Uh-Oh

Do I have to aspire to get “better”? I spent today reading the advice column of Cary Tennis. He writes in a flowery prose, one that seems anathema to his advice-giving colleagues, who clearly are restrained by editors and column-inches.

Without getting into too much detail about my childhood and what I’ve become because of / despite of it, I want to discuss the nature of mental health. Like any good liberal-leaning upper-middle class white girl, I absolutely had to study psychology in college. I’ve always been fascinated by people – one of my favorite pastimes as a child was people-watching at Disney. The inherent problem with people-watching is that you become inured to the individual and it makes it easier to judge people. There’s a safety in watching and not interacting with others. It protects you from judgment and pain and rejection and fear. The problem is as you get older, you start to recognize that you might just be missing out on some of the best parts of other people – their silliness and sense of fun and occasional incredible openness and lovingness.

And then I ran across this:

“So we have this failure, this difference, this secret. It makes us different. We know it does. So we go into society and we know we are different because our mother was passed out on the floor and our father died when we were 12, and no one got us help because ... because? ... because they did not know our needs? They did not care about our needs? Or they did not see our needs? So we had to decide, either our needs were not important, or the adults were cruel and wrong, and the adults could not be cruel and wrong, for they were the adults. So our needs must be trivial. We must be whiners. Our needs must be unimportant! So we limp along, trying to take care of ourselves, not asking to have our needs met.”

Uh-oh. Someone out there might have figured out my secret. Someone else might be able to see directly through all my facades and well-developed defense mechanisms. That person might see the pain in me. So if I’m not hiding nearly as well as I thought I was; if I’m actually an open book and a terrible poker player, what happens next? Am I now to get me to a therapy? Do I have to get myself better? Who does it hurt if I do develop stronger boundaries and sense of self? Who does it help? I don’t know and I don’t know if I want to know. So for now, the closing of Tennis’ advice will have to be enough to carry me:

“So bless you. Bless you, child. You have a right to happiness. You have a right to be treated with respect and dignity and tenderness. You have a right to be here on this planet. You have a right to your feelings. You have a right to your own perceptions. Bless you, child. You have a right to be who you are.”