I have come to accept that I have no control over life. I can make choices regarding what I do and how I want to feel, but I don’t have any authority over what happens to me or when. Therefore, my security is not placed in my own strengths or abilities. My confidence lies in knowing that everything will be okay. Okay does not mean what I want. I do not ever expect anything to turn out the way I want it to. I’m grateful when it does, but my happiness doesn’t depend on it. Bad things happen. Hard times happen. Losses happen. There are times to grieve as well as times to celebrate. The human life experience encompasses the full range of emotional experiences. Take it all in. Release your clenched fists and open your hands to receive.

From the way you didn’t care for me, I learned not to care for myself. From the ways in which you put me down, I learned to put myself down. From the ways you didn’t show up for me, I learned to lower my expectations of others. From the ways in which you betrayed my trust, I learned not to trust others. From the trauma you inflicted, I learned to inflict trauma upon others and upon myself. I know no other way. So, I must make it my priority to learn another way now, and in learning a new way to be, I must also be willing to let go of the identity of who I was. No one wants to be a loser, a victim, or a slave, but to be one is better than to be nothing. I tighten my grip upon the identity I don’t want to claim because I don’t know who I would be without it. I’m not a winner. I’m not lucky. I’m not privileged. Most of the time, I’m not even free to make my own decisions about what to do because I’m so thoroughly tossed to and fro by the circumstances of my base survival. What I can choose is to grieve the identity of who I was taught to be. I can let my old self die away and take another step toward the person I want to become. I don’t need to be a winner, lucky, or privileged. I can start by simply being kind, caring, and compassionate instead of striving toward an arbitrary goal of perfection or even the nebulous promise of something better.

Who wouldn’t want the exhilarating high of overcoming one of life’s most ominous challenges? Rock climbers take on foreboding cliffs. Runners surpass marathons and triathlons to ultramarathons, pushing their bodies beyond reasonable limitations. Some summit mountains while others pursue cerebral peaks such as chess tournaments or higher level of education. Why the push? Why the drive? We press forward or die trying. The alternative, remaining stagnant, not pressing forward, not trying, is a more painful death than the first for then we are perpetually haunted by the notion of what might have been.

Life is like “The Good Place.” Most people seem to think life is a time to be savored for whatever joy we can find here when it’s actually a personal hell in disguise. This is the place where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. We’re here to learn experientially that we need God’s love and peace in order to feel any semblance of joy. Life is our punishment for thinking we don’t need God, that we can be our own god, that we can be good apart from God. Our cosmic energy shows up here to balance our karma and for God’s glory to be revealed. Some things we deserve, others we don’t. Sometimes we can tell the difference but not always. However, I believe, we will eventually be rewarded with more love and peace if we endure our sufferings patiently and don’t give up.

You didn’t love me, didn’t’ know how to. How was I supposed to feel? You said Jesus loved me, he would always love me, but I needed something real. I needed your big hand to hold my little hand, to show me the way. I need your strong arms to hold my little arms, to make me feel safe. But you weren’t there, and I felt scared, so now all I can say.

I hope you find a love for you to feel loved. I hope you find a hand you want to hold. I hope you see a light showing you the way. I hope you can see now that you’ve grown old. There’s still a little girl, in me you’ll never know. The little girl in me has to let you go. Dear Daddy, I need you to know.

I was broken, when you broke your promises. You weren’t supposed to leave. I was forsaken, for the sake of your shame. You weren’t able to grieve. You left a gaping hole within my little soul, I couldn’t hope to fill. You pushed a jagged shard into my little heart, and it is bleeding still. Now I stand here, though I’m still scared, and all I can say.

So, don’t judge me if I stutter, these few words I need to utter. They bring healing, they bring wholeness to my wounded incompleteness. Maybe someday, I’ll feel better. Maybe I’ll grieve this loss forever. There’s no telling what the future holds, but at least now I know you’ve been told.

I still need a love to make me feel loved.

I still need a hand of someone I can hold.

Our weaknesses define us. In my experience, I was taught to feel ashamed of my weaknesses and limitations by the immense social pressure to at least appear to be perfect. The United States is a pretentious nation; our culture is based on living up to the presentation of perfection. We’re often haunted by the nightmare of the “American Dream.” So, it can be extremely difficult to balk against the system, to rail against the status quo. However, recognizing and admitting to our weaknesses is the only true way to gain real strength because our limitations let us know where we need to rely upon the strengths of others. According to my faith, we’re supposed to lean on one another, bear each other’s’ burdens, pour our love over one another to cover a multitude of inadequacies. Human beings are like Swiss cheese. We all have a variety of holes. When we layer Swiss cheese on a sandwich, the holes don’t align. Every slice has its unique pattern. Adding another slice covers the holes of the prior one. In the same way, knowing our weaknesses teaches us, not where we need to improve, but where we need the strengths of another person to cover our holes. Once we’re willing to define ourselves by our holes, by our unique pattern of weaknesses, instead of feeling shame for having weaknesses, then we’re able to focus on using our strengths to cover the weaknesses of others and on surrounding ourselves with other people whose strengths are able to compensate for our limitations.

