- Learning to Trust Myself – Part 1
I plopped down in the chair that I had become so familiar in while sitting across from a woman that I had grown comfortable being around. I would describe her as slight, small, almost fragile looking, but that would be wrong. Not wrong as in rude, but wrong as in not a true representation. At one point during my 3 weeks in their program, I actually told one of the other providers that this lady was a dangerous woman… she sees things, like tears welling up in my eyes, even before I realize it’s happening… she sees things that are almost imperceptible and she calls attention to the changes even though I’ve already decided in my head to move on, ignore, and cover for them. I am incredibly good at maintaining my bearing and worked really hard to do that in our appointments.
So yeah. There I was, in front of this lady, who somehow was both small and yet filled the room; slight, but sharper than me, an artistic soul and far more genuine and serious than I think I’ve ever been. And, as was expected, she was asking me questions.
One of the projects I had to do during the previous weeks was to create a mask. She gave me a blank one made of some kind of paper mache, and I needed to decorate it. The mask needed to communicate something… and now it gets weird. The directions were way too broad for a guy who likes straight lines and direct objectives. It could represent what I want the world to see on the outside of the mask, and what I keep in on the inside, or what I want to project on the outside and what I want to protect on the inside, or the inside could be how I felt in the past, in one situation, or in general, or what I hope to feel in the future, or what I imagine feelings might look like, or really whatever settles on me when I think about what is, or was, or may be for me, or may be something I can hope for… in me. Blech… just tell me to make the outside good and the inside ugly and I can do that.
But I was fully committed to trusting the process. I knew my life could not continue as it currently existed, and my only other option was to put on a good face, work real hard to provide for my family, and hope for all hope that I would somehow die in an accident after my kids graduated from high school and started their own lives, and preferably not near a holiday so my death wouldn’t ruin their good days as much as my life already has.
The outside of my mask was hard. Not hard to create, but created by me to represent hard. But kind, too. I painted a bronze helmet on a brass face. I put some symbols on the mask for medicine, my highest calling in the Navy, a cross on the forehead, my highest calling in life, and vine with flowers on one side of the helmet, beauty and kindness in a hard and ugly world.
She asked if would share and explain my mask and why I made it as I did. I found myself saying that in the beginning, I thought a mask was a bad thing. (I guess I should write, at some point, why I believed that so much.) I started to think, over the weeks, that a mask isn’t necessarily good or bad. Ski masks keep my face warm when I’m hunting; gas masks keep me breathing when the environment is toxic; a surgical mask protects my patients from whatever bugs are coming out of me. I found myself rabbit-trailing into that line of thinking and started talking about how I think some of my strengths are discernment and being able to see harmful and painful things coming for the people around me. I thought part of that “hard” exterior served me, and my community, very well. I was able to have hard conversations to help those I cared about prepare for those hard times, and when the hard days were hitting with ferocious intensity, I could stand in the storm with my people and offer encouragement and hope and help until the light of day returned.
Of course I was feeling so much. She had already asked me to not turn the faucet of feelings off, but to maybe just let the faucet drip, or run slowly. I could let the feelings flow until I felt they were gushing too quickly and then I could do something else I have become very good at… I could just turn them off then… but instead of turning them off before they flowed, why not let them flow a little first. Like I said, this small lady was dangerous.
I sat there sharing my thoughts and feeling my neck get hot, and my chest get tight, and my hands feel like my skin had turned to leather gloves shrinking steadily on my fingers and thumb. I recognized these sensations as my body’s physical response to fear and emotional pain. I did what she had asked me to start doing, I leaned into it and, while having one conversation with her, in my head started exploring. Why am I hurting? Why am I sad? What am I afraid of?
The betrayal I believe I endured ripped my world apart. I was good at serving others and helping them prepare for, and walk through, hard times. I have no community anymore, though. I don’t know who my friends are anymore. My purpose, the joyful work of my soul is gone. Just tatters of some cloth soaked in blood and caked in dust.
I was grieving. I guess I still am. I imagine my soul has wanted to grieve for years, and not just for this, but for many… many things that I would not acknowledge, would not validate, and would not slow down and take the time needed to let the tears actually fall.
I would not allow my brain, body, or soul to do the work of watering the seeds of my next life. This life must be lived and I can, and will, muscle my way to victory.
I was grieving.
She kept asking questions that sounded like the standard hippy counsel stuff. The magic phrases to get me to keep talking, keep connecting, keep exploring. While that language always makes me uncomfortable, I took it as affirmation that I was doing the work that was needed, and I was heading in the right direction.
I needed to grieve.
She was, quite obviously, leading me down that road because that is where she wanted me to go, and was where I needed to be.
Then she asked me if she could tell me something that might be uncomfortable to hear. “Is that okay?”
“Of course.”
“I hear you talk about moments where your discernment and compassion for others moved you to encourage them to reinforce things that were good in their lives, or change some things to be able to live their lives more fully… I wonder why you can’t do that for yourself? I think the person sitting before me is incredibly capable of helping others when they are hurt. I think you trust yourself to help others in their lives and I fully believe you are good at it….
I think it might be time for you to start trusting yourself…”
I don’t know how it is possible. Clearly, I am emotionally illiterate. I both laughed and cried in the same breath. I don’t know which one she heard, but she asked why.
I had said these words before. When I heard her say them it was a relief, and it was painful and scary. I have not shared this yet, and may never share it fully, but I feel as though I have been deeply betrayed. It seems that everyone involved believes there was no betrayal… that I was hurt or confused and ran away crying “betrayal” as a way to escape accountability. I don’t know. I really don’t. I just know what I saw happening in front of me and to me, and how it felt then, and how it feels now.
In the aftermath of that situation, I was, and still am, incredibly hurt. I responded from that pain and said a lot of things that may not be true. One of those things I said is that I should have trusted myself more. In the moment I knew that was false and felt full of arrogance and like I was grabbing whatever material I could to wrap around myself as a blanket. At the same time, there was something in it that I liked. That scared me because I believed it was simply affirming the pride that is common to all men. It concerned me because I felt it was the on ramp to a highway of “the world is against me” kind of thinking. It worried me because it seemed to do the same thing that a drug would do, bring me comfort and pleasure while being destructive.
But she said it.
I had already said earlier in the week that I felt as though I had finally caught my breath, that I could feel the margins between my thoughts spreading, that I could recognize nuance and context again.
Can I hold this concept in mind and explore trusting me?
Will I truly trust the process, maybe just enough to explore this idea?
Can I pause all thoughts of whether this is good advice, if it is even possible, and look for a moment at what life might look like if I did this?
If I decide to start trusting myself, is it because I surrendered my own thoughts and feelings once again to somebody I have grown to trust?
Am I just repeating the same self-erasure that I committed for all the years leading up to my disintegration?
Or maybe I’ll just breathe.
I’ll put this thought on another tap, turn it on a little every now and then, see what flows out, and turn it off when I think it’s more than I am ready for.
Right now… I think it’s time to eat.
(This is part one of a series about trust, betrayal, faith, injury, fear, and learning how to listen to myself without making myself the final authority. Soon to come – I cannot trust myself)
If you are in immediate danger or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 in the United States and Canada, contact emergency services, or reach out to a trusted person or local crisis resource.