Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Guest Post - Alice Fox

     My fake name is Alice Fox, and while I myself am rather unique, my life is the Utah Mormon norm. I am in my mid twenties, raised in Utah, both my parents are pioneer stock, I have a bunch of siblings, I really do love Jello, I went to a church school, served a mission, and can't figured out how to get married. I am the average Mormon girl.

     When I was in high school I began to recognize, or remember, or accept that something bad had happened to me as a kid. It wasn't way bad though, and it didn't cause me any problems, so I just stuffed it in the back of the brain closet. Last November I recalled that a whole lot more happened than my brain had let me in on before; and I could no longer pretend that everything was okay. Since then life has been hard.
   
    November was hard, but December was worse. What was worse than December was January, and even more still February. March was trying to slaughter my life, and April was succeeding. In May my job started getting busy again, I was able to move out of my parents house, found a therapist I could afford, and talked to my bishop (actually I passed him a peace of paper because there was no way on earth I could say that stuff aloud). June was hard but good. July is doable. I might be able to survive this. I can see a light in the tunnel (though it sure doesn't look like the end), and I no longer think it is a train. Maybe I can become not messed up one day. 

     I was invited to contribute to this blog around December by a friend who has a heart as gold. At first my brain was reeling at the possibilities; I could be a spokesperson for survivors. I could educate and prevent. I could fix society! Then I realized I was a bad bad person. Doing the life thing was hard and full of bad. Everything seemed bad. Now I feel something that is a little less then hope. I think I can become more; I think I can become better. I don't know what changed but I'll take it. Somehow I can accept the bad things right now, and still be okay. And so I choose to write. 

     I hope my different perspective can help someone. If not, that's okay. I think it will still be good for me. I am just starting into this journey of... not being...broken, and bad. Perhaps seeing someone at the start of their journey will help someone. Sometimes I get tired of just reading about 'happy all better people' because I can't relate to that. 
I am just in the broken stage.

     So beside an introduction, here is my thought today. And it really is just a thought; not nearly so concrete as everything else around here.
     I listened to Brene Brown's TED talk on shame, and did some reading in a healing book on shame. Somewhere something clicked and I realized that the den of shame is secrecy. "Don't tell anyone because______." "Keep it secret." "If they don't know they will still love you, and wont judge you." This is so wrong! We need help and we need support and we need love- and not just the parts of us people see. True love loves all of ourselves. When we keep ourselves secret we convince ourselves that they only love us because they don't see the bad part of us. If they saw the dark they would know how evil we were and not to love us. How heart breaking!
     This doesn't mean to go spill you guts to every Kerry, Larry, and Harry! That does not seem safe to me on a great many a level. This means we need and deserve privacy.

    
     The difference in this concept came to me one day when my friend had her journal hanging out in the front room. I asked her why she wasn't worried that her brother would read it- I mean it's a journal, it's full of vulnerable stuff! She explained that he wouldn't because he knew it was private. It wasn't going to be a thought for him, so she didn't have to worry about it. What on earth is this! What a foreign idea! I hide anything personal in layers and layers of computer files in desperate hope that no one will find them. I can't make myself freely write in a journal because I know someone might read it. How is this a thing!
     Privacy, what a great, novel idea. You can keep yourself safe without believing your bad. You can have safety without secrets. By creating some sort of privacy culture you invite, you trust someone to respect the boundaries you put up. In secrecy putting up boundaries means you don't trust that person. In privacy boundaries can be good and healthy! I didn't even know privacy was a real thing; to me privacy was secrets. I can't imagine not hiding the things I care about in boxes in the corner of my room. People live this way! I want that. I don't know how to get it, but I want that.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you so much! Guest poster for sharing! You bring hope in your message! and it is good to hear from people in the beginning and middle of healing! ( I don't think end of healing totally comes until the next life)

    ReplyDelete

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