How to Love Someone Who is Hurting

I have learned more than my fair share about how to love someone in pain during the course of my life. But watching my daughter struggle through a long term illness has reminded me that it is the little things that can make all the difference.

Most people who are dealing with a long term illness or a trauma don’t expect you to fix it for them.  My daughter is in pain every single minute of every single day. You wouldn’t know it to look at her because when she knows you are looking, she puts on her brave face. She smiles and laughs. She is a good faker so it isn’t until you look deep into her eyes that you see the pain lurking there. You ask her how she is doing and her gut response is “fine”. That is the right answer, isn’t it? Isn’t that what people want to hear?

You have to ask again to get the true response. “Fine” is the knee jerk response. It is testing the waters to see if you really want to know. Unfortunately, most people don’t want to know more than “fine”. It gets messy when you aren’t “fine”. It gets awkward and uncomfortable.

But ask again…”how are you really” and you might get the real response. For my daughter, the answer is, “My head hurts”.  All day long, every single day…her head hurts. There are varying intensity levels – some days the pain is at a “6” on the pain scale. This is a good day. She might be able to read and do a little bit of homework. She might be able to go to school and pay attention to her teachers. Her head will still hurt…but it is doable. But most days, the headache weighs in at an 8 or higher. On the scale they have at the doctor’s office – the “8” is a grimacing face. It is extreme pain. My daughter hides her grimace and her tears. She doesn’t want to burden anyone with her pain.

Hiding how you really feel works for a while. But when the pain is bad, there is a breaking point. There is a time when you just can’t pretend things are fine anymore. For my daughter, recently her body just gave out. She pushed so hard for so long that she no longer has days that weigh in at “6”. She is at an “8” every day. She can’t go to school, do homework, concentrate for too long…she needs lots of rest and gets exhausted easily. She wants to push through the pain but her body is rebelling.

How do you help someone going through this kind of pain? There is nothing that fixes it. No medicine you can give that takes it away (believe me we have tried), nothing you can do to help relieve the pain. It seems hopeless…and this is where most people bail. Not seeing a tangible thing that will help – they don’t know what to do so they do nothing. After all, it is easy to do nothing. Out of sight …out of mind. It isn’t that they don’t want to help most of the time…they just don’t know how.

But there really are things you can do to help someone who is hurting – whether that is physical pain like Molly or emotional pain. You can be there.

How can you be there? There is the obvious…visit. Visit often and for short or long periods of time. Molly is home alone all day long every day by herself. She has one friend who comes over every day after school and just sits with her. She takes her to Target or to visit her dog or to McDonalds for a Diet Coke. She sits and watches television with her, does homework with her, strokes her head when she is in pain. She gives her hugs and reminds her that other people care and are asking about her. Everyone needs this kind of friend -the friend that doesn’t need to be entertained and understands that sometimes you have no words to ask for help. She just shows up and is there.

But visits don’t have to be long. Stop by any time you can spare five minutes. Maybe you just give a hug or make a meal. Bring Starbucks or a silly gift. Reminders that you are not being forgotten and that people care make a huge difference. Molly had her band director stop by on a moment’s notice to pray for her the other night. He was at the house for 5 minutes but she felt cared for and loved. It doesn’t take long.

Send cards, texts, Skype, phone calls…just be intentional about communicating often. Talk about what is going on in the outside world…this is important. But it is more important to ask questions. How are you doing? Are you sad? Are you lonely? You can’t fix these things but you can listen and let someone know they are loved.

Because after all…isn’t that what it is all about?

Regrettable Silence

"I have often regretted my speech, never my silence." - Xenocrates (396-314 B.C.)

Most people regret opening their mouths. They have stories of times they have said the wrong thing, and wished they could take it back. I have the opposite. I regret my silence.

I regret my silence when I was 10 years old, always afraid to share my interests and thoughts for fear of being rejected. I morphed myself into what I thought everyone else wanted me to be rather than expressing my own uniqueness.

