Elizabeth Smart and Happiness Culture

photo credit: CountyLemonade via photopin cc

As we walked into the library a copy of My Story by Elizabeth Smart (with Chris Stewart) caught my eye.  I picked it up and continued the B-line for the children's section.  Maybe while Lenny took part in the reading program I'd be able to juggle Linus and the book.  Me time and multitasking.  I am the buzzword Mom of the day.

The book pulled me in from the first page.  I read all 308 pages in the next 24 hours or so. (It's possible that I missed some sleep, which is really saying something.)  I know I'm not the only one who has been fascinated by the Elizabeth Smart story.  If you are I recommend reading the book.  I'm not going to do a review of it here.  You can find plenty with a quick Google search.  What I'm going to do is write about what struck me most about the book:  How Elizabeth Smart dealt with the trauma once her ordeal was over.

From the beginning the book seemed a little self conscious to me.  Since it was written in the first person it was easy to get the impression that Smart was trying to promote certain ideas and discount others.  I started to think that one could get a pretty clear picture of how she sees the world now as well as how she saw it at the time of her abduction.  Sometimes the differences between her child and adult selves were clear.  Sometimes they were not.  It was clear that her faith and her relationship with her family have been keys to her understanding of and ability to cope with the world throughout her life.

I was amazed that throughout the book she continuously described a loving God who cared for her throughout her suffering even as He allowed it to continue.  She admitted to being confused about why He allowed the situation, but made a distinction between God wanting her to be treated the way she was, and His allowing free will and the evil that people may perpetuate as a result of that.

I was impressed by the fact that, although her captor was able to get inside her head and convince her that he would kill her and her family if she escaped he was never able to convince her that his "prophetic" utterances were a true depiction of God.  Also, although she was clearly steeped in "purity culture" and taught to value modesty it was comforting that she was confident that her family would still value her and welcome her if she ever had the opportunity to return to them.

It was at the end of the book, though, that I started to question whether her faith and her family, despite all the strength they seemed to give her throughout her ordeal, might have steered her wrong to some extent.  Or at least might put her in a category of people that is hard for most of us to relate to.

This is what Elizabeth Smart says her mother made a point of telling her the first morning after she was back home:

"Elizabeth, what this man has done is terrible.  There aren't any words that are strong enough to describe how wicked and evil he is!  He has taken nine months of your life and that you will never get back again.  But the best punishment you could ever give him is to be happy.  To move forward with your life.  To do exactly what you want.  Because, yes, this will probably go to trial and some kind of sentencing will be given to him and that wicked woman.  But even if that's true, you may never feel like justice has been served or that true restitution has been made.

But you don't have to worry about that.  At the end of the day, God is our ultimate judge.  He will make up to you every pain and loss that you have suffered.....  ....You don't every have to worry.  You don't ever have to think about them again.

....You be happy, Elizabeth.  Just be happy.  If you go and feel sorry for yourself, or if you dwell on what has happened, if you hold on to your pain, that is allowing him to steal more of your life away.  So don't yo do that!  Don't yo let him!  There is no way that he deserves that.  Not one more second of your life.  You keep every second for yourself.  You keep them and be happy.  God will take care of the rest." (pages 285-286)

Wow.  Not "find healing, peace, wholeness."  Just "be happy, do what you want."  Now I don't know what I would say to my teenage daughter on the morning of her return after nine months of captivity and torture.  I'm sure I would make a few mistakes.  But the scary part to me is that Elizabeth says that this was good advice.  That her mother was right.  The minute I read it I wondered if what her mother really meant was "Don't be damaged or broken.  Don't let anyone see that this trauma has changed you at a very basic level.  Don't accept any emotions other than the ones that make us all comfortable."

I hoped it wasn't the case.  I looked, during the rest of the book for evidence that her family had understood that this type of trauma is not something you can just walk away from.  I found some.  That first night her parents (possibly still traumatized themselves) wanted her to sleep in their room on a mattress on the floor.  But she (having spent months in makeshift beds on the ground, cooped up with two adults) wanted to sleep in her own room.  She says that her parents offered the options of "Counseling.  Therapy.  Doctors and medication." She was the one, she says, who decided that these weren't right for her.  Horse riding with her grandfather and harp playing were her therapy of choice.  She also implies that God and her mother's strength gave her the ability to heal.  Also being grateful for the fact that pretty much everything in her life now is better than what she went though during those nine months.

