Please Stop Thinking Everything is Fine Just Because You Don't Relate to What is Broken

I'm tired......

Yeah, that's not a bit original is it? I've started posts that way before.

But it's true.

I'm emotionally exhausted right now. Why? Well I'm glad you asked. I think you'll be a bit surprised.

You see, I went to the grocery store. Yeah, that's it, just the grocery store.

I wasn't there long, just needed a few things, some fresh, wholesome veggies, a bit of cheese and fruit. You know, the healthy stuff. Oh, and some chocolate cookies, and ice cream, and COKE! Well, because I would need to eat my feelings later, that much was clear.

Why? Because, as I said, I went to the grocery store. And, it seems to have caused a bit of PTSD.

The grocery store is in the same neighborhood as the home of my old pastor and his wife. Going there meant I had to face the real possibility that I might run into them there. The idea of running into them made my heart go into a bit of a panic. Then I had to talk myself down from the panic, because I am a big girl and I wear big girl panties and I don't have to be afraid of people, unless they intend to do physical harm to me and have the means to carry out that intent.

But the truth is, that these people actually did do real harm to me. They first attacked my character and then they cut me out of their lives and off from my community. The fallout from that has been a massive deconstruction of my entire faith understanding as well as every other thing on which I thought I could stand. The wife was responsible for attacking my character and the husband for cutting me off from my community and life purpose. Since they define themselves as 'one flesh' I'm saying that 'they' did this. (I should add that others within the structure of Evangelicalism certainly contributed to the whole process but these two were the catalyst)

Now I realize that some people won't see what happened in our lives the same as I see it. That's fine, but it would be useful if you, the reader, would work with me here and realize that how I've described it is exactly how it has felt to me. Regardless of whether you agree with my telling of the story, the impact of the experience was trauma and I'm still trying to recover.

How you understand trauma makes a big impact on whether or not you can relate to someone who is experiencing trauma related pain.

I recently heard Psychologist Hillary McBride define it like this: Trauma is a negative and unexpected event that leaves a person feeling confused, overwhelmed and powerless.

I think that is an important way to understand it because it demonstrates the reality that not everyone will experience an event as a trauma but it is super important to not dismiss the trauma response of any individual as 'out of line' or 'over sensitive' or 'ridiculous' or 'over-reactive'. If the person in question felt confused, overwhelmed and powerless and the experience was negative and unexpected then it's reasonable for them to need to work towards healing that trauma response.

Sooo, back to the grocery store. Every time I go to the grocery store, or at least the ones I like best, I have to fight this particular set of feelings. Most days that goes pretty well. Some days, it doesn't go well at all, like today.

One day, I walked in and immediately saw someone I wasn't ready to see and had to leave because I wasn't emotionally able to come face to face with them. Was I reasonable? Is that even a useful question? I was in pain and what I needed was someone to support and love me. I needed to feel safe and that person didn't feel safe. So I left. I did what I had to do to be OK that day.

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I am hella brave and someone out there needs to know that when they experience this kind of daily difficulty, they are not crazy or weird or anything at all unacceptable. They are just human, trying to figure out how to deal with the way we hurt each other in the world.

I'm telling you this because it is time that we wake up to the fact that it is a LOT easier to hurt other people with our words and actions than we often realize. And unless we begin to wake up and become willing to listen to the people who are living with that 'unintended' pain then we will just keep bringing more and more brokenness into the world, as a society. And THAT is absolutely counter to what most of us say we want to be doing.

I am talking especially to anyone still listening who is part of the Evangelical Christian community that I have come out of. YOU are hurting people! The CHURCH is hurting people! And so far, most of the Church is very happy to stick collective fingers in its ears and scream 'I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!!'. But the fact is, you are doing damage. And churches are emptying because you won't take responsibility for the unloving way you treat people when you aren't willing to listen and learn.

I'm asking you to recognize that people all around you are dealing with these sorts of daily troubles and you'll never know because you won't see it on their face? They aren't going to be sobbing angry, sad tears in the middle of the grocery store. And most of them won't tell you to your face how you've hurt them because you have already demonstrated to them that you aren't safe.

So I am telling you because you need to know. Because I think you really do want to be and do good in the world, but you have confused doing good with a set of beliefs and standards by which you attempt to live when all along, it was about loving people and accepting them as they are, imperfect humans trying to figure it out.

ETA: One more lesson for what it means to be whole, my word of the year, is to own that I am brave. It never seems much like being brave to me. But people keep telling me that I am brave and so I think maybe it is time to own that. So yes, I am brave. I am hella brave. That is certainly a gift given to me for a reason and I think at least one of those reasons is to speak plainly about things most folks would rather not hear.