I was quite a lonely child growing up. In fact I feel that loneliness has produced the greatest ongoing pain in my whole life. I was the youngest and my next older sibling was my brother who was 6 years older than I. I was definitely not in his circle of friends to hang out with. My parents were older than most kids parents my age. They didn’t do much with me either. Most of my school classmates lived far away and none really close enough hang out with. I believe that I pretty much left alone to navigate the complexities of life on my own.
I can remember at times really hurting for some or any connection from anybody. Walking around the house just sobbing. My dad’s quick answer was “Stop your crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” You see he espoused the firm belief that “Children should be seen and NOT heard”. The only comfort I received from my mother was “Stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Yes that’s right. Not very comforting at all.
What they seemed to be teaching me was that its was never OK to let people know that I was hurting and even if I did, they don’t really care anyway. Years of going to church didn’t help me much either. Mostly when I would meet somebody on Sunday morning and they greet me with “How’s it going?” Instead of answering the question deeply and honestly like I would want to, I would just say “Fine” and move on. To say more is not only socially unacceptable, but has the potential to create even more damage when their reaction shows how much they just don’t really care. It’s the same way in most of our modern culture. Suppress your true feelings. Don’t admit to feeling any pain. Just smile and be nice. Meanwhile that inner pain just becomes like background noise in your life. Perhaps like a toothache that is never treated, always there and never acknowledged or dealt with and maybe growing more severe over time.
I believe that over the 60 plus years of my life, the people that I have shared this pain with have for the most part wanted to be ‘fixers’. What I mean is that their answer mostly external “Try Harder” exercises. They say things like “You are thinking wrong”, “I had worse parents than yours, and I got ‘over’ my hurts”. In the past several weeks. I believe that I just hear Jesus saying “I know you are broken, I love you anyway. I came an shed my blood out of my ultimate love for you.” I see myself now still broken and I believe I have to accept that. My broken pieces are being knitted back to wholeness by the blood of Jesus which is the only thing that can keep my broken pieces together.
I thank God for Celebrate Recovery where I can be honest about my feelings, hurts, habits and hangups. It’s a safe place where you can open up and speak about the unspeakable things that are undermining your life and driving you to seek comfort many times through highly addictive substances and behaviors.