I regret my silence that day I was singing loud in choir and the girl in front of me told me I was a show off. I didn’t speak up then and from that day forward I stopped having fun in choir – which had been my favorite class. The doubts were too strong for me to overcome.

I regret my silence the day in 8^th grade when the boy in my algebra class asked me if I liked Gary. I was so sure he was making fun of me that I lied and said of course not. I missed the opportunity to boost my self-esteem by letting a boy like me.

I regret my silence when other kids were being picked on or teased. I watched silently, too afraid of turning the heat on myself to stand up for them. I wanted so desperately to be accepted and liked that I let behavior slide that I shouldn’t have.

I curled into an imaginary little ball, just like the child who puts their hands over their eyes thinking others can’t see them. I decided being invisible was more important than being a target.

I sat by and watched my friends try out for softball and student council and the musical because any of these things would have caused me to be seen. And being seen was scary. Better to stay quiet…and so the opportunities were missed.

This silencing of myself caused deep wounds that followed me into adulthood. I continued to think it was okay to stay silent in the pursuit of being what I thought others wanted me to be. This translated into allowing a husband to verbally abuse me, not only in private but in public settings. I didn’t think I deserved better. I thought staying silent was my only option.

This also translated into every other realm of my life. I had manipulative bosses that I allowed to walk on me – staying silent when they took the credit or passed the blame. I allowed friends to treat me poorly, thinking it was easier to stay silent when they stood me up for the fourteenth time, didn’t call me back or didn’t ask me how I was doing in the midst of pain. I didn’t think my feelings were important enough to share…and I shut down and shut them out and got even quieter.

I saw a movie recently in which the main character asked why people allowed others to hurt them over and over without doing something. “We accept the love we think we deserve.” was the profound answer.

How true is that statement? I spent my life keeping quiet because I felt that my opinion or thoughts or feelings were not worth voicing. I kept the peace, for sure, but I didn’t keep myself from being hurt – which had been my goal all along.  I built a wall of silence around myself. A wall that was difficult to demolish once it was firmly anchored.

Luckily, somewhere in the journey I discovered my voice through writing. The blank page called to me and allowed me to put a voice to my feelings and thoughts that I had never allowed to see the light of day. I could hide in safety of the page while still allowing my thoughts to be heard. And others read the words and were moved and touched…and pieces of me began to heal.

I have decided that I am done being silent. Words have healed me and allowed me to learn to shout and laugh and sing and most importantly…they have allowed me to be seen. 

When God Screams…Maybe I Should Listen

I tend to have things happen to me in clusters and this is typically how God chooses to teach me something. This is often a very painful experience involving everything in my life exploding into tiny little shards leaving me nothing to cling to. Sadly, during these times I don’t seem to learn the lesson God wants me to learn and I find myself turning inward instead of upwards.  This perpetuates the cycle and I find myself needing to learn the same lessons over and over again as pieces of my life continue to disintegrate.I have become used to this pattern and have often asked God why I can’t learn lessons by having lots of good things happen.
Until now, He has been silent on this subject.

Until now, that is.

A few weeks ago, I decided out of the blue to go to a women’s retreat all by myself. This retreat was at a church I had never visited, but had heard good things about. I tried halfheartedly to find a friend to attend with me, but it was last minute and no one was available. I didn’t really care. I decided to go by myself. There was no impetus to this decision other than I felt that I had to do something to get myself back into community in the church.  Slowly over the past few months, I have been emerging from the rubble that was my last church experience and had begun to shake the dust off my feet.

I figured the worst case scenario would be that I would have a weekend in a nice hotel away from my life – and maybe have a few good conversations along the way, maybe hear a good speaker. I honestly had no other expectations. 

From the minute I walked into the doors of the conference room at the retreat, I was sought out and welcomed. I met the women at my table who immediately were treating me like I was one of their friends. This threw me a little bit. They didn’t know me at all (which frankly was kind of nice – they didn’t know me because of where I worked or what I did). They just accepted me into the table and treated me like I belonged.

