Why this Matters to Meagan

If one more person tells me to go see a therapist…! Now conjure Donald Duck with his fist and chest raised to the air, and re-read that phrase. With that in mind, you will get close to witnessing me talking with my former mentor recently, including all the sputtering and spitting that that pantsless duck is known for. Why can’t the world make a little room for me instead of shuffling me off into a dark corner?

I have been diagnosed with PTSD from both childhood sexual abuse and from the accident that took my daughter’s life, and that trauma has been triggered a lot over recent years while working with communities on plans to address homelessness. I could’ve used some good therapy early on, though in the 80s and 90s, the decades in which I floundered about as a teenager and young adult, going to therapy was considered shameful – mostly, I think, because it was shameful to have something less than an idyllic life. My parents arranged for me to go to one therapy appointment shortly after I told what had happened to me, but it caused more harm than anything – I can still hear that incompetent ass asking me if it felt good, if I liked it. I didn’t get therapy again until I was 19, while hospitalized for 72 hours in the wake of my suicide attempt.

I appreciate that therapy is much more commonplace now, and that it is generally well-accepted that life isn’t ideal for any of us. I have participated in my fair share of therapy as an adult, and I am sure there will be more to come throughout my life because it can be incredibly helpful to talk with and get guidance from a mental health professional. Here is my contention though: IT SHOULD NOT BE THE ONLY PLACE WE ARE ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT THIS SHIT.

A few years ago, I was working with a leadership coach and discussing all the talk in my professional world about being authentic and showing up as your whole self. I was still figuring out how to navigate my life without a bottle of vodka to ease the pain when it bubbles up, and some days were particularly tough, but I didn’t feel like I could show or talk about any of that struggle, even though I was supposedly expected to show up as my whole, authentic self. Instead, I withdrew, isolated, only connected with others when essential for work. I believed exposing what others would view as weakness would lead to rejection. People wouldn’t want to be around me much less work with me or hire me…yet that was part of my whole, authentic self. I couldn’t make sense of it. Her answer…

“Well, not your whole self.” Hm. I see, thought. I wasn’t confused; it was bullshit.

I want to change that.

I am not interested in turning my work or social conversations into therapy, but…

When someone asks me if I have children, as new acquaintances inevitably do, I want to be able to tell my truth: I have a daughter; she would be 27 today if she had survived the accident with the rest of us. Her 11-year-old spirit is with me every day. (The words on her grave marker, taken from the book I read to her so many times, echo in my mind: As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.)

When my PTSD gets triggered, I want to be able to take a day off or move meetings to another day to give myself a little room to feel and breathe and move through the pain rather than stuff it. I want to be able to do that without any negative repercussions – as if I fractured my ankle from stumbling on a crack in the sidewalk and needed to care for the fracture.

If I could turn back time and make everyone feel comfortable sharing their own struggles, I would drink it all in...feel less alone, broken, crazy, hopeless. I believe that I wouldn’t have tried to end my life when I was 19 or dwelled on the idea of it so much after my daughter died if I didn’t feel so alone.

Maybe I wouldn’t have needed to drown my pain in booze and other drugs—and come so close to losing my home and everything else if not for the good fortune that I still had a couple people in my life with resources and wherewithal to help pay the bills and remind me that I matter.

If I am working with a community on homelessness or other symptoms of societal failure to make room for the fullness of our humanity, I want to be able to share my own experience, strength, and hope when it is useful for building understanding – without some misguided notion that those experiences make me any more biased than someone who has not.

I don’t want to hide anymore.

I don’t want anyone else to hide either.

This project – OnSurviving – it matters because we matter. It matters because this world can be better for us. It matters because we can be better for the world when our struggles aren’t shoved into the shadows.

Maya Angelou once said, “If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Normal is nonsense. I say to my friend Noblelee and anyone who wishes to join us in this journey, “Let’s take it all on.” Let’s shine a bright light into the shadows. Let’s see how amazing we can be.