Tell the Truth

Tell the Truth!!  

As a young and developing human, I had consistently recieved messaging that my body was wrong, too brown, too tall, too skinny, too sensitive, too clumsy-  not beautiful, not feminine—not to be desired or desirable. Same with my personality– too bold, too finicky, “overly” sensitive and emotional.

I carried, in this all wrong body, those heavy stories about my unlovability and irredeemability.    

Believing this way made it seem ok to be touched in ways which were unwholesome, unloving, confusing, traumatic—ways which I now recognize to be deeply wrong.  I feel 14 again, wondering: how could this all-wrong body have capacity for hope when it is full with pain, doubt, grief, shame, fear.  I am often stuck– feeling as though I am not nearly enough and simultaneously way more than too much: I am bad- incapable of and unworthy of love and connection.  This has literally been said to me directly and publicly. It went unchallenged, by even me- until…

I believed that my state of deeply and permanently damaged goods was my own doing.  Not only did I imagine, cause, invite, or deserve it—my uninformed reactions were equally sinful.  Self recrimination—seems an appropriate word to use here but I lack the savvy to effectively incorporate it into a meaningful sentence.

I was wretched and it was expressed in no uncertain terms, that I was neither good nor welcome—I did not belong-  I was unwanted–nothing but trouble.  For much of my life, I believed this terrible news, this lie.  Not only did I believe it, my reflexive behaviors affirmed and perpetuated the story of my non goodness.

Good news: I am loved and lovable but I had learned more about causing pain than about healing pain.  I knew how to hate and judge and until recovery, had not experienced healing, hope, or faith. Faith is not a belief system.  Faith is what was left after all of my beliefs were knocked down and I realized that I would still keep going.  I am ever grateful for a program of recovery to catch me and hold me and to offer me faith in something so much bigger than myself and those who elect to discard or diminish me.  

I recently learned that Rachel Held Evans had a sign above her desk which said: Tell the Truth. I definitely plan to order one for prominent display in our home. Being able to discover and to tell my truth, here, without attack, silencing, shaming, or smoke and mirror responses- continues to be essential to my healing and growth as a spiritually developing human and mother.

In this traditionally difficult season of holidays, my sweet son’s birthday and now the anniversary of my mother’s death (and the awful memory of how that was managed) I soothe myself by remembering what I know to be true as well as what I now know to be untrue. As for the holiday season, this too shall pass. hahaha- but seriously.

This week I again speculated what story could have been spun, to get buy in from all of my mother’s family and to justify the arrangements to exclude me. Then I think: Maybe this is how my mother did want it, me on the outside. If so, that is on her. If no, I am sad for the end of her life which was designed to keep us apart until her final days. My pathetically relentless efforts to connect and resolve were collectively ignored and denied. Truth: I did everything I knew to avail myself for the work of family healing. Nothing I did, suggested a desire for anything other. EVER. Healing together and looking at our issues was not mutually desired and never a legitimate possibility though.

Deep sigh–one day at a time, I will continue learning and healing—sharing my truth, my lived experience.