But I wonder about the brain's ability to recover from a trauma like that.  During the course of some counseling I've had we've talked about how the brain needs to "file" memories of events so that they don't "ambush" us when we are reminded of them.  Sometimes, when we are under great stress, the memories are not processed.  They just kind of rattle around, waiting to flood our bodies with the sensations we felt at the time of the original experience - adrenalin, physical pain, terrible sadness.... the whole gamut of emotions.  Professionals have learned strategies that help trauma survivors process these memories.  We rarely do it the best way when we are close to the situation and the person involved.

And I wonder about how her current persona - the poised, carefully groomed, beautifully dressed woman who makes speeches, goes to receptions and has a foundation for helping children - affects other victims who hear her story and hear the words "no professional therapy.  I didn't need it."  She does say in the book, "But it's very important to stress that every survivor must create their own pathway to recovery.  What works for one might not work for another.  Therapy, medicine, and counseling might be the right path for some people, but not for others.  The fact that I chose a pathway to recovery that worked for me is not to suggest that it's the best path, or that it's the only path.  The only thing it suggests is that I found the path that worked for me." (pages 297-298)

Sounds so tempting, though.  Let a 14 year old decide that she doesn't need therapy after a MAJOR life trauma.  Go with her on some horse rides.  Encourage her to spend time playing music.  All done.  She's fine.  In case you think that I just have issues and am projecting them on to this situation I did some searching on the internet.  Most of what I found was articles about how great the book is or what interviews Smart has given or where she is speaking.  But I found one site, started by a sexual abuse victim, that brings up issues like the ones I'm talking about.  This site has the raw emotions - the anger and hurt - that I would expect to hear from abuse victims.  It also questions whether she was actually traumatized in the ways she claimed to be.  I don't want to endorse that at all.  It surprises me that a survivor of this type of abuse would make such statements.  But this quote (written before the book came out) supports my idea that Smart's recovery may not be encouraging to other victims:

The Smart case made me think to myself “What’s wrong with me?” “Why was I so sick, dysfunctional, full of phobias and fear? Why did I have panic attacks, suffer from deep depression, have nightmares, and want to die? Why did I need so many years of therapy and all Elizabeth had to do was talk to her parents?” It finally became clear to me that Elizabeth’s comments were demeaning to victims of child sexual abuse, kidnapping, and torture.  If she was truly a victim then she ought to explain in detail how exactly just talking to her parents has cured her. 

I don't doubt that Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped and subjected to the horrors she describes in her book.  And I truly hope that she is both happy and healthy.  I just wonder what parts of the story the Smart family has chosen not to share.  And I hope that others, who's journey to wholeness seems more winding and dark, will find hope and encouragement and get the help they need.

I know that the desire to overcome, the need to show that we are utilizing the abilities and blessings God has given us, can sometimes cause us to hide needs and weaknesses - even from ourselves.  We sometimes avoid the very means by which we could find healing and wholeness.  For a while we may be able to function and even seem strong, but we end up suffering more than we need to.  I've written before about how feeling like we are not allowed to acknowledge struggles can rob us of our joy.  God doesn't ask us to be strong.  He asks us to fall on Him.  He doesn't set a time limit on when we need to have worked through or let go of our hurts.  He isn't worried about us wasting the precious seconds of our lives.  We have plenty of time.  We can be happy.  We can know peace, joy, and wholeness.  It may be a messy process.  I hope that Elizabeth Smart and the rest of us have the room we need to work through our hurts and heal.

Parenting is Cheaper than Therapy

Lessons about victory and defeat are easy to come by these days.

When I was writing about blogging being cheaper than therapy I got to thinking about something else that is cheaper than therapy - keeping a journal.  Which reminded me of a book I read early in my illness called Writing Out the Storm: Reading and Writing Your Way Through Serious Illness or Injury by Barbara Ambercombie.  I remember this book being very helpful early in my illness so I decided to get out my journal from that time and see if I could use it to write a review of the book that would be helpful to other people.

The problem was that when I looked at those old journals it reminded me of a dark and difficult time in my life.  And so many of the entries were emotionally fraught.  I dealt with a lot of depression and loneliness and I poured a lot of mental anguish out on those pages.  When I first looked at them it was hard for me to see how it could have been helpful for me.  It seemed like writing it all down might have been a way to dwell in that dark place rather than helping me find a way out.

