TheBanyanTree: Stories

[Monique Colver]

If I ask you for your story, will you tell me? Or will you look at me as if
I'd lost my mind, because who does that?

If I tell you my story, will you accept it for what it is, or will you feel
pity? I can see pity, whether you say it out loud or keep it inside. You
can't hide it.

If I tell you that mostly I don't know why I'm living, will you back away
and go look for more pleasant stories?

We don't tell our stories because we don't trust that the person we're
telling them to will not only keep our stories safe, but will not use them
for their own purposes. We don't trust that you'll look at us differently,
if you really knew.

We tell as much as we can bear, and then we pull back, because there's a
chance we may tell too much, and we don't want to tell anyone else parts of
our story because if we do, it might be true, and then we can't ignore it
any longer. Best to let sleeping dogs lie and not disturb the dark things.

Some don't have darkness, they don't have secrets, and they're happy to
tell all they know. But is it? How can we know? What if they don't know
their own story, and so what we hear isn't the story at all, but what
they've told themselves is the story?

We can never really know what the story is. A simple recitation of the
facts isn't a story, it's not the core, it's not what makes us who we are.
The date I was born and the circumstances of my birth do not tell anyone
who I am. What can tell you who I really am? Only I know everything about
me, and I'm abnormal in the oversharing department. Most people are far
more private, because who can we really trust? Or they don't want anyone to
know, and they have their own reasons, whatever they are.

I do some online support of people with depression. Not enough to matter,
but it matters to me. They don't like to tell their stories because when
they do, people pull back, or tell them what to do to fix it, when it's not
easily fixed, not like that, not from someone who doesn't know. They don't
like to tell their stories because of the looks that they get, the looks
that are supposed to be laden with compassion but instead come across as,
"you poor fool, you," a sentiment that is not helpful.

People as a general rule want to be connected to other people, but when we
have to hide how we feel we're not connecting, we're just passing by. We're
constantly encouraged to be happy, to look at the positive side of things,
to remember these important life lessons, but people don't work that way.
People don't dispel long standing depression by only thinking happy
thoughts.

Here's my story: When I'm alone at night and my husband is out of town, I
wish there was someone I could call, I wish there was someone who gave a
crap that I was alone and not liking it, but there isn't. I wish someone
would come watch a movie with me, or go out for a drink with me, but there
isn't, not here. Sure, if I lived there, or there, or there, but I don't.

It's not the whole story. It's just part of the story.

What I hear from depressed people is that no one reaches out to them to see
how they are. Perhaps they've exhausted all their avenues. Perhaps no one
really cares. I don't know them well enough to know. But I tell them that
we still have to reach out and make the effort, because if they won't come
to us, we have to make the effort.

And then I don't because I'm not certain anyone would care, and I'd rather
not find that out.

But I tell them that anyway because any little bit we can do to reach out
decreases the possibility that somewhere someone is waiting too.

And sometimes I do, and sometimes it's okay and sometimes it's not.

People are more than stories. Stories are a start, but we're far more than
the stories that we tell.


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