” sometimes with my assistance for them to admit to these feelings. These people don’t want to die and they are certainly not suicidal. They just feel quite overwhelmed in life for some reason.

Examples of situations that “kill” people

• I know of several men who are in jobs that they hate, some of these men making a great deal of money. It seems odd to me that a person stay in a job that he hates “for the money” or allegedly doing it “for the family.” Sadly, I know of several men who have stayed with such jobs and ultimately lost their physical health, mental health, property, or marriages because these jobs were killing them.
• Other situations that are non-personal include projects people do, perhaps on houses, cars, money, weather, or some event in the world far away.
  • I felt quite distressed during a time when we were in the midst of a kitchen remodeling project somewhat due to delays from the tradesmen, somewhat because it wasn’t my desire to do the project, and perhaps form some other unknown projects.
  • People often feel that they are “being killed” by unforeseen weather, not necessarily a tornado but just some kind of extension of undue heat or cold
  • People often feel “killed” by their lack of money, perhaps enough to just pay the bills of life and limb.
• People often feel that they are dying because of some physical/medical condition and perhaps treatment. I understand the “chemo” treatment for cancer seems worse than the cancer. I just talked to someone with a variety of things going on with his body, any of which could be life-taking. Interestingly, people can be quite at peace at what might seem to be the end of their lives compared to some kind of debilitating disorder or disability.
• There several verses in the Bible of God “killing” people, usually “enemies” like in the Hebrew Scriptures, but even more dramatic statements that are unique to the New Testament. It seems that the writer of these verses felt God killing him.

How to handle “you’re killing me” feelings

• Know that these feelings are quite normal
• Know that the word “killing” and its cognates is an attempt by the person to present a metaphor, strong as it might be, to him/herself or to someone else. We try to give people a “wide berth” as we often say, when they seek to say some “feeling.” “You’re killing me” is such a statement
• Be careful to whom you say such things. If you feeling like you “don’t want to live,” be even more careful to whom you say such a thing. The listener has to know this is a feeling, not a fact, not a plan.
• Do find someone who can hear such things. This would be someone who could hear the feeling and not conclude the fact that the feeling words seemed to suggest.
• In the rare case where you are in some real danger, whether physical, mental, or spiritual, find a way out whatever the case