95) Let Them Ch 2 – Part 1
I get it. Mel has to appeal to her audience. She has to be relatable, and likable and understanding. I think it’s important to be understanding.
I also think it matters what we are understanding of.
I also get that my brain is broken.
(When I say this, I’m not meaning that my brain can’t be fixed or even needs to be fixed. I’m honoring the irreversible changes made my my traumas that had physically, chemically, and metaphorically changed the geography of my brain. Pieces are missing. Pieces are hidden. Pieces are in the way. As a result I KNOW I see things differently.)
Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is an understatement. I was born different- Autistic with ADHD, and I developed different- with childhood sexual activity, my dad’s suicide when I was ten, and trying to raise my sisters while my mom turned cold on me.
It’s a very specific lens- and there’s (of course) much more to that lens that just hasn’t come up in the story yet. I can accept that I’m likely not the person this book is written for- and at the same time I am.
Viktor E. Frankl, as you may recall from my high school influences, was an Austrian Psychiatrist who wrote Man’s Search for Meaning: From Deathcamp to Existentialism after his liberation from Auschwitz.
I will never stop telling people this book saved my life.
While Franklist Existentialism isn’t a religion, it has been my moral and ethical anchor since the moment I decided my life was mine. Even as I struggled through teachings of Christianity, Wicca, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, and various other Paganisms, trying to find truth, Frankl’s teachings have guided my vessel.
They are at the core of who I am, and have remained my truth through all of the seasons of my life. Before I can dig into my responses to Mel’s work, (and some of them are quite strong), I think it’s important to lay a framework.
Lucky for you, this means a stroll through some of the most impactful thoughts I’ve ever encountered.
Please keep in mind the time in which this was written.
Scholars had not yet noticed that women exist, much less any other genders.
Frankl writes, “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” He elaborates “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This was the only thing my mom couldn’t control. It was the only thing that she couldn’t touch. As my world crashed harder, and one entire version of me burned to the ground, I was deciding that I was sovereign, that my life belonged to me and me alone, that I would be the only one responsible for me and my decisions.
There were no more excuses. Accountability, and ownership felt like transcendence. Any time I’ve ever lost my way, I come back here, to my True North.
It also meant that my decisions were powerful, not in a self-righteous way, and not like the forces compelling conformity and commerce. I had the power to love freely. I had the power to be kind. I had the power to share my joy with others. I had the power to create. I had the power to heal, through this. I had the power to meet adversity, and give my whole heart to what I believe in. I had the power to choose my beliefs for myself, no matter what anybody else thought about it. I had the power to see the best in people, and see what’s beautiful in each new group I would meet.
She couldn’t make me mean without my consent.
And none of this hit like the toxic positivity I was talking about in Weaponization of the Benign and Beneficial.
This really is where our true power as individuals lives, and knowing that, and using that power with purpose, determines whether we are truly living our lives, or whether we think our lives are something being done to us.
Those two foundations lead to very different choices, very different behaviors, very different paths, very different interpretations.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
What if I was happy anyhow?
What if tragic things had happened in my life and I still went on to enjoy being alive? What if those things didn’t define me, but were just things that occurred in my life? What if my mom’s perception of me belonged to her, and I could still be in charge of my own attitude- about her, about myself, about life, about my future, about my past.
Unfortunately, my having a good attitude in front of my mom usually made her mad. She somehow needed to see me feeling guilty and rejected and nervous. (Masking is a survival skill, and I’ve also learned that when I’m with people that require me to mask, I either have to break through that or Let Them, and go Let Me.)
“Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.“
Can I get some snaps for Papa Viktor? I can’t imagine not believing this. MEANING, is the difference between being truly alive, and just going through the motions.
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”
Pardon me while I sob.
He just said that I matter- that you matter- just because you exist. Nobody else can be you. Nobody else can do the things that were meant for you. Nobody else can walk your path for you. So, because you ARE here, you matter. The choices you encounter, and the way you move through them matters. Your decisions, and your indecision matter. Your action, and your abstention matter. There is no other person who will have your opportunity to exist and interact with the world and what you do with it MATTERS.
