We spend so much time shouting from the rooftops when we find something that works, telling anyone and everyone that they NEED to do the same thing. That impulse is understandable. What we leave out, however, are all the things we tried that didn’t work or when the thing that worked for us 2-3 years ago has stopped working.
It would help if we did that more often to remind people that we are not alone but not all the same.
Again we see how being educated and open about mental health issues creates people who know what to do. We can’t get support from people who don’t know what to do and they don’t learn what to do when society remains unwilling to talk about mental health.
I saw this post earlier today, and let’s face it, we all could use some help occasionally with fear and anxiety. As the author says: Because there are many self-help books on the market, it can be difficult to decide which one to read. So I have recommended three: Brantley’s Calming Your Anxious Mind, Bourne’s…
On the other hand, if we know this, maybe we can start to do something about it. That might look like finding ways to lower the stress we have some control over, understanding what is happening with our abilities in these areas, and seeing these struggles in others for what they are. In short, give ourselves and each other some grace and step back before making rash decisions or digging our heels in on decisions and beliefs. If we suffer cognitively when stressed, let’s admit that maybe, just maybe, we get stuff wrong occasionally.
We are human after all, and “to err is human.”
“Here’s a theory: Maybe I had not really been broken this whole time. Maybe I had been a human—flawed and still growing but full of light nonetheless”
I want all of us to ponder that line for a little bit and think about it. Consider the possibility that you, as a survivor, are not broken. Maybe you are just human. Maybe everything you see as broken is just a natural reaction to abuse in the same way every human carries things forward into their lives from their past. That’s not to say the harm isn’t real. Indeed it is very much real. It might not, however, have changed the possibility of our light still being inside us.
You are still human and you still have value in this world.
Those who have suffered childhood trauma often have shame that we cannot place. Sometimes because our memories are foggy and we can’t place them, maybe more often because shame became part of us as we grew up. Our very development occurred in the middle of shame, so much so that we aren’t even aware of it.
It just is. It has always been and always will be.
Except that’s not correct at all.