But today I found an entry that was much more hopeful.  It's dated June 10, 2006.  I was thinking about activities I did a lot at that time which felt like a waste of time.  I was thinking about what I would rather my life look like.  Here's part of what I wrote:

"Activity - "productive" activity, has become an obligation for me rather than a source of joy or pleasure.  Expressing myself is risky and part of me believes that the purpose of expressing myself is to correct myself.  Not for the joy of knowing who I am, but for the purpose of dealing with emotions, correcting faulty thinking, resolving old grudges, facing old fears, forgiving, remembering, letting go of pain, expressing anger.  These I feel are obligations - tasks I should accomplish because I should continue to grow and mature as a human being.  I have a goal - to become as emotionally healthy as I am capable of being so that my emotional health will not be a detriment to my physical health.  I am trying to be strong mentally so that I can deal with my physical weakness better.  I don't really want to know who I am, I just want to know how to deal with my past in a way that will allow me to view the present realistically, have motivation to do the things I want to do, and courage to face the future.

Many elements of this plan are good, but it has some basic flaws.  I will never have freedom to "do" until I give myself permission to "be."  I will never have motivation until I decide that I actually have the freedom to choose what I want to do.  I will not be able to walk away from anxiety until I find that there is victory in failure and beauty in imperfection.  Healing will come when I begin to believe that it is my right rather than my job.  My needs will become less overwhelming when I give myself permission to have them.  My anger will not be  able to hurt me when I can see it as a source of strength - not something that I need to have power over or that has power over me, not something I need to hide for fear of rejection and not something that everyone but me has a right to.

Becoming whole must be more than finding the parts that are broken and fixing them, more than dumping old baggage and learning to think more realistically.  Becoming whole must involve becoming aware of who I am, being willing to accept that person in the entirety and with no conditions.  Not "putting myself on project status" as Dr. Phil would say, but finding space to breath, coaxing my soul out of its hiding place and giving it ways to express the whole range of what it contains.  Censoring nothing, fixing nothing, manipulating nothing.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to know that even if I never accomplished anything for the rest of  my life I had at least known peace for one afternoon?  How much energy would I find if I could move by the motivation of my own desires, if I could lay down the weight of obligation and how much strength if I move away from the sting of disapproval?  What if I can learn to express myself for no other reason than to meet my soul's need for expression - not to be heard, but simply to speak - to cry, to laugh, sing, dance, run and fly, to scream and kick and punch, to break and build, to create and destroy, to stretch out, enlarge and reach beyond the limits?  Can I move because I want to and be still because I am ready to allow my soul to expand instead of moving out of obligation and being still because I am holding my soul at bay?

I hope so.  I hope I can find a way to being that balances pleasure and pain.  I want to find ways to move out of the cycles of disapproval and rejection to reject the myth that says that someone else knows better than I do how I should be.  I even want to move beyond believing that I know how I should be or even that I know how to get where I want to be.  I want to stop being so afraid of being lost and instead have the strength to look at where I actually am.  I want to know the relief of being who I am without any apology.  I want to be unfettered to know joy." 

It's interesting to me that becoming a parent has actually help me achieve some of what I was hoping for in this journal entry.  I think that parenting is a form of self expression.  I've heard people say that having a child means that part of your heart is walking around in the world.  I thought when I first heard it that this was overly sentimental, but I realize now that in some ways it's true.  Also,  I think that being a parent has helped me accept myself and learn to deal with my emotions in the following ways:

• It helps me smile every day.  Kids are cute.  They do funny stuff.  It's not hard to smile at them even when  they are exasperating.  Which they are so...
• Learning to deal with anger is an ongoing project.  Has a child ever looked you in the eye, picked a piece of food off of his high chair tray and flung it toward the corner of the room?  Lenny went through a phase where he did this at least once a day.  This is when I learned that it's possible to actually shake with anger.
• Helping little people deal with their emotions has helped me be more accepting of my own.  When I want to insist that my children STOP CRYING I don't because I want them to learn healthy ways to calm themselves.  Helping them through the process gives me more confidence in my own abilities.
• Knowing that I chose to be a parent - even though I didn't really know what I was getting in to - helps me embrace the challenges.
• Carrying on in the face of crazy and overwhelming times has helped me learn to find peace in the midst of chaos.
• Spending my days with my little ones involves actually building, destroying, dancing and exploring the world.
• Celebrating my children's growth and achievements has helped me realize that life is a process.  I feel more confident that I can trust it to produce growth in my life also.
• My children are beautiful and amazing.  Since they came from me looking at them makes it easier for me to believe there must be something lovely about me also.