This was incredibly refreshing, but as you know, I used to work at a church and so I knew that they knew I was there alone and had probably been given a heads up to make me feel welcome. I didn’t care – the welcome felt genuine and real. And I hadn’t felt that in a long time.

Midway through the weekend, a friend texted me and asked me how it was going.  This is my response verbatim: “I am having a good time. Met some really nice people. Very inclusive…although I suspect they sat me with this group intentionally and they have been told to connect me.”

My friend, who is amazing and is one of few who really know me said: ‘Hmmmm…I’d like to believe that you are just that awesome and they want to be your friend!”

Of course, I didn’t accept that answer.  I deflected it with some witty comment and went on with my weekend, at the end of which was invited to sit with 4 different people at church, invited to all the ministries they were involved in, became Facebook friends and exchanged phone numbers. It was all a little overwhelming but again felt very nice. That is actually where I expected it to end. But to a person – each and every one of the wonderful women I met has followed up with me via text and Facebook and made good on their invitations.

So that was the first thing that made me smile and feel good inside and maybe begin to believe that God wanted good things for my life. Because you see…deep down I didn’t really believe that anymore.  I was in crisis management mode all of the time and it had become a way of life.

Then I started reading a book my awesome longtime friend had recommended to me called “Daring Greatly” by Brene Brown. Of course, everything I was reading was lining up with everything I was seeing in my life. I was beginning to see how shame and low self-worth was causing me to live a crippled life. I wasn’t allowing people to love me because I wasn’t loving myself.

Simultaneously to these experiences, a friend was going through a hard time and coming to me for counsel. For the first time in a long time, I was able to remember that one of the gifts God has given me is the gift of encouragement. My past experiences enabled me to empathize and counsel in ways that were providing encouragement to her. And I began to feel alive again and remember what it felt like to live out of my true self…not a lot just a little.

God was speaking to me and I was hearing Him a little bit.  But apparently I was not quite getting it because He started shouting.

In the past 24 hours, a multitude of things have converged that have caused me to sit up and really listen.

I randomly decided (I decide a lot of things randomly apparently) to give away a bunch of books on my Facebook page. I get a lot of books and never read them. I hate clutter. I like to give things to people…hey, this sounds fun. Literally this was my thought process.

Suddenly I was hearing from people I haven’t heard from in a long time and getting little messages of encouragement from them simply because I was giving something I got free away.

Then in a string of Facebook comments, I made an offhanded comment stating that one of the perks of seeing me all the time is that I get free books all of the time. I wasn’t thinking about it – fishing for anything. I just said it off the cuff. One of my new friends, who I really hadn’t had much time to get to know yet, said: “Amie – the perk of seeing you all of the time is SEEING YOU ALL OF THE TIME. Let’s be honest.”

Okay seriously, this compliment knocked me to my knees. This was basically what my other friend had said (and I promise they don’t know each other – no one was in cahoots here). I immediately thought, what did I say or do to Ashley to make her think this?  She obviously doesn’t know me.

I didn’t say this to her. I thanked her and she gave me another compliment. All of these compliments at one time was a little overwhelming. This was all happening at the same exact time I was texting another new friend and she was being equally sweet and complimentary.

What am I doing to evoke all of this?  I have no freaking idea…and this is not a normal experience for me and I am kind of off balance by all of it at this point.

So I drank a glass of wine…shook it off and went to bed. This was not the right response apparently…so God decided to bring it all to a climax this morning in one loud crescendo.

I awoke today to a Facebook message sending me to this blog post which again brought me to tears. I felt God was calling out to me and saying, “I see you. I know what you have gone through and I love you.”

I have no idea why this new friend sent me this blog post. She felt prompted and it spoke to me immensely.