“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
You decide. You are the source of what matters in your life. It’s not something to be sought in the cosmos (although I still looked there, just to make sure). It’s not something handed down to you. It’s not something imposed on you. You steer this vessel, decide it’s course, and what it stands for.
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”
Being deeply connected with your sense of meaning can get you through almost anything, and losing your sense of meaning is devastating. With meaning, there is no crisis that exists, because no matter what you face, you face it FOR your meaning. It no longer matters if you win, it matters if you persisted for your own meaning.
This is what we’re watering down with the phrase “Remember your ‘Why.’” It matters to have something to live FOR on purpose. It’s no wonder that people feel lost when they don’t.
At the point we’re at in my life story, you just met my meaning. All I had really wanted, from the time I was about 14, was to love differently than I was loved. It’s a really lovely meaning. I decided on my first kiddo’s name when I was living with Brocade. I wasn’t ever actively trying to get pregnant- because I was in no position to even care for myself- but I believed that someday it would happen, and everything I was going to do between Frankl and my baby, would be about being able to love that baby better than I’d been loved. Cycle-breaking is my meaning.
“Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”
I believed I HAD acted wrongly the first time, and that I wasn’t actually supposed to be here, so this part resounded like the striking of a gong.
“Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”
There is good in people. None of the evil that I had encountered could erase the good that exists in people. If I decided to be good, to become good, then I was proof of good.
“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.”
Read it again.
I have witnessed so much damage done by people who cannot handle discomfort. People who couldn’t handle talking about my dad’s suicide gave me no space or script to heal through. People who can’t face childhood sexual activity, create shame and guilt and silence. People who can’t sit with the reality that law enforcement is a mechanism of control, not a mechanism of justice turn a blind eye to victims being revictimized by the system, and the systemic injustices engineered to harm minority and vulnerable populations. People who can’t handle talking about the realities of war, cheer it on and chant mantras about heroes to silence lived experiences.
The suffering is human, just as much as the joy. Suffering teaches us, connects us, builds us. Suffering can also divide and devour. The only difference is the power of our choice in the moment of suffering.
“The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is.”
My most pure joy comes from acts of giving for the sake of giving alone. Serving, as an expression of love, is so healing and connective. Living as a source of understanding and support for others is the ultimate human experience. When we give this to others, we get to breathe life into them.
“No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
Love is what enables us to move beyond our egos. Love is what compels us to listen or give voice to another. Love seeks understanding, connection, vulnerability. Without love, vulnerability is unsafe, and understanding is weaponizable.
“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.”
This made me feel invincible. This is where resilience comes from.
I could survive my mom, because I was planning for a different life, and choosing that meaning. I could transcend my traumas, because I was choosing my meaning. I would either survive whatever life would throw at me, or die living my meaning.
“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”
Meaning is not something you connect with once, decide, and then check off in your daily routine. Meaning is the way you live your life. Meaning informs you and transforms you.
“Faith is trust in ultimate meaning.”
THIS is what letting go is.
There is something bigger than me, that I don’t need to know, that I don’t need to justify, that I don’t need to fully understand or explain. I have a life, that is existing in a world with other lives, and I believe in the meaning of that. I believe that serving my meaning will lead me to where I’m meant to be, and especially in the beginning, I believed that everywhere I found myself, was somewhere I was meant for.
(That’s why I’m still so appalled at my behavior trying to beg Mr. Amishish to choose me. I was no longer meant to be there, and fighting that only caused heartbreak, and it only caused heartbreak for as long as I fought it. Gross)
“A human being is a deciding being.”
We have these really advanced brains that are capable of reason, and learning. We make decisions all day, every single day. We are not driven by instincts we cannot control.
“Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter.“
Papa Vik says your purpose isn’t to be a selfish shit.
“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.“
I’ve been asked how I kept going, in response to a number of events in my life. One component is that I just didn’t know any better. The other is that I deeply desire to love with my whole self, and that kind of love is healing. It also comes with the realization that Love, actual LOVE, is not dependent on reciprocation.
I could continue to love my mom whether or not she loved me in return, and living in that love was healing and empowering for me. I continued to face the world with love after I was kicked to the curb. They didn’t have to love me. They didn’t have to choose me. They did not get to determine whether I would continue to live out of love.
“Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
This life is precious, and we’re responsible for what we do with it.
