And there you are....

What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing; it also depends on what sort of person you are. ~ C.S. Lewis The Magician's Nephew

When I was little, my friends and I used to play in the creek that ran behind the neighborhood. It was always an adventure as we made our way through the deep grass and down the steep banks to the rushing water below. We dared each other to leap from boulder to boulder, cheering the victors like gold medal winners in the Olympics. I re-visited that same creek not too long ago. The grass didn't seem as long as I remembered and the banks weren't as steep. The biggest disappointment though was the boulders. No longer giant slabs of granite, they had become ordinary, grey stones that were easy to walk across with minimal effort. It’s simple to cite perception as the reason for the drastic differences. So how do you explain it in reverse?

 

Lately I've noticed that it's almost effortless for me to deal with situations & emotions in front of others. I switch into "fix it" mode. No matter how large or painful the issue, it becomes as insignificant as the rocks in the creek. Crisis averted. Disaster avoided and all is fine, until I am alone. In my solitude, the thoughts and feelings I pushed away come crashing back like waves in a storm. No longer insignificant they pull at my heart, catching it in an undertow of emotion and I struggle to swim back to the safety of shore.

 

Which is real: big or little, strong or fragile? Maybe neither one, maybe both.

Alone in a crowd

"What's the difference? You weren't looking anyway." - What Dreams May Come

 

Try this experiment. Ask someone "How are you?" and see what they say. Most likely the answer will be "Fine" or "Good" and then the person will walk away. There won't be time for follow up and the answer they gave will most likely be a lie, or at least not the whole truth. Try this experiment again for the rest of the day and see what happens. Try if for a whole week but the results will seldom deviate. How many times have you answered "Fine" or "Good" to the question posed earlier? How many times has it been the honest answer?

 

We've become a society that doesn't listen and so we have also lost the inclination to tell the truth. We act surprised when tragedies happen, protesting that we "had no warning" but the truth is that we didn't listen. We didn't have the time, or more perversely, we didn't care. We bombard our senses until we are numb to the world around us and then wonder why we feel alone.

 

I tried the experiment above last week. My results weren't surprising as much as sobering. When I wanted to share good news, there was no one to listen. When I tried to provide comfort to someone I knew to be in distress, they were unable to share. It lead me to wonder what the point is in talking if no one really listens.

Voices

“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.” - Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

 

Memories are funny things. A sight, a smell, even a sound can lead you down the garden path and through a door into your past. For me it was the question "What did your mother teach you?". And it didn't so much as lead me down a garden path but forcibly drag me kicking and screaming before flinging me over a cliff into a muddy pit. The list of what she failed to teach me is significant and the list of what she did teach me is divided under the headings of healthy & unhealthy with the latter having the most entries. Yet, in spite of that, I have the voice in my head that says "But she is your Mother".

 

That voice is the one that I give into every time. It's the one that makes me want to cry and then instead restrict for ever fighting against it. It's the voice that tells me that nothing I ever do will be good enough. It accuses me in every way possible and leaves no room for amends. It drives me until I am ready to drop and then berates me for selfishness.

 

And yet...

 

Every once and awhile another voice sneaks in between the accusations. It's soft and soothing. It says that everything doesn't have to be perfect. It says that it's ok to get angry and it's ok to cry. It speaks of a place where there is safety. It promises time to rest, and for a moment the voice of accusation doesn't seem so loud.

Listening to 5

I didn't want to get up this morning. I wasn't tired, I just didn't feel like myself. My inner grown up said "You have to go to work, so get up." I went to work and felt slightly grumpy but I made myself stay all day and even late. I pushed through laundry and trudged off to the grocery store to shop. I was fighting really hard to be an adult when I suddenly felt like sitting down in one of the aisles and crying. So I took a deep breath and finally listened to my inner 5 yr old. When I really listened, I realized that my ears hurt and I didn't feel well. A trip to urgent care revealed a raging ear infection.

Isn't this what most of us do all the time? We push past being tired & are quick to deny our needs. Whether you call it being "noble" or "strong" or just chalk it up to "doing what needs to be done" it really isn't beneficial. What is your inner 5 yr old trying to tell you?

