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I’m thinking about the ways in which we value strength, and the kinds of strength we value. And when we’re willing to give up on people.
We’re taught to value the people who struggle through against all odds and keep a smile on their face and their dignity intact. Or, at least, to your face. The people who are valuable are those who are as independent as possible, who don’t make a fuss, who keep the hard, complicated, heaviness of what they’re going through away from you. We’re taught to like our drama clean and compact, our heroes sunny, and ambivalence elsewhere.
So what happens when you break?
Insurmountable odds do break people. It isn’t a lack in that person if they can’t overcome personal or systemic horrors. Horror and trauma designed to get into the cracks and lever you apart. Those odds are called insurmountable for a reason.
And we’re not taught to deal with that. We’re taught that there is something fundamentally irredeemable about the person whose spirit breaks. The thing is, though, that there is life after that narrative has run its course. There is room to heal. It might not be pretty or timely, and it might be undignified, and hard to deal with for everyone, and you might want to turn away.
But I think that there is something beautiful and courageous in that, in getting up and building yourself again, without a blueprint, without even a narrative.
And there is room to stay broken or lost in some ways. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.
It doesn’t help if you’re looking for inspiration, or a temporary lift, or someone else’s story to make your day. There is something solid, and human, and stronger than before in recognising that brokenness in someone’s history, respecting them in that hurt, and respecting where they are now.
Fearless heroes don’t tell all the stories we need to hear. I am learning not to give up on a single human soul.
Very true. In my experience the plummet to the depths of a pit of despair is fast and easy. It is the climb to something approaching sanity which takes work. Lots of work.
And a fearless hero isn’t a hero in my eyes anyway. My heroes are the ones who do fear and go ahead anyway.
Wow, Chally.
The way I deal with my (mild, but it’s there) mental illness is usually to be all stoical about it; like you say, people respect you when you keep plugging through. And most of the time, keeping on trying is the best way to deal with depression. But there are times when I need to be broken, too. Everyone has times when we need to be broken. And you’re right, our culture doesn’t really have space for that sometimes.
When I was surrounded by death and betrayal and steeped in sorrow everyone told me how strong I was. They knew I’d be fine, but I wasn’t, not for a long long time. I just wanted to share these two poems from my journey:
Mission Failed
Did what I did, save my life?
Was it not some horrible mistake,
but necessary?
Was it exactly what
I needed to do?
What would I have done otherwise?
Considering how weak I was.
Because it has worked,
the replacement of that breath-taking fear,
of gnawing raw betrayal,
of un-rightable wrongs;
of life,
definitively
out-of-control
in exchange for a life controlled.
Is it so important that the only
control I had was to ruin it?
Life now is a payment late, a
leaking tire, a tag gone bad,
another court date, another slot
machine, another call. So
many nice, solid, controllable
worries to occupy my mind with
instead of the crushing gravity of
that other, whatever-it-was.
——————————–
Growth
In a frenzy of saws,
with a great grinding noise
the ground pulsed
and my roots shook.
My branches were broken,
and my bark was stripped bare
and when they were gone,
they left only a stump.
If they wanted to kill me,
they did not succeed.
and I’ll rise again,
my branches will grow
and my bark will return.
Not at all my former self,
but the same roots intact,
I will be stronger than ever before.
And they may come back
delivering devastation
to cut me again.
It doesn’t matter if I cannot stop them,
for next time I will crush them when I fall.
I was broken earlier this year. I shattered into a million little pieces. I am still putting those pieces back together again. Thankyou for this. It touched my heart.