Telling our story can be as just as easy or hard as approaching a blank canvas with a pallet and brush. What to tell? We wonder if others will want to hear or know us. We wonder if we will bless or be blessed or after a blink she will turn her eyes and find another view to look at. She will look at a view and in so doing, will qualify us as something other than.
Imagine that you are coming to see a physician for the first time. You enter and sit.
So what has brought you here?
And there you are with another chance to tell your story. You are trembling with the same fear that was screaming across your nerve surfaces like an Olympian bobsled on and off over that past many years.
Why am I here?!
You’re sure she can hear the sound of your os ripping as you deliver the word,
Uh!
You look at your physician and doubt her interest.
We’ve all heard a skilled interviewer on the Late Show, such as Jonny Carson, or talk radio with Jim Rome. My best friend has always loved listening to possibly the last great baseball host, Vin Scully. He used to listen on his transistor radio in bed late into the night when he was a kid. What makes them great interviewers? The stories. It doesn’t matter who they are interviewing, talking about or show-casing, the story of the individual grips us and we feel connected and less alone.
Well, talking to your physician may not be the same as talking with Jonny Carson… but, you are. You are the story and you and I are what has made these people renowned. Without us, without the real connections between Me and thee, the real commonality in our humanity, in our suffering, in the discovering of how little space there is just when we thought we were alone – yes! we are worth hearing. You and I have a story to bless and be blessed by. Even when talking with your physician, you are what it is all about. Speak, to bless and be blessed.
Self-Care Tip: Tell your story to be a friend to yourself.
Telling one’s story is part of the 12 steps in alcohol and drug addiction recovery. How it was, what happened and what is it like now is usually the way the speaker goes in public meeting. The grimy details are done only with sponsor , however.
12-steps r a great no-mans land place of safety for us all. Thank u Carl. May we all b so brave to tell our stories. Keep on.
Sana, what a great post! When people come out of a narcissistic relationship which is typical with parents (we are a reflection of them after all!), partners (or if we wake up early enough ex-partners) or others – it can be extremely difficult to tell one’s story at all. Slowly with self-care and self-love, the survivors emerge with a sense of well-being and self and a confidence to shout our stories from the rooftops that we are the best “us” we can be. I love being 7 years (hurray) out of a narcissistic marriage that was directly on the heels of narcissistic parents (especially my father!) and able to stand tall and say, I am everything (and more) than I was ever meant to be – just being me!
Wishing everyone going through the journey of self-discovery and self-love the courage and persistence to continue on in spite of the opinions of others who say we must change. Bull crap – we never needed to change anything – we simply needed to wake up and realize that these “others” are control mongering, narcissists who were (and always will be) intimidated by real people with real lives!
thanks for posting.
Carollllll! Seven years sounds like something of magic. Thank u for telling us some of your story. Celebrating w u. Keep on.
The stories we tell ourselves and others become our realities (truth or not)
How does our sense of self survive that?
Good question, not sure I have an answer. Maybe we just need to work on focusing on the more positive stories and less emphasis on the bad experiences?
not unreasonable. how’s that working for you? testimony rocks. keep on.
Great question.
Survive or is it more like morph, bend, adjust to how we fit in with the rest of the world? Might be that our sense of self is involved in a continuous evolution.
Happy Holidays to you and yours
Talking about yourself can be uncomfortable but that depends on whether it is a necessity within any given situation. It must be done in modesty and infrequently if one loves themself as to not bore others and the same rule applies if you wish to not mention yourself at all.
how’s that working out for you? we r blessed by your story. keep on.
This is exactly what I’ve been doing lately…telling my story. Being delivered from the hands of an abusive pastor and now turned abusive husband has set me free. Although, our relationship was not like this until we met this woman pastor, he always had abusive tendencies. I just didn’t see them. And a stronger abuser brought them out. But thank God I am free so my children can have a fighting chance at a free life.
Without all the details, that’s my story. And God gets all the glory!
kudos to u for getting through this and out and about. wow. u speak to us. keep on.
I find it very difficult to talk about myself. I would rather hide behind my writings and my phone calls to others to check on them. I am able to talk to my primary about my illnesses and find that his listening is so inspirational and allows me to be heard. I am blessed with wonderful specialists and feel heard and healed as they treat me. But to tell all that I am, do, or want is something that I cannot/will not do. Introvert?? Possibly. Opinionated? Definitely, but only with age. Does anyone listen to my opinions? Not family, who really don’t know me. If you would ask any close relative, son, daughter, brother about me, they would draw a blank. My husband is my savior, and when I have nightmares from previous abuse, he is there to hold me and listen to my sobs. What a joy he is! I get so many memories of abuse and get angry that I allowed it, and then remember what a vulnerable person I was. I was raised to be nothing and had to become my own person by making good choices each time I at first made a bad choice. I learned I have worth, but had to be beat down to be able to look up. God has always been there for me, so I have a very strong spiritual side. I just found a marvelous book about narcissism and realize I have been surrounded by it forever. What I thought was normal was programmed in my home, and I now know that my father and brother who molested me had me believing I was a victim. I AM A SURVIVOR AND IN LOVE WITH LIFE. I don’t need validation from anyone. What a joy to live with autonomy and love for myself and then given to those who deserve it…God, my husband and my children. My well is full to give out to others. 🙂
your story is a generous to us. thank u! what courage u have. i am especially grateful w you for clearly stating that u choose not to b a victim though u have been chosen in some t of life to b victimized. Rock that@! thank u. keep on.
I remember the first time I saw a psychotherapist. I remember how scared I was. I remember twisting the button off my skirt (It was black corduroy and buttoned down the front.) I remember knowing what I knew and, yet, being terrified that, in telling my story, it might actually be real. I remember remembering and the agony, the horror, the un-real-ness that I felt as my story began to unfold. Those first days, weeks, months, even years of therapy still close my throat and constrict my chest and cause me to struggle to just breathe.
And, then, almost sixteen years later, I remember the freedom I felt as I began to write my story to people I couldn’t see and didn’t know. I remember the joy of finding myself again. I remember the sadness of knowing what I knew and realizing the pain that those who hurt me must have been in to cause so much pain themselves. (I hope that sentence made sense.) I remember how much better I felt understanding their pain and forgiving them – to one extent or another.
Telling my story was the most important thing I ever did because, after 52 years of knowing but not wanting to believe and after almost 20 years of learning to believe what I knew, facing what’s left of my life finally seems possible and comfortable. I only wish that I had started telling my story much earlier and I wish that the telling had not lasted as long as it did. I hope tjat. in reading this, others will not wait; not be as afraid as I was; understand the importance of believing and accepting and, if they can, forgive – to whatever extent is possible.
awesome testimony. thank u. keep on.