Sacrifices

My Great Great Grandmothers gave up their social lives to raise my Grandmother. My Grandmother gave up her college scholarship and education to raise her brother. These are just a couple instances in a long line of sacrifices that I have had drilled into my head since I was very small. We weren't Socialists or Unitarians but those values still seemed to be prevalent in many of the life lessons. I was taught that it is more noble to sacrifice one's own desires, beliefs and possessions for the sake of others. In a perverse way I was also taught that everything can be taken away from you, so it's better to hold onto nothing.

 

Through the years I tried to rebel. When you are a child, such rebellion is countered with the threat of being left at home alone, unwanted and shamed. As a teenager the result is physical & emotional violence followed by grounding. Once you are an adult you are simply ignored and labeled as selfish. None of the reactions are pleasant but the one reserved for adulthood seems the least traumatic. The secret is that it doesn't have to be, because the damage has already been done. It reminds me of a story I heard once about how elephants are trained to stay in one place with only a bit of rope tethering them to a single wooden peg. They start when the elephant is a baby and they use a heavy chain. The youngster learns that it can only wander as far as the chain will allow it. When it is older, it retains that memory of not being able to escape and so it doesn't bother to try, even though it could now easily walk away.

 

The problem with self-sacrifice is that, like the elephant's tether, it is hard to walk away, because you are held captive by your beliefs. The other problem is that it can be a very lonely place. Some people will take everything that you have,and then when you don't even have enough to sustain yourself, will walk away. Other people will be appreciative at first but will never know who you might be beneath the layers. And then there are a very very few people who will see past "fine" and will give you a piece of themselves - not because you asked but because they knew you needed it. These are special people. Try to hold onto them even when it goes against everything you've been taught.

Secrets

Secrets. They are funny things. In treatment you are constantly asked to tell the truth and not keep them. You are reminded over and over that you are as sick as your secrets. You are encouraged and expected share your real thoughts and feelings all the time. Yet, if you were to do the same thing outside of those four walls, you would surely be shunned.

 

The very young are advised "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." and the very old have their comments attributed to a declining ability to filter. For the rest of us, it is a path of hot coals that we traverse as we try to determine the acceptable level of truth in each situation. When someone ask " How are you?", do they really want to know or or is it just the current equivalent to "Hello"? Someone else asks "What do you think?". Are they actually asking for your opinion or do they just need someone to agree with their point of view? It can truly be a slippery slope - especially if you guess wrong.

 

What is a girl to do? Keeping secrets also means wearing a mask. It prevents you from being honest with those around you - even when that is what you want the most. I used to think it was my best protection ever. As long as I had my secrets, I was safe. I could remain silent as the world around me spun in chaos. If no one knew what I really thought or felt. I thought I couldn't be hurt because no one knew me well enough to know how to hurt me. But, that was also the problem. No one knew me well enough to know when I was hurt or scared so no one could offer comfort. No one knew when I needed help, so no one helped. No one knew where I went when I needed to think and no one knew when I didn't want to be alone so no one went looking for me. And, no one knew when I was happy, so they couldn't celebrate victories with me. The very wall of secrets that I had built to keep me safe was the same one that kept me isolated and was slowly killing me.

 

Then one day I either got very brave or vary tired (I'm still not sure which). I told someone one of my secrets and then sat back to see what would happen. I didn't spontaneously combust and they didn't run screaming from the room. In fact, they said that they already knew (or at least had an idea). As time goes on, I pick and choose who I trust and who I share with. Sometimes I have good experiences and sometimes I chalk it up to learning experiences. When you share those parts of yourself with the right people, they are more willing to share parts of themselves with you as well. On the whole, it's been a very liberating experience and a lot less lonely.

Fear

Fear can be a great motivator or it can be an incredible stumbling block. It can spur you on to make positive decisions or it can prevent you from moving at all. Those who say that they have no fear are neither honest nor worthy of trust In the end, it's not the absence of fear but rather how you confront it that makes a difference

 

In the past week I battled my fear of becoming completely obsessed with my scale by sending it on vacation to my therapist's office. I challenged my fear of Spring by writing about Thomas. I confronted my fear of change by making an appointment with a new primary care doctor. Yet, as hard as I have fought, I am still afraid.

 

I fear my meal plan and not being able to tell if/ when I am hungry. I fear memories that seem more vivid than before. I fear not being good enough, smart enough or strong enough to sort through it all. And above all else, I'm afraid of disappointing those around me when the figure out how afraid I really am.