They Lied

We mistook what they knew and taught for truth, and somewhere along the way, we began to believe that what was familiar was the only way

For a couple of months now, I have struggled with a lot of difficult questions about how I respond to things, the why of it, and what that ultimately says about me.

So far, the only answer I seem to have is that I feel strongly.

It is a recurring message I have heard from some people. And if I'm not mistaken, it was never really meant as a compliment. Yes, I can admit that I am sensitive. Actually, very sensitive. I take offense at things that are offensive. Recently, I have learned that witnessing unjust behaviour, especially when it happens without clarity or accountability, really sets me off.

So I guess I am guilty of feeling strongly, but I am not ashamed of it.

I don't think there is anything wrong with feeling strongly about yourself. I will admit that maybe I need to learn more about how to carry it well in a world that expects well-packaged ways of feeling and responding. Ways that are acceptable. Ways that make sense. Ways that, more often than we realise, are deeply gendered.

Women should respond this way. Men should respond that way.

Women are supposed to be gentle and nurturing. Men are  supposed to be strong and assertive. And when someone doesn't fit neatly into these expectations, we don't always question the expectation.

We question the person.

Ever wondered if these expectations were not the full truth about what a person is supposed to look like. Yesterday, I saw something that changed the way I thought about this. A carriage horse lost control in a small town i recently moved to and ran towards a three persons of which one has autism spectrum disorder. And as we might expect from most people in a situation like that, there would normally be some kind of immediate response: fight, flight, or freeze. 

The two ran out of its way  while the other with ASD did not. He continued his pace even though he saw the horse. My heart dropped as i saw him hit to the ground with a smile on his face.  And even after being hit, he seemed more concerned with getting up and continuing on his way. He appeared to be bleeding, and as if what just happened to him wasn't enough  people around him were shouting at him for not responding "normally" like the others. What struck me was how quickly the focus became his reaction rather than what had happened to him.

Instead of asking, Why did he respond this way? There seemed to be an assumption that he had responded incorrectly.  But what if he didn't ?  

What if that was simply how his body and mind processed what had happened ? We are so accustomed to certain responses that we have turned them into rules.

Fight.

Flight.

Freeze.

Sometimes dissociate.

And because most of us recognise these responses, we have started treating them as the only legitimate ways to experience fear, pain, shock, anger, grief, or even joy.

But what about the people who don't respond like us? If human beings are truly equal, shouldn't that equality include the dignity of being different ? Shouldn't it mean that I don't have to respond to an experience in the way you would respond for my response to be valid ?

I don't know what his internal experience was, and no one  should automatically interpret a different response as a wrong response. And honestly, I don't know that there was necessarily something different he could have done in that moment given His difference. And if only people had taken time to simply recognised that difference instead of immediately treating it as a failure, perhaps they could have responded to him in a way that preserved his dignity and helpful to him.

That, to me, is the problem we have as human beings.

We are frightened by what we don't understand.

And sometimes we are even more frightened by what doesn't fit the categories we have created, because understanding difference requires something from us.

It requires patience.

It requires curiosity.

It requires us to stop assuming that our way of experiencing the world is the default setting for everyone else.

And that is uncomfortable because we have packaged humanity based on our comfort. We have created so many little boxes for people.

The strong one, the emotional one, the difficult one, the sensitive one, the quiet one, the dramatic one, the angry woman, the aggressive man, the obedient child. the rebellious child, the successful person and the failure.

And sometimes these categories are useful for understanding patterns, but they become dangerous when we start using them to decide what people are allowed to be. I think this is especially cruel when it comes to categorising. There are so many things we teach people about how they are supposed to feel simply because they are men or women, young or old or even the race category. What we do not realise is we  just do not tell people what to do, we tell them how to experience themselves and eventually, people start policing themselves.

We learn to ask, Am I reacting the way I am supposed to?

Instead of asking, What am I actually feeling?

And perhaps that is where some of us lose ourselves. I personally started doubting myself and believed there was something wrong with me and i am not sure if i fully got over that, but atleast i realised i wasn't a lost sheep, i just felt alone in the flock due to my different way of feeling and responding. 

I do believe God designed the differences we see, he planned us to be individuals and we sometimes feel that no one else is exactly like us and that is because it is true ! Even people who look similar, grow up in similar environments, share the same faith,, the same culture, or even the same family will experience the world differently.

Of course, I also believe that not everything we experience is necessarily how God intended it to be. Christianity gives us language for this through the Fall. Original Sin distorted the world,  It affected our bodies, our relationships, our desires, our minds  and the ways we treat one another. I think this fact should actually make us more open to the unknown than moving around expecting people to behave as though we are living in a perfect world.

We are not. 

People carry things we cannot see can affect how they respond to things. People have different capacities, different histories, different bodies, different minds, different thresholds, different ways of processing pain and some of those differences are simply differences. They are some things that don't need to be fixed but understood, hat doesn't mean everything becomes acceptable simply because it is different. I am not arguing that we should excuse unhealthy behaviour in the name of individuality. Yes there are things that need to be confronted, there are behaviours that hurt people and there are patterns that need to change. Grace does not mean pretending that everything is healthy, but perhaps we have confused correction with conformity.

We have become too quick to say, "This is wrong," when what we really mean is, "This is unfamiliar to me." 

i have spent a lot of time thinking about this because I am someone who feels strongly. I care deeply, I notice things, i question things. I can be emotional  and I can be very sensitive. And I have often wondered whether I need to become less of these things to be easier to live with and now i wonder if the goal should be to become easier to understand or simply to become better at understanding myself. Of course, there are things about me I can work on, we all could use some adjusting but i do not think that work requires me or you to believe that the way we naturally experience the world is fundamentally wrong

I am learning that people are not always going to understand me, and  that hurts but i should not always read that as i am wrong.

Especially when i desperately want them to.

Many of us convince ourselves that if people could just understand us, the burden would become lighter. If they could just see why we respond this way. If they could just understand where we are coming from. If they could just acknowledge that our experience is real.

Maybe then we wouldn't have to carry so much shame.

But what if they don't? What if some people simply choose not to see it? What if I don't need everyone to validate my experience before I am allowed to believe it? and what if i can find freedom in becoming okay with the fact that some people won't get me. 

I know this is hard but not imposible. Do not let the world full of masks convince you to hide your heart, Guard it and never lose. I think there are people out there who would be blessed by your sincerity.

For me, this is the part I am looking forward to. Finding people who can ask questions without making you feel like a problem that needs solving. People who don't confuse my difference with my deficiency.

People who don't think feeling strongly about myself is a bad thing. People who can make room for complexity.

People who understand that being human was never supposed to be a perfectly packaged experience not only for themselves but for others aswell. 

I wonder if they lied about there being human, what if the truth is that there were never meant to be limited ways of being? what if the work we need is not to make people fit approved different shapes and boxes, what if we need to create more room for people to be comfortable to show us more of who they are away from what is percieved to be normal ?  while still having the courage and compassion to challenge what genuinely causes harm.

I don't think we need less accountability. I think we need better understanding.

I don't think we need to stop correcting one another. I think we need to become more careful about what we are correcting.

Because sometimes what we call a problem is simply a difference we have not learned how to understand and sometimes the person we are asking to change isn't the one who needs to.

Maybe we do.

They lied when they taught us that difference beyond what is branded normal is evidence of deficiency.

They lied when they taught us that being understood is the same thing as being right, and being misunderstood is the same thing as being wrong.

They lied when they taught  to hide the parts of ourselves that don't fit neatly into the boxes.

They lied when they  taught us that difference needs an explanation before it deserves dignity.

And maybe it's time we stopped believing them.