I was gifted a very unexpected emotional rollercoaster of a journey early in the morning one day, so I wanted to pass that journey on to all of you. If you stay with it, I promise, it has an uplifting ending, but consider this your “Bad Feelings Ahead” trigger warning.
Someone I care about shared a quote. My knee-jerk reaction to this was to think that it’s absolutely beautiful and brought me quite a bit of joy. The quote was from the book Beautiful Lies, by Lisa Unger and said, “When you start to know someone, all their physical characteristics start to disappear. You begin to dwell in their energy, recognize the scent of their skin. You see only the essence of the person, not the shell. That’s why you can’t fall in love with beauty. You can lust after it, be infatuated by it, want to own it. You can love it with your eyes and your body but not your heart. And that’s why when you really connect with a person’s inner self, any physical imperfections disappear, become irrelevant.”
And still…I find this to be a beautiful statement. It’s something that a partner of mine discussed on multiple occasions, the most significant of which was when I was first facing ankle surgery and the diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos was becoming horrifyingly inescapable. I was scared. Scared that I would be a burden to those I loved. That all they would see is my inability to do things with them. My hurdles. My splints. My crutches. My pain. That’s all I would become, a reminder of ugly things in life and they’d stop wanting to be around me because of it. He was very gentle as he spoke to me and asked me to elaborate. He listened patiently. Though my sobs and my long-winded rambling. Then, with a smirk, he nodded and said, “Ah. I see. So, what you’re saying, is that if I fall off a roof and get hurt that you’ll stop loving me?” I was appalled that he would say such a thing and told him so! He then put on a very confused expression and pointed out that was exactly what I expected everyone else to do, “Are you saying your better than me?”, and the smirk returned. The conversation took turn and we discussed that I need to maybe accept that I’m loved in the same way I love others. That’s it’s more than looks, or what they can do for me. It’s who they are as a whole.
So when a friend posted this quote to her social media…those memories came up and filled me with a love that is all encompassing and rooted deep in the soul. A reminder that what love means, isn’t your productivity or whether or not you’re sick. You intelligence and your skill doesn’t make you less or more worthy of love. Nor does having a degenerative disease make you less deserving of love. Because being human and sharing love is MUCH bigger than any of that.
But then…the thoughts took a turn…
I’ve written about difficult times growing up. How I put myself in therapy and had to digest the fact that I had treatment for cPTSD and not just depression. But all the acknowledgement and processing for all those years, and sometimes it still pops up out of nowhere. Memories strong enough that I can still see the whole scene play out and hear it play in my head word for word. Having your mother tell you that your bra size was too big, which means you were fat and needed to watch what you eat…I was still in Jr. High and wasn’t even over 100lbs. I just have a big chest. Or having her pinch your belly skin when she walks by and reminding you that if you were fit, she wouldn’t be able to do that. Nitpicking about how my hair was cut. What clothes I liked. How I sat. It was all superficial nonsense.
Which, some of this can be normal. Parents are supposed to help teach their kids how to be functional adults. So no, your parents telling you that you’re not going to a family holiday dinner dressed like you’re going to a GWAR concert isn’t them being abusive. But it’s also supposed to come with praise and acknowledgement of good things. An encouragement of passions. If all they do is nitpick on your outward appearance and superficial traits while ignoring all of the beautiful, unique, and incredibly important traits about you that make you the fantastic person that you are? This is probably something you need to tear apart and inspect a bit. Parents are human too, and sometimes personalities just clash. But sometimes, unfortunately, they’re just not capable of providing actual love. Maybe they’re hurting, maybe they need therapy, maybe they’re just mentally unstable. What matters there is you take a healthy look at whether they’ve been supportive and maybe it just looks different than you’d prefer…or…whether they’re honestly not and you need to reach out to get yourself the help and support that you deserve. No matter how old you are or whether you parents are even alive or not.
The quote then hurt. It was a reminder of people that were supposed to be showing me that love as a child and what I didn’t get behind closed doors. Feelings of jealousy for people who grew up in families that loved their kiddos. People with kids who share how proud they are of them and you can tell by the interaction that they mean it honestly, and not just something they are sharing to get praise for what a good parent they must be.
Then…the thoughts got darker
Because the quote can also be used as a tool of manipulation. This is even more common if you grew up without experiencing an environment to grow up with in which you experienced love. If you don’t know what real love looks like? It’s awfully hard to recognize it from toxic relationships.
