The Struggle

When I write about a day to day struggle to keep going through pain, a lot of you know exactly what I'm talking about before I finish the first sentence. The same thing applies to various other chronic illnesses especially the invisible ones. It's a struggle to manage the current that tries to pull you under the water and drown you. Remaining still for too long hurts but so does moving. You can put one foot in front of the other and get somewhere even if it's not very far. There's a sneaky little trick of the sort that "the kids" might call a life hack which happens to be more literal than most. If you're alive, you're doing well.

Unfortunately, there's another similar struggle that's far more common than most believe. I'm referring to psychological and/or sexual abuse. In this case, you and your abuser appear to engage in a pact to drown you so that it looks as if he tried to save you but failed heroically. The truth may not set you free but it's better than dealing with this undertow. The truth is helpful because there are falsehoods that are accepted  so easily that it's common to call them medicine. "It was a bitter pill to swallow." I'm talking about the false connection between your personal strength and how well you survive a history of abuse.

"In the end, his strength failed him as he succumbed to mere memories from decades ago." Believing your abuser more than yourself is a problem with layers each deserving its own Charlie Brown scream. "Well, she grew up the same way you did and she turned out just fine." That's a fun one because it has so many factual flaws in it. First of all, no two people grow up under the exact same circumstances. Second, I've dealt with spina bifida my whole life. When you factor that in, I turned out to be pretty well adjusted.

"John likes to blame others for all his problems. The simplest solution is often the correct one and so John is completely at fault." The devil is in the details here. It is true that I make my share of mistakes and there are times when I make more than my share. This was a near deadly attack against me too many times because there were at least two schools of thought. One was that I liked to blame others for my mistakes to avoid having the blame put on me. The second was that I was a real arrogant SOB for believing that I could avoid making the initial mistakes.

Either I was an arrogant SOB who believed in my own perfection, someone who blamed others for all his problems or could there be a third answer? I had been advised that I was too smart to fall short of near perfection The proposed solution to this problem is to just do what I'm told. When I was five or eight, this wasn't a consideration. Didn't everyone do what they were told? When I was ten, I had believed that I was a great many negative things long enough to start considering suicide regularly. Wouldn't everyone be better off? (The answer is no just in case I'm not being clear.) I was ten years old and in the fifth grade and the great puzzle of life seemed to require my death. All they wanted from me was for me to do my best which meant something unobtainable.

Call this a tangent that got out of hand if you'd like but my point is about the struggle. I'm struggling to get through a contest where winning and losing is measured by life and death. By those rules, I am way ahead adding whatever I can to the cause of life (as I define it not in terms of any political debate) by continuing on trying to get a laugh or to make like better in more practical ways. I've not just lived for 41 years with my difficulties. Before I was 18, I earned the rank of Eagle Scout without asking for the official accomodations that you could get back then. Instead, the friends too numerous to name helped me even when it was my first Patrol Leader with whom I've recently reconnected here or the boys (they never aged in my head) who roasted me so well at my Eagle Award dinner. I remember my first Patrol Leader helping me out the most by having me focus on where I could improve. Having never heard a flaw expressed as an opportunity before, I had no problem replying that I needed to be more cheerful. It was a new way of looking at life and no Scouting challenge ever led me to despair though I still see more mistakes and weaknesses than positives.

I learned two major guiding lights in that time of my life. Always resist despair and never find an excuse to hurt someone else. I mean really hurt them not something you can both agree is funny. It all sounds so serious written out here but it came down to little choices. If you had the chance to humiliate someone, do something else and you'll both have more fun. In a basketball game, you can deflect a shot away or you can slam it in the guy's face. Don't slam it in his face unless you're both professionals. You can be competitive, play to win and all that without any humiliation. If you're in a sudden windstorm in the dark and cold, make sure the little guy's tent is secured before working on your own. That might mean a bunch of little guys going to chase down your tent that's flying maybe two feet off the ground and catching it just before it would have flown into the campfire. I wasn't in the tent but they saved me more than a bad weekend, after all.

As I mentioned before, I'm 41 and that doesn't bother me on the face of it. What bothers me is that part of me varying in size from moment to moment holds this desperate desire for my mother or father's approval. When I let that part of me lead the way, I go to a very bad place. I learned despair seeking parental approval and it is a deadly serious despair when it takes hold of me. Despite my struggle to survive, do the right thing, find a path forward for me in life and to keep growing, I learned that I could never  earn the approval from him that I need.

My New York family does what they can and they are the closest I've ever come to having birth parents who didn't want a refund. It's a wonderful feeling but these aren't my formative years anymore. Therefore, every action I take has the equal and opposite reaction of disapproval in absentia.