“To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’”
Living for your meaning causes happiness. Pleasure seeking doesn’t cause happiness, it imprisons it. Connection causes happiness. Vulnerability causes happiness.
“When I was taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, a manuscript of mine ready for publication was confiscated. Certainly, my deep desire to write this manuscript anew helped me to survive the rigors of the camps I was in.”
This blog saves my life. Even before I ever had this computer, even when I was homeless, this blog was saving my life, as I knew that I needed to take what I’d learned at University and make it tangible, consumable, usable for free.
If you accept that you as a unique human being have an immense power and responsibility because you are an animated living being, then what you are here to do matters.
That’s hard to walk away from.
“In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.”
When you have control over nothing else, you have control over how you are you. He’s talking about a concentration camp, and I’m betting that most people reading this blog haven’t had that experience.
Try to imagine it.
Sit in the discomfort of it. You can’t change it. You can’t fix it. Your stomach gnarles with hunger. Your muscles and bones ache, somehow moving from sheer will at the lack of nutrition. You’re sick, in every tissue of your body. Your head hurts. You bear the bruises of beatings and having fallen from pushing your fragile body well beyond its capabilities.
Do you scream, and rage, and make it more unnerving for the others who are already suffering as well? Do you guilt others into giving you their portions? Do you steal your neighbor’s bread knowing he will likely die as a result? Do you point out to everyone the holes in your shoes? It’s true, your shoes are barely a sole beneath your feet, and so is the case of the person you’re talking to. Do you make it worse?
Do you encourage others, and remind them of their humanness? Do you hold someone’s hand as they take their last breaths, knowing they weren’t alone, and their suffering was ending? Do you hold the child who will never see her parents again in your lap, and sing her the songs you used to sing the child you’ll never see again? Do you reach out a hand to catch the person stumbling next to you?
“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
Going through the motions isn’t living.
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.”
Read it again. Absorb what he’s talking about here. Their LAST piece of bread.
He’s talking about people who knew they were giving their ration to someone else, knowing they would die, and in the acceptance of that fate, they acted in their purest humanity comforting others.
“We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles—whatever one may choose to call them—we know: the best of us did not return”
I wanted so badly to be a good person, and to love that completely.
Nobody by Protyus A. Gendher
Nobody had to love me
I know it sounds harsh, but it’s right
This simple truth
Is the greatest theme from my life
This isn’t about self-pity
It’s not even about my pain
It’s about the expectations I had
That everyone was the same
It’s about how normalized it was
That families were all the same
That every child was wanted
And it left the truth no space
My pain wasn’t really from being unloved
In and of itself
My actual pain accrued from comparing
Me to everyone else
It’s fine that I was born a bastard
A powerless fact in itself
But when socially enacted
Barred me from resources and wealth
And I’m not saying I don’t need love
Or affection or support
But love is not a check off list
Like groceries or chores
The people who didn’t love me
Turned out to be toxic as hell
But the world told me that I should need their approval
It was like being under a spell
The brainwashing of seeking approval
From people who couldn’t love me
Caused years of upheaval and damage
Thinking my worth was in whether they want me
It took years sorting through the self-loathing
To unpack the source of the anguish
To reveal the truths hidden deep within
So noxious ideas could be vanquished
Self-love finally came
Filling my deepest recesses
When I finally let go
Of the need to try to impress them
When I think back on all of the times
I felt like less due to love withheld
An aching, burning, longing
In place of the love that others felt
Nobody had to love me
Nobody had to accept
This complicated person
That had been made such a wreck
Nobody owes me emotion
But when it is shared it’s a gift
Negating the presumption
That really caused this rift
Nobody had to love me
Not my mom, or siblings, or friends
Not my partners, or children
Not a single one of my fans
Nobody has to love me
Their appraisal doesn’t make me less
My worth never lied inside
What someone else expects
Nobody had to love me
But it hurt to think that they should
And I tore myself apart
Trying to do everything that I could
There was peace in finally letting go
Of the things they all thought of me
In the place of that weight, I could grow
To the person I wanted to be
I just want others to know
In the moments when they feel unmade
That nobody has to love you
You’re good enough anyway.
Survivor Literacy 
What do you think?