Strong in the Broken Places

The saying, "You get stronger in the broken places," is one that is sometimes difficult to take to heart. It's hard to think of ever being strong in a place that has hurt so much in the past. But it seems, I have found, that it can happen.

It seems that we do have the power to heal ourselves. The progress cannot be seen immediately. It cannot be easily measured by the day, month or even year sometimes. But over a span of several years, if we have the courage to keep trying and perservering despite our ghosts, we might find, as another famous quote goes, that we have lived our way into an answer.

Or to quote it fully, by Ranier Marie Rilke, a quote that really says it all: "I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..."

On a bright, sunny and beautiful afternoon, I was making my way up a busy road, headed for an ice cream place in Newport. I had my Walkman on and was enjoying the music, the sunshine, and the high that comes from actually knowing where I was going. It was a new town that I had just moved to, and I was used to getting lost. I had a smile on my face and was almost there, when someone shouted "Hey!" and I looked up, automatically. A derogatory comment followed, a man in a car with the windows down zipping by. Let's just say it started with weird and ended with a word that rhymes with witch.

My first reaction, I am happy to report, was of pity for the man. Here I was, walking to an ice cream place, enjoying a sunny day, enjoying life, and his life was obviously so miserable that he had to get joy out of yelling insults at strangers. I mean, honestly, how happy can a man who needs to entertain himself by yelling at strangers from moving cars be? Such a person obviously has major insecurities, major self esteem issues, major satisfaction with life issues. It's pitiful, really, it's a shame. It's degrading - to him, not me. It's a reflection on the kind of person he is and the life that he leads - not on me.

It was at that moment that I realized my life was rich - and that his was not. It was that point I realized, I had found ways to make myself happy in life, despite my many challenges. I didn't need much. I just needed a sunny day and an ice cream place. He, on the other hand, our nameless road rage guy, needed to put down others to get his jollies. Again, what a miserable existence. I thought I was poor, yet I found I was rich.

I also can't pretend the comment didn't hurt at all. That would be foolish to do. It still did, a little, but it was maybe 70% feeling sorry for him and even amused that someone would find it necessary to do such a thing - is my joy threatening to him? Does the prospect of happiness in the world, the idea of happiness overtly expressed, scare him? I have come too far in my life, I have worked way too hard on accepting myself, on finding ways to access the world, to accomodate my difficulties and find ways to participate, and even participate happily, in the world to let someone rain on my parade now.

And that is the other thing that I realized as I thought about this incident (but not, of course, until after I had made my way to the ice cream place and enjoyed some expresso ice cream and some more sunshine). Pride in realizing how far I have come, and pride in realizing that I am indeed strong in the broken places. It is not so much of a stretch to remember what I used to be like. I don't like to do it, but I can. I can remember the me who used to be terrified of others, terrified of everyone I met, sure that every one of them was laughing behind my back, telling stories about me to their friends, about to turn on me in any second. I lost my trust in people for a good long time after my junior high and early high school experiences. I was traumatized and afraid. Years of bullying had left its mark. I had no self-esteem, I was afraid to breathe wrong, walk wrong, talk wrong, and so on. I was paranoid about what people thought about me.

But, you know what I think saved me is my basic sense of integrity to myself. I always knew there was no sense in changing yourself to please others. The reasons are obvious. So I didn't. I withdrew from people, became terribly isolated, lonely and depressed, but I never stopped being true to who I was. I never stopped expressing my thoughts, wearing what I wanted to wear, listening to what I wanted to listen to, thinking what I wanted to think. And years later, when I finally got around a group of people who could accept me for who I was, accept every quirk, accept every difference, they healed the broken spots. They restored my ability to trust in people again. They restored my sense of self-esteem, my sense of connection to others. And they gave me permission to be myself and be proud of it. I learned not to be ashamed of myself.

See, I never lost myself. Some people do, I know. I have heard so many stories of chamaeleons, teenagers who want so badly to fit in with their peer group they go through a million different incarnations, trying to please others so hard that when they finally come up for air, they can't remember who they are anymore. I never lost myself, I just lost my ability to trust other people, to have friendships and relationships with other people. I lost my ability to be a part of the world around me, in a sense.
I wasn't an exceedingly social person before this happened, a lot which could be attributed to my (late in life) Asperger's diagnosis, but the peer abuse took away my ability to see myself as a person in relation to others.

So what happened, and how did I find my way back? It was such a long process, that I couldn't have told you it was happening when it was. My first year or two of college, I was scared and skittish and had awful flashbacks of mistreatment by peers in previous times whenever I'd get near, well, anyone my age. Which, you know, is kind of a hard thing to deal with in a college environment when you're surrounded by other college students. I had massive self-esteem issues and regularly entertained sobbing fits when I compared myself to others.