I also had an email in my inbox at work from a coworker. The email was addressed to my boss and it was praising me for being a good worker, kind and compassionate and they were so grateful to be working with me. What was my immediate reaction?  I thought, what did I do to provoke this?  I wracked my brain for any instance of some task I had performed that would prompt such an email. There was nothing. I even asked and the response I got was, “You did nothing. It is just very different since you have arrived here and I appreciate who you are.”

Not what you did…who you are. 

And to top it all off…I got another email from another coworker later in the day that said, “You are the calm in my storm and I appreciate you”.

Okay, God. I hear you.  I really hear you and I am going to accept what you are SHOUTING at me. You love me, not because of ANYTHING I have done. But simply because of who I am.

I don’t know if I am going to be able to keep remembering this truth that I have fully taken to heart today. So I am hoping that God keeps reminding me. Because I have felt true joy in these past few weeks for the first time in a very long time. And for that I am extremely grateful.

If you are one of the people who allowed God to use your voice to penetrate my stubborn heart this week, thank you. Your words have meant more than you would ever have thought.

Wallflower Memories

Sometimes I forget how different the communication is between my daughter and I. It is only when other people comment on it that I remember. What we have is very special.

Last night, Molly's friend Rachael was over and we were all catching up on Glee. Watching television with Molly and I is never a quiet event...it involves a constant commentary, frequent pausing to tell a story, and lots of laughter. Last night, Rachael started laughing halfway through and when questioned she just said, "You two are hilarious."  Yes, I suppose we are. It must be why I enjoy spending time with her so much.

Last night's episode of Glee prompted me to tell the girls a story from my childhood.  Something I had completely forgotten. I had gone to a Christian school and therefore didn't have school dances. But for our 8th grade graduation, one of the girls in our class decided to have a dance in her garage. Molly questioned how on earth we could have the entire 8th grade in someone's garage, until I reminded her that we went to a small school. That night was my first experience as a wallflower. I was so shy and self-conscious that I had never had a boyfriend and didn't have many friends. But I had gone to this dance anyway, knowing I was moving away in a few days and would never see any of these people again.

For some reason that night I decided to be brave, perhaps for one of the first times in my life. I don't know if it was because I was moving, because I felt stupid just standing there or because I finally wanted to see what it was like to be confident, but I decided to ask a boy to dance.  I remember surveying the crowded garage and seeing my classmates dancing. There were clusters of people against the walls chatting and everyone seemed to be friendly and willing to dance with anyone. It was never going to get better than this.

I chose my target carefully. It couldn't be someone I had ever actually liked. I didn't want that rejection. I finally decided to ask a boy named Ben. I don't remember Ben's last name, I just have a vague memory of a tall skinny Asian boy. I don't remember much about him at all. But I remember what he said. That I remember very clearly.

I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. "Do you want to dance?" I said. He looked at his friends quickly and then very loudly said, "NO! I would never dance with you."

I don't remember how I got outside, but I do remember standing in a dark corner of the backyard for the rest of the night - which was probably hours...crying.  I don't know if anyone had even talked to me all night at that dance. I don't recall it.  No one came to my rescue, consoled me...even acknowledged I was there.

I have no idea how Ben felt about what happened. Whether he made fun of me with his friends, never thought of it again...felt badly afterwards. But I do know that that experienced marked me very deeply. It wasn't the first time something like that had happened, sadly. But for some reason it stands out as the culmination of my childhood. I was the outsider...for reasons I could never understand. And I had a choice in that moment. I could choose to live my life as the sad little wallflower who no one wanted. Or I could choose to see the truth.

The truth was that teenage boys are sometimes mean...for many reasons. Perhaps he didn't know how to dance, liked another girl, had a bad day, didn't like me...whatever. It didn't mean that there was something wrong with me. And sometimes I wish I had chosen to see the truth. How different my life would be today. But sadly, I struggled with my self worth for many years afterwards and lost a lot of opportunities because of it.

There is nothing I can do about that really. But what I can do is try to teach my daughter to be proud of who she is, to be kind to others and to love herself. When I see glimpses of those traits in her, it heals some of those broken remnants of my childhood in some small way.