Disclaimer: this blog is vulnerable, but the purpose of it is to share a part of my story and shine a light on the “fix-it” mindset. In order to change something, one has to be aware of it. This is not pointed at any person or group specifically.
Hurt People Hurt People.
And I was a hurt person for a really long time, I refused to deal with things that needed to be dealt with. I stuffed and shoved things so far back into my brain, I could pretend that I had worked through it and “gotten over it”, as if that’s a real thing, you don’t get over things, you work through them. (Think of Dory in Finding Nemo, she was supposed to go through the trench and then went over it and almost died.) Anyway, I claimed I was fine, and I could pretend to a certain degree. I could put on a happy face every morning at 8am when school started, I could have fun during Color-guard practice, and some days, I could even sit through a nice family dinner. But those other days, I got home and immediately blew up at my mom for nothing, I gave my sister crap for being a sweetheart, I screamed at my brothers for trying to have fun. And I told myself it was just normal teenage stuff, but it was definitely not. It was me being a hurt person and inflicting pain on others so I wouldn’t feel so terrible about being there. I am utterly ashamed of a lot of my behavior throughout high school towards my siblings and my mom, and it’s something that has been difficult to forgive myself for. They deserved so much better than that, and I’m still building trust in our relationships and showing them how I really do love them. Even in my friendships, I stayed surface level and never revealed a lot of real and raw feelings. Finally, all this pretending came to a clashing holt my second semester of college. Over Christmas break, I couldn’t control my emotions and ended up spending a lot of the break crying. So, finally I (with the push of my mom) decided to go to counseling, with the stipulation that absolutely no one else knew about it (funnily enough, I’m telling you all now). And I basically cried my way through second semester but, now I realize that those tears were so important. I was processing 10 Years of suppressed emotions, and emotions felt strongly always come out in tears, no matter the emotion. And I gave myself a lot of crap because I didn’t process properly back when the time was right and that would have put my life somewhere different and who knows what I would be like, but then I stopped that and realized that I didn’t process these things before I was ready because, just that, I wasn’t ready. And I tried to push myself to be ready, others tried to push me, but I never truly chose it enough to actually put the work in to go through and think about the difficult things. But, the Lord knew when the time was right, and that, yeah last semester sucked, but it was the perfect time for me to figure out what I did and I was finally able to accept what He wanted to teach me. And I think a lot of Christian culture includes trying to push people to the “work this out” phase, when so many are not ready. And us pushing them is not helping anything. The truth is, they HAVE to CHOOSE it for THEMSELVES. We cannot choose it for them. The best we can do is sit with them in the tears and hold on tight, pray, and love them. Love is really what will help spur them on, even when it seems helpless and you feel like you’re doing nothing, keep loving. And when they get going, cheer them the heck-on, scream your lungs out when you see them headed in the right direction, headed towards health. That’s when you put your input in and tell them how proud you are and show them how far they have come. It’s the most painful thing to see someone you love struggle with something that you could take and fix for them, but they need to go through the trench. They can’t just get stung by the jellyfish, because they’ll keep getting stung and repeating the same thing over and over until they decide the pain and uncomfortability of the trench is worth it. Worth not knowing what’s in the middle and trusting that it will work out in the end. Because, trust me, it does. And, if you’re in the trench, have grace for yourself. You’re going to fail, you’re gonna mess up, but remember there is grace. Always Grace.
I also just want to thank my mom and siblings for continuously putting up with me and still loving me through it. Even when I was truly a piece of crap, they showed me love and grace. I never deserved an ounce of it, but I’m eternally grateful that they are still loving me and supporting me. Especially my mom, she saw through all my crap and still leaned in for the hug and still went on long walks where I wouldn’t talk and still drove me all over God’s creation to give me opportunities. THANK YOU And I LOVE YOU!!
Thanks for reading!