By my junior year or so, I realized something. No one had made fun of me in two years. No one had given any indication of being uncomfortable around me. Hell, people had even given me compliments. They said my dancing was beautiful. They said my joy was contagious. They said I was smart, I was a good person to be around. I realized, I could be as quirky as I wanted, I could wander around singing at the top of my lungs, I could do whatever, be whatever, and no one would give me a second glance. No one ever commented on how weird or strange I was. Hell, I used to hold my breath when I heard someone coming, convinced they were talking about me and laughing at me. And one time, my fears were confirmed. A group of guys, one saying something along the lines of "Isn't it a little bit odd that she does X?" and the other one saying "No, I think it's great/beautiful/etc." I don't remember the exact conversation. I just remember being so surprised that this guy thought so well of me.

In four years, four years!!, I got maybe 2 remarks that were at all negative. One was made by a group of drunk kids coming back from a party one night. I paid them no mind; I knew they were drunk, and I knew they weren't usually like that sober. True to form, the next day one of the kids came up to me and apologized. Apologized! I loved Goucher; where else do drunks harass you and then apologize the next day? I couldn't even remember what he was talking about when he did so, at first; and then I just laughed at the kindness.

I stopped looking behind my back; I stopped worrying about what people thought; I gained my sense of my self back. I became far more confident about engaging in conversations, about participating in anything social. I began to think when someone talked to me, it was because they actually WANTED to talk to me, not because they were dared to talk to me by their friends. Seriously, it's bizarre to think about, but I would watch anyone who came over to talk to me when they went back to their friends and wait for them to burst out in laughter, sure they were laughing about me. These are thoughts I haven't thought about in a while and perhaps it's best that I didn't; but like I said before - I'm stronger in the broken places. The fact that I can even write about this without becoming as emotional or feeling as much pain as I did a few years ago, when I used to write about it incessantly to try to find some kind of closure - is a wonderful thing in itself.

I realized finally that I was an okay person. I was a good person. Sure, I had my strengths and weaknesses like any other person. I was far from perfect. But I was okay. I was a worthy person. I was worth talking to. And somewhere along the way, I decided, Life is short, there are few pleasures in life, and one of the pleasures is in being myself and in following my heart. In being myself and doing things that I enjoy, even if they're not done the way others do them, even if they don't make sense to others, even if they look weird to others. If it ain't hurting them, then I don't care. Life is short and you have to enjoy it however you're able to. It's too short to give away your ability to enjoy things to others, to give them the power to dictate that.

My freshman year roommate said something I will always remember that sums things up nicely. She said during one of my self-pity "why am I different" sobbing fests, "Kate, I don't care if you do cartwheels backwards down Van Meter Highway singing country songs as long as you're happy." I might not have been able to take the message to heart at the time it was given, but I sure did remember it later.

So when that idiot in a speeding car felt the need to increase his self-esteem bank by taking from mine, I didn't fall for that trap. In high school, years after the peer abuse had stopped, I was so paranoid about it happening again that I absolutely fell to pieces at any suggestion of it. Eight years later, I know that my value is not measured by someone else's actions. My value is measured by what I think about myself; by how I treat others; by the abilities, thoughts, actions, and so on that *I* value, and I find important. There are many things I like about myself. And several I don't. But I have realized that my way of doing things is as good or bad as anyone else's, and I don't need to change just because someone who doesn't even know me cries wolf.

It's not to say everything's perfect; I still have self-esteem issues, like many do. I still sometimes wonder about my value in other's eyes. I still have relational troubles, connecting with others at times. There's a lot I still need to work on. But I have a basic level of comfort with myself that I would have never thought possible before college. I am more okay with myself than I thought I ever could be.

Do I like the illnesses that I have, that limit and restrict my world in so many ways? No. Do I like the personality qualities I have that enable me to deal with these limitations with humor and perservarance? Do I like my ability to connect with others in the ways I have developed, even as I wish for more? Yes. Do I like how I keep trying, and keep growing? Yes. I like who I am at heart; I don't like my life circumstances. There is a difference. But I have something to be proud of.

Those broken places have come a long way to healing, and the guy in the car today was a good reminder of that. Even if there is some discomfort in the reminder, it is a good one to realize that I have healed myself from much trauma in my past; perhaps, then, I can do the same for the equally daunting challenges that lie in my present and future. I have new broken places that need healing, and I am oh so impatient with the pace. But if my past is any indication, then, perhaps, I will find a way to heal these, too. Perhaps I will find a way to live my way into an answer.

Meanwhile, I need to keep enjoying my sunny days and ice cream, and say to hell with anyone who has a problem with that. I need to celebrate what I have, and celebrate that I am able to do this in the first place.