(Stand in the Rain – Superchic[k])
What if what people pride you for is really one of your major weaknesses? What if what people envy in your personality is what has kept you stuck…
Welcome to Wiggle Worm’s label of “resilient” “persistent” “strong” “brave.” I watched a video this morning that made me really think about why I really don’t easily walk away from challenging situations…and spoiler alert, it isn’t because it isn’t hard or doesn’t bother me.
Yeah, I don’t often give up when things get hard. Sure, I push through physical and emotional pain and say ‘I’m fine.’ But I don’t feel resilient. I don’t feel brave. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.
Y’all, keeping going doesn’t always mean you’re doing a great job navigating a difficult situation. Sometimes it means you are terrified. As someone who values consistency and predictability, it feels safer to stay in a very unsafe and uncomfortable known situation than to make a change and end up in a very unknown situation in which there is no promise it actually will be better. That doesn’t sound like a positive trait to me…it sounds like being unable to prioritize safety over consistency.
It is scary to go a new direction. It is especially scary when that new direction holds no guarantees it will lead to something better. And I tend to be more scared of the unknown that might be okay than the known danger.
Right now I am understanding how this story has played out more than once in my life. I remember being in college and trying to figure out how to keep 989 happy to keep her from causing me more problems. In retrospect, like of course I should have gotten a new counselor, but at the time I felt like the best answer was to just keep trying to figure out how to get her to treat me with respect…like yeah, it totally didn’t work. Perhaps later I should have found a way to transfer to a different school rather than continue to be controlled by someone who, for example, tried to get me kicked out of school because I wrote on my blog that I didn’t like a particular CD…that apparently she enjoyed…like lol are you serious? You’re gonna complain that I am unprofessional and disrespectful because I commented on my personal blog that I loved being able to be a part of a new place on campus to relax but preferred to listen to my own music with my earbuds because I didn’t love the music playing in the space?? Like for real? Everyone gets to have their own opinions. And the quiet music in my earbuds isn’t taking away your ability to listen to the music playing over the speakers in the room. You let me live my life, and you can live your own…but nope, I continued to press on through it all because I was afraid of the possible negative consequences of going to another school where it might not actually be better. I continued to live in fear, trying to figure out how to express myself without inciting more attacks. I think the part of that situation that bothers me the most is the part where a club I led put on an event about stalking. I saw something that made it look like she was going and reached out to my advocate. I was ready to tell my team I was sorry but I couldn’t be there if she was going to be there. My advocate reached out to her and she said she definitely wasn’t going as she had another engagement during that period of time. Phew! Well, I walked into the room and there she was…Uggh…thinking perhaps she was just helping set up and was on her way out but also knowing that she might know I had specifically asked about her presence and decided to change her mind, I took a seat as far as possible from where her belongings were set down…and from this set up, you can probably see where this is going. Yep, she had traded places with one of the speakers for my event…and not only that, when she wasn’t speaking she moved her stuff to sit at the desk right next to mine. What was supposed to be a positive lunch event with my friends became a terrifying and isolating experience.
And then a couple years ago when I was in the worst job of my life. Being assaulted at work and terrified of it happening again was not a good way to live…and yet I felt like I had to get through the year. The known trauma zone felt better than leaving and walking into an unknown where maybe no one would want me because I was a quitter. And I’d fought so hard to be there in the first place. It was supposed to be my dream come true, so how could I just walk away?…
And that is how this girl doesn’t just walk away might sound super positive, but has been far from positive. Now I am learning to stand up for myself. I am learning to ask for help…but at my core I am still the girl who can’t say no and walk away. And that isn’t always great. I want to say I will never let myself end up in one of those bad situations again, but in reality, I have little doubt that at least on a smaller scale it’ll happen again. Lightning might never strike twice, but floods do frequently hit the same place again. I’ve never drowned, but it has been a long hard fight for many years to stay afloat.
A journey through trauma & triumph 