FROM MY LIFE
Poking Until It Doesn’t Hurt Anymore
When you’ve been in survival mode so long, it becomes the norm
Last week, as I drove back from a day at the office, I listened to the radio, as I always do when driving. News radio, that is. Over the years I have heard many interesting talks, about actualities, but also about books and music and other cultural things.
This time there was a talk about a young man who wrote a book about the Uyghurs — his father is still a prisoner in one of the internment camps for Uyghurs in China. He talked about threats he gets, but said that however strange it might sound, you get so used to the threats that you only realize how bad it is when someone mentions it to you.
His words sparked a memory
Now where my story is not as bad as that of the Uyghurs, his remark made me think of when I just met my best friend eighteen years ago. We were still getting to know each other, and we talked about our backgrounds, the way we grew up, the things we did and would still like to do. You know, just the way friends would talk to each other over a cup of tea.
I told her about being pregnant when I was sixteen, and how my daughter was born in the middle of my final exam, thankfully, on a Saturday. How I wrote an exam every day in the week after that, while my daughter stayed in hospital and then I joined her again after the exam. How I wrote my last two papers when I was already home with my daughter and failed that subject because I was just too tired to remember what I have studied.
I shared the memory of going to university when my daughter was only three months old. And of course, many other things of that turbulent time, such as how the father of my daughter have disappeared (which I now knew he never did). And of course, there were my two divorces.
Listening to all this, she said: you really went through a lot, it must have been so hard. I just brushed it off, changed the subject, and asked her about her life.
Yes, it was hard!
It was only hours, maybe days later, that I really took the time to think of all I have told her, and her remark. Playing the hardships of my life in my mind like a movie, I realized: yes, it was hard!
To feel that it was hard and acknowledge it to myself, I had to take a step back, and look at my life from a distance. Only then, I understood what I have done. This was why the remark on the radio made total sense to me. Somehow, when life keeps on throwing you curveballs, you get so used to dealing with it that you don’t even notice the hardships anymore. You just carry on.
I had to carry on. I had two kids to care for, and despite their father living near to us, I was fully responsible for them. You see, he had decided it he couldn’t be a 24/7 father, he’d rather not be a father at all.
Desensitized, like the frog in the boiling pot?
When I saw this prompt by jules, the thoughts of the talk on the radio and the memory it sparked came back to me:
Do you know the boiling pot and the frog story? Write about a time you realized you got comfortable with an uncomfortable environment.
When we have to deal with all those lemons and constantly make lemonade of it, does it mean we get used to the bitter taste, even when we put no sugar in it? Are we like the frog in the water, sitting comfortably and not noticing the water getting hotter? Is it like having a bruise we’re constantly poking until it doesn’t hurt anymore?
Is this what happens when we are constantly in survival mode?
In Dutch, the word for live is ‘leven’ and for survive it’s ‘overleven’ where the direct translation for the latter is ‘over-live’. For so much of my life, I have been in survival mode — over-living — that it has become the norm.
Survival mode — a state we get in instead of actually living our lives.
To be honest, I don’t even know what it is to just live, and not constantly be in survival mode. Coaching is teaching me to be more ‘in the moment’. What do I feel? What do I smell? What do I see? I concentrate on my body and notice my shoulders are always tense, I don’t know how to relax, and the moments I feel joy in my heart, are very rare.
My flight response is always slumbering. I’m waiting for the moment things go wrong.
Truth is, I’ve become so used to survival mode — to my life being a difficult one — I’m desensitized.
But, I’m learning it doesn’t have to be.
I’ve been that frog for too long; have become to accustomed the lovely