TheBanyanTree: Stories

[auntiesash]

Your story about stories reveals more than many people can in a story.
(that sentence worked in my head...)

sash


On Mon, Dec 9, 2013 at 10:48 AM, Monique Colver <monique.colver at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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.
>
>
> m
>



-- 
"I didn't need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back."
-- John Green <https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1406384.John_Green>, *Paper
Towns*