Every relationship has hard times. No matter how much love is involved, everyone gets stressed. Everyone has a breaking point. Everyone has a line in the sand. And everyone is entitled to their limits and taking steps to ensure their own mental and physical health. But abusive situations often contain a lot of guilt trips and passive aggressive statements surrounding the idea behind this quote.
If you REALLY loved me, you’d understand. If you REALLY loved me, you’d give me another chance. If you REALLY loved me……
I lived in a relationship like that for too long.
Yes, love means that you absolutely love the person despite their physical state, despite their mental illness, despite their trauma, despite their hurdles. Because the person is so much bigger and so much more than that alone. HOWEVER!!! Love doesn’t mean that you have to put up with being abused because they’re not putting in the work with their own issues to not hurt you. You can love them, and still walk away because you are important enough to not be a verbal or literal punching bag. Love isn’t being expected to fix their problems by constantly modifying your behavior so they don’t have to. Love isn’t being expected to constantly allow your boundaries to be crossed and disrespected.
Have open and honest discussions about any problems. Walk away when you feel you want to scream at each other. Find compromises when you can and work together on other options when you can’t. But do not bully the other person for having boundaries and do not allow yourself to be made to feel less human because you are sticking to yours.
I’m keenly aware that this is a difficult subject amongst the zebras. There’s so many in the discussion groups that I see where their partners up and leave because it just got too much for them. I’m not in their relationships, so I’m in no spot to even speculate on what happened or if there were other things that could have been done. I empathize with them because that’s an incredible pain, even if it happens to be mutual. I illustrated that fear in the very beginning of this post.
And I wanted to be angry about the quote. To make corrections and say that’s not always the case and how that can be a bad thing too. To warn people not to post things like that.
And the more positive turn that I promised…
Despite all of this, and some of the darker more intimate aspects of this thought process that I refrained from the elaboration of…I came back to that initial feeling I had about this whole quote.
I sat with all of these thoughts for a few days. I let all of the memories pass through, gave them their space, and “talked” to them. At risk of sounding like I’m anthropomorphizing them, the two sides kind of argued in my head. One was screaming that the post was dangerous and full of misinformation, while the other just kind of sat and softly smiled…with love. Simply existed, full of the love I’ve experienced thus far.
One of the things my therapist and I have worked on over our time together, was that if you didn’t have the love growing up? Give it to yourself. Be that source of love for yourself. Get help if you are incapable of doing that, because all of you are worthy of feeling that love. Doesn’t matter if you’re healthy or a zebra that’s a constant medical train wreck.
You are worthy of love.
You deserve love.
You can experience love.
Love doesn’t have to be happiness all the time. It doesn’t mean there will never be arguments. It doesn’t mean there will never be pain. It doesn’t mean hurt will be less in bad times. It doesn’t mean personal limits are negligible. But it means that you’re seen and appreciated for all that you are. That you can have the more painful discussions cushioned in that love you have for each other.
I didn’t have the “bad feeling” reaction to the quote because there’s actually something wrong with it. I had that reaction because the trauma part of my brain was trying to give me a warning to protect me. To remind me not to trust blindly just because *I* feel love towards someone. To remember that love is much bigger and much more significant than people who abuse the concept for their own purposes. To remember not to bleed my trauma over beautiful things, and instead sit and “talk” with it and divide the trauma response from the reality of the situation.
It’s also served as a personal reminder to how far I’ve come over the years. To remember that trauma isn’t ever fully gone, and that’s okay. It’s not a personal failing when it comes back, it’s an opportunity to reevaluate your beliefs and adjust or take action if necessary. To appreciate the love that I have in my life. And be grateful for the reminder that for as bad as things were…it’s learning to give that love to myself that opened up the ability to accept it from others. Though it can still be touch and go sometimes because brain chemicals are a pain in the ass, and it certainly doesn’t fix everything, it makes the world so much better to live in. Give the love you need to yourself, and it makes it easier to express it in healthy ways to others.
Because real life and human nature will always have boundaries. But love? Love doesn’t see the little things. It sees the most important things about ourselves and embraces the light that our soul creates. And feeling that, even if it’s just from yourself, is worth facing every hardship and every hurdle.
I wish all the love to each and every one of you.
