“Hi, how are you?”
It’s one of the simplest, most common questions, but it’s been so hard for me to answer recently.
If I were to answer that question honestly these days it would often sound like, “I’m bad. I don’t feel like I’m doing well at all. I’m in a lot of pain. I don’t feel well physically and I’m scared and disappointed.” I feel like I should answer, “I’m good, thank you,” but for some reason that doesn’t feel right anymore. It feels like a violation of my heart to push the pain aside, to pretend it’s all rainbows and unicorns and “God is so good” when really it feels more like all the shit has hit all the fans. Send in all the help and all the wine ASAP.
Of course I have happy moments and good days, but for the most part the last few months have been marked by a lot of pain. The pain of being diagnosed with a chronic illness for which there is no cure, the pain of having to get rid of most of my belongings due to the diagnosis, the pain of facing a potential future that looks drastically different than what I’ve always imagined, the pain of believing that God is going to heal me but feeling disappointment in the waiting, the pain of saying goodbye to family and friends and my home to move across the country, the pain of not being able to get out of bed some days.
I thought that moving to Redding and starting BSSM would be the opposite of painful. I thought it would look like joy and fun and laughter and drowning out all the pain, but it hasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love NorCal and Bethel and BSSM and I don’t at all regret my decision to move. But it has been hard. I think partly because being here and being faced with a model for family and church and life that feels so healthy and happy and whole makes you face the dysfunction in your own life. The pain of realizing, “Wow, that was not okay that I was treated like that, that I believed that about myself/God, that my situation looked like that…
And I think it’s also due to the fact that I finally have time and space to process.
And for the first time I feel invited to feel instead of ignore the pain. I’ve been good at sweeping the pain under the rug and pretending it’s not there, but unfortunately it seems that all the pain won’t fit under the rug anymore. Or maybe I had to sweep it under there for a season so I could survive the trauma and chaos and function while trying to make sense of my situation and prep for a cross country move. Either way, I’ve now had to face the fact that I may have to actually take out the pain, look it straight in the eyes and let myself feel it.
And that’s terrifying. But also relieving because I hear that feeling pain is the first step towards healing and that feels like Hope to me.
I’ve found that people sometimes try to convince you that you shouldn’t feel pain. When they see your tears they say, “No don’t cry. It’s all going to be okay.” Or “God’s in control. Just choose joy. This trial is making you stronger.” Maybe those people are ones who stuffed their pain too, those that can’t handle their own pain and so can’t handle yours either.
What if what we need when we’re in pain isn’t, “Don’t cry. It’ll be okay,” but rather, “I’m so sorry. I see your pain. I’m here. You’re safe to feel it. You’re doing a good job.”
Glennon Doyle Melton writes in Love Warrior (my latest inspiration), “People who are hurting don’t need Avoiders, Protectors, or Fixers. What we need are patient, loving witnesses. People to sit quietly and hold space for us. People to stand in helpless vigil to our pain…It’s a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up.”
People ask me all the time, “What do you need?” or “What can I do?” I’ve had the hardest time answering that question but I think I’ve started to formulate an answer. What do I need? What I need is NOT for people to remind me to be joyful in affliction or to tell me why I shouldn’t be sad or scared or angry. (I want to punch those people in the face.) Or people telling me about how this supplement or this doctor will fix all my problems (because clearly they are an expert in the disease they’d never heard of until 5 minutes ago. I want to punch those people too).
What I’m discovering that I do need, though, is for people to be with me in my pain. People that will let me feel what I need to feel without wanting to run away or tell me why I shouldn’t feel that way. People that say, “I’m with you in this. We are going to get through this together.” People that can believe for my healing but not need me to believe with them.
And sometimes I need wine. Lots of red wine. And Dark chocolate. And fresh juice from Roots Juice Bar. Sometimes I need to not shower and put my hair in a greasy bun. And sometimes I need to curl my hair and put on red lipstick and be reminded that I can still be sassy and fun in the midst of pain.
But most of all I need to give myself permission and grace to feel the pain and grief and be kind to myself no matter how much of a crazy, hot, emotional mess I appear to be. I keep telling the nice new people I’m meeting here,”I’m not usually like this. I just want you to know I don’t always weep like this everyday. I’m usually pretty and put together and stable and calm.” When I get tired of crying, I’m tempted to just sweep everything under the rug, to put it back in the nice box and hide it in the closet again. But something about that doesn’t sit right with me anymore. It doesn’t feel like the right direction. As much as I’d like to be able to wear mascara again, I’d rather have a whole heart and this seems to be a necessary (and valuable) part of that process.
XOXO, KB
katherine betty 