My life is not going to be all sunshine and rainbows just because I decide to trust a Higher Power. My past has been a raging shitstorm because I was built with faulty wiring. I need an electrician to rip all of the old crap our and replace it with new circuitry because I obviously don’t know what the heck I’m doing. I’m tired of bumbling around in the dark because my power source is cut off from my light source by kinks and fraying. I’m tired of getting burned by exposed wires that lack adequate sheathing for protection. I have to allow my walls to be broken down for all of the hazardous materials to get dug out, which leaves me feeling vulnerable and exposed. But I have to risk this phase of the deconstruction process or nothing is ever going to change.

I once heard that depression was anger turned inward. After a decade of working through my own depression, I’ve discovered that both depression and anxiety are caused by unprocessed emotions. In a society where we’re encouraged to numb our feelings instead of feeling them, depression and anxiety are ubiquitous issues. Men are often taught that it’s not okay to show emotions, especially sadness and fear. They are told to toughen up, to take it like a man, to suffer in silence. Women are also expected to repress their feelings. When we don’t, we’re called hysterical, crazy, and emotionally unstable. There’s so much pressure on everyone to be happy, successful, and “put together” that we ignore the messages of our emotions to our own peril. Well, today I’m here to give you permission to feel your feelings and to express them. If you’ve been wronged, you have the right to get angry. Stand up for yourself. Speak up for yourself. If someone else doesn’t like it, that’s their problem. Don’t let your anger sit inside of you eating away at you from the inside out. Ask yourself if there is anything constructive you can do to right the situation. If there’s nothing positive you can do, give yourself ten minutes to feel and express your anger. Move your body to release the excess energy. Scream. Do whatever works best for you. I give myself time to cry. I can’t change the past, but I can visualize my tears washing away the pain. My tears were unproductive earlier in my life because I didn’t know what I was crying about. Expressing emotions requires Awareness of how you feel and why you feel that way, Admitting to yourself and to the universe how and why you feel wronged, and Acknowledge that you’re hurt because you believe that you deserve better (or that you can do better if you’re upset with yourself). In this way, our emotions become our servants rather than our tormenters.

Depression is not a character defect. Depression is not your fault. Depression is a default mode of the brain that is meant to protect us from sustaining further harm. Depression is a huge red flag indicating that something is terribly wrong. Depression is how our body communicates to us that we need help. It’s a warning sign that we have ventured precariously close to utter annihilation and that if we don’t intervene now, we could die. Human beings are social creatures. We need to form meaningful connections with other people for survival. Contrary to common opinion, we don’t need community just to pool our resources to ensure we stay fed and safe. It’s more fundamental than that. Our brains are literally wired for human connection. In extreme cases, other mammals are able to substitute for human contact, but, for the most part, without other human interaction, we die. This need is a double-edged sword. The greatest harms we sustain to our psyches as humans are often caused by our interactions with other humans. Our greatest fears are caused by our need to maintain relationship; our deepest shame, our most intense regrets, our darkest disturbances emerge from our primary, foundational relationships. And these pains, the agonies we sustain within our relationships, can only be healed within relationships.

Shortly after my parents’ divorce, my mother took us to see a family counselor. I don’t remember if my younger sister was with us at the time. She was only one. My older sisters were ten and twelve, and I was eight. This one session we attended has stuck with me my entire life. It’s where I was first introduced to the concept of family roles: the scapegoat, the hero, the lost child, and the mascot. That’s the order in which I remember them and the order in which my sisters and I fell headlong into them. These dysfunctional family dynamics are so predictable and so prevalent, they’re spelled out in psychology textbooks with little cartoon figurines and everything. Damn it! I hate getting lost. I hate feeling lost. I hate feeling as though I’m treading water, kicking and paddling and never getting anywhere. I’d never felt lost before this as a child. I was the one who wandered off chasing whatever caught my eye. I was confident and adventurous. My mother had to hunt me down. It was never the other way around. But when my father left, he took my inner compass with him. My home was gone, and it was never going to come back again, ever. My entire reason for being vanished, and I disappeared into the shadows of an unfriendly, uncaring world.