I'm pretty sure that having children is not the only way to learn these lessons.  I think that being part of a community, doing fun, creative and amazingly difficult tasks can probably help anyone through this process.  For me, that happens to involve being a parent.  I hope that each of my readers, whatever your path, can be immersed life and learn to know joy.

I Am Not Doing Something Wrong

Some times the words we need to hear just fall out of our own mouths.  This has happened to me at least once and when it did it was so powerful that years later the words still echo in my mind.  Maybe these words are some that you need to hear to as we inch toward the end of a long, grueling winter.

I had a little help, actually.  I was sitting in my counselors office.  I was telling him about my relationship with a couple of ladies from church.  I was struggling with these relationships because I needed them so much.  My health was not good and I was particularly isolated.  These ladies were eager to help me.  They wanted me to come to one of their homes and they wanted to pray for me.  I had tried to tell them that I got sicker when I went to that home.  I had tried to tell them that praying was hard and emotionally draining for me because it seemed to me that God's answer was "not yet" (or maybe never in this lifetime) and that was heartbreaking for me.  But these messages were just not getting through.  I thought that maybe I wasn't very good at communicating.  It's not very logical, I guess, but when people don't get my point I tend to assume it's my fault rather than thinking maybe they just aren't listening.

So my counselor, who understood what I was saying very well, asked me this good question:  "If you could tell them one thing, what would it be?" 

And I answered instinctively, without thinking too much (for once), "Just because I'm having a hard time does not mean that I'm doing something wrong."

Just that.  Just because I am having a hard time does not mean you need to solve my problem.  Just because I'm having a hard time does not mean that I need to solve my problem.  Maybe I don't need to change anything I'm doing.  Maybe it's just a hard time.  Maybe what I need is for you to be with me in the hard time so that I am not struggling alone.

Now I get it.  Sometimes we are the authors of our own suffering.  Sometimes we reap what we sow.  And sometimes even if we didn't cause the situation that's making us suffer we can find ways to get through it better.  And sometimes other people can help us do it.

But sometimes not.  Sometimes we are not responsible for our suffering.  And sometimes we are suffering the very best way we can.  Sometimes we need friends who can be with us in the situation.  friends who can wish that our situation were easier while still accepting us.  Friends who know that we are not doing anything wrong.

And sometimes these are "big ticket" items, but most often they are the "everyday" situations that drag us down and can leave us feeling defeated and alone.

So I will write these words for you and also as a reminder for myself:

• If you are in a job that you don't enjoy and are having a hard time getting up in the morning and facing another day with those co-workers... ...it does not mean that you are doing something wrong.
• If you're sweet, funny, smart kids are just about to drive you crazy most of the time, most days....  ...you are not doing something wrong.
• If your health has crashed and you can't figure out why or how to fix it...  ...you are not doing something wrong.
• If your marriage is in a tough place and you are struggling to feel happy and communicate with your spouse...  ...you are not doing something wrong.
• If depression has settled around you and you can't remember how to smile...  ...you are not doing something wrong.
• If winter keeps pounding you and you've had one cold after another and you are physically and mentally drained... ...you are not doing something wrong.

I'm not a "little orphan Annie" type of optimist.  I'm not going to claim that the sun will come out tomorrow.  I don't know when the sun will come out, although I have found that it usually does eventually.  All I'm saying is that for now, while we're going through those hard times, we don't need to beat ourselves up by trying to figure out how we're messing up.  And when we walk beside a friend who's in a hard time we don't need to try to figure out how to solve the problem.  Most likely we just need to be with them and let them know that they don't have to make it through alone.  It may feel scary to let go of the instinct to try to control and fix the situation.  But it can be a very powerful gift.  To give and receive the grace of knowing that just because you are having a hard time, it does not mean that you are doing anything wrong.