I discovered something key about myself, and where I've come from. Since Neilson is almost a graduated psychologist now, I thought I'd run by him my past self, to try to get some answers. Although I think I am very mentally/psychologically/emotionally healthy now, I have had difficulties in the past, which I used to think were normal difficulties of adolescence. He insists that they were not normal. Perhaps not, as I was terrified of everything psychiatry in medical school and after, because I was afraid if I even looked at the skeleton in the closet, it might come back to life to torment me again. Somehow, after my recent discoveries, it's not so scary anymore. Somehow it's deeply comforting to know now that my problems had a cause, rather than just... randomly occurring. So I am learning to admit that I've had some significant psych problems in the past, I'm trying to get used to saying that. (Although part of me wants to continue to insist that we are blowing things out of proportion, they were just normal difficulties of adolescence.)
In brief, in high school I suffered from self-harming behaviors, mostly cutting. I remember being sad a lot, and I remember a feeling of walking around in a fog, as if I were dreaming, disconnected, for long stretches of time, weeks maybe. I remember thinking maybe I was depressed, and looking up the diagnosis for depression, but finding I didn't quite meet the criteria. I remember having intense urges to cut, constantly, for what seemed like no reason as it had little to do with my mood, but they were overpowering and consuming. I believed it was morally wrong to hurt myself, so I struggled against it, but it was constantly on my mind. And I recently found a rather alarming old blog post from back then, where I said I was having episodes of lightheadedness and such difficulty focusing that I couldn't understand any of my teachers in class, and I was "floaty" to the point of being unable to complete tasks, and I would clean forget what I was doing mid-task, to the point that my not-easily-impressed Asian parents wanted to take me to the doctor, and my dad thought it was because I was too stressed. I have absolutely no recollection about what I described in the post, but I guess that might corroborate the story. (I don't remember if they ever took me to the doctor.) Later on, in medical school, I learned about a psychiatric symptom called dissociation, which I now believe is what I was experiencing at the time.
And I clearly remember emerging from all that my senior year of high school, spontaneously, it seemed. It was like I had new life, I was a new person, I had new eyes, and I've (mostly) had it ever since. Now and then I've had the foggy feeling come back, or periods of sadness and being unable to motivate myself to do things, and it reminds me of vaguely scary things from a shadowy time long ago, but overall I've done very well. I'm very well-adjusted and balanced now. I didn't figure out what caused my issues, but one clear blessing that came from it was that through it, I learned what God's grace is - the grace that led Jesus to enter our darkness to save those of us who are utterly helpless.
Well I mentioned some of this to Neilson. With a strange look he asked if I had ever had anything traumatic happen to me - all these things are part of the set of symptoms that tend to follow traumas. Well, no, I don't remember anything traumatic happening to me, the only thing that wasn't perfect about my childhood was that my parents fought. He happens to do exclusively child psychology work currently, and to him, that was a red flag. No one has ever taken me that seriously before when I've said my parents fought, including myself. Don't all parents fight? Lots of my friends had their parents get divorced, and mine are somehow still married, so that means that many other families are more dysfunctional than mine, mine is only average or better than average. Well the short of the story is that now I know the degree to which my parents fought was not normal, some may even consider it domestic violence. And this, for a kid through all the years of their childhood, can be quite legitimately traumatic. Yes I used to be scared when it happened, but later on, I was able to tune it out, so I forgot how scary it used to be for me. How strange to think, this piece I always viewed as the background and not very significant, could have actually damaged me and caused my "adolescence" problems, which weren't normal adolescence issues at all. How strange that it took 30 years to figure out just how dysfunctional my family has been and how it has affected me, and in large part because my husband and my sister's husband brought fresh perspectives to the inner workings of our family - they thought arguments with raised voices between our parents counted as scary "fights," which to us was quite laughable and cute. It highlighted how distorted our view is. I always thought most older couples fought like mine. I thought it was normal. I never tried to hide it from anybody, and no one ever pointed out anything was concerning, even though there must have been red flags. All these years, I had no idea why I was so gripped with the need to hurt myself back then, and what the heck that foggy feeling was, and why I was so sad, and now I have learned that they are all common responses to trauma, which I apparently suffered for years without knowing what it was. What a relief, somehow.
Up until last week before I discovered this, I frequently thanked God for blessing me so much. I felt that my life has essentially been perfect, I've been blessed with every blessing to set me up for the best life possible that many can only dream of - money, opportunity, a relatively intact family and parents who love me, talent, faith and salvation, no major obstacles to overcome in life. I've done so well in life because God has made life easy for me, even unfairly so. The high school days? Only a small blip on the screen that went away on its own. But this has fundamentally changed that story. Now I see that not only has God given me every blessing for a successful life, but he has given to me SO ABUNDANTLY that it has completely and SPECTACULARLY overcome what should have been a major obstacle in my life. So overwhelmingly so that I didn't even know that obstacle existed. Many of Neilson's patients have similar backgrounds, but they struggle hard, they get hospitalized psychiatrically, they try to commit suicide, they use drugs, all sorts of things, yet somehow that wasn't my story. The trauma affected me, but not nearly as much as it could or should have. And the negative effect was only temporary, and resolved "spontaneously." What a glorious testimony of God's abundant goodness in my life! What a shame that this testimony has never been told! Highest praises to my God, who has protected me and equipped me and walked with me out of troubles I didn't even understand were happening.
And finally, a Psalm that I frequently quoted to comfort myself when I was at my darkest place, has never seemed so apt:
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
