Ok? Not Ok? It's OK!

Let me tell you the story of a woman I know who is probably the strongest, most shining example of that strong woman success story we all see articles about. You know what I'm talking about. She survived two divorces, raised two girls, dealt with mental and physical abuse, rose to be a prominent self-employed business woman in a male driven world...I could go on. She is the kind of person that has everything to celebrate from her strength, tenacity, kindness, selflessness, and charitable giving.

If you haven't guessed, it's my mom. I promise I'm not biased (not it this, in other things, but not this). But anyway...

And yet, here is this woman who has had to fight fight fight all her life it seems, or at least her adult life, and she is STILL fighting and dealing with all kings of *$%&#. She is most clearly now being attacked in the worst way that a loving mother can be. She is having to be wounded in the one place she should never have to guard herself from. Details aren't important, those of you who know just know; the important part is she cries . She comes and cries to me. And then she apologizes up, down, and sideways about crying to me. Like it is some king of sin. I tell her every time she has nothing to be sorry about, she should cry, she has every right to be hurt, and she needs to give her grief time.

It's because I've had to say this so much that I finally had to really ask myself: When did it become so awful to just feel what you're feeling and let it be ok? When did our emotions, our natural reactions, and our mental health become some kind of forbidden taboo? I don't know when it happened, but I hate it!

When did it stop being ok to not be ok? Why do good people like my mom think that hurt is shameful. Just the thought that she is made to feel shame, that any of us do, because we felt human feelings at things done to us - it frankly pisses me off.

Here's another example, and this one is from me. When I lost my brother (my life chosen brother who I lost to suicide), I was more broken and utterly destroyed than I thought could ever be possible and still live through. The day I heard about it, I was told to stay home even though my insanity just asked to be slightly late. What the Hell was I thinking with that? I wasn't giving myself time. I wasn't doing anyone any favors rushing that! That day I took off was my Friday, and I said I'd be back after my two days off. And I fully intended to, but I drank myself almost to death the night before because of how horribly I hurt, and my body shut down and said, "Hold the eff up and take more time."

I kept rushing trying to be ok. I kept trying to push and be stronger and more resilient than I could possibly be. But even with how hard I pushed, my depression became even more intense. Not just the feeling blue part; I mean I started getting horribly forgetful, focusing became a battle, I slept all the time, my appetite went all over the place, and I just wasn't the same. I changed even more than I thought, and as much as I tried to keep up my work ethic that eventually started to kill me (see previous posts), I was brought to the owners that I wasn't good enough.

I later even found out that my superiors talked about why I was wallowing so much. "He wasn't even her real brother," one said. Not really knowing why the other high up thought I would be ok hearing that, I guess he was doing his best to have my back? Anyway, ever had your grief and pain downplayed like that? It's disgusting.

In the end, I was flat not OK. And that fact was not acceptable.

Now, I'm not saying don't try and get better eventually or strive to be better. But somewhere along the way we as a society skipped the compassionate part where it is natural and necessarily to let the pain, the grief, the anger, and the hurt have its moment to breath. Smothering it, pushing it down, and trying to keep it a dirty little secret only will come back to bite you bigger and harder later.

These actions will just add to the burdens you are already reacting to. I've gone to therapists upon therapists and counselors and you name it. They all had to tell me the same thing, "You're not week for feeling this way. You are hurt, and that is what it is. The only reaction that is wrong and unhealthy is when you try to deny it, lie about it, and not accept it." Reactions are truth, even if they are different in other people than they would be in yourself in the same situation. That doesn't make theirs wrong or yours wrong.

Reactions are just simply YOUR truth, and an honest feeling is born from your soul and you cannot change how you feel about something more than you can change the way that you breathe. You can try to adapt, manage, and process in a more productive way, but the second that you try to say you didn't feel what you felt or that what you felt was wrong, you've lost what it was trying to teach you.

In a discussion with a friend (see upcoming little chat video project!), we discussed how the character in my book deals with trauma. She goes through it all; she runs from it, she grieves it, and she faces it to rise above it. And never once in my narrative did she chastise herself for her pain. She never told herself that she shouldn't feel hurt by what was done to her. That would be insane. If you read the book and see what is done to her, the thought that she would blame herself for it would be ludicrous. So why is that ok for everyone else and not for you? Why did I think it was strength and honesty with others and weakness from me?

So that was why I wanted to bring to life Althea, her pain, her hurt, my pain, my loss...it's universal in a way. Even though what she suffers through is a little more grand-scale than what would happen outside of a terror tabloid, I wanted people to find some inner truth in it. Loss is universal, hurt is universal, betrayal is (very tragically) universal. And if maybe we could see someone be ok with their feelings resulting from those events and rise above it to still be a hero, maybe we would believe that it is OK TO NOT BE OK.

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You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do When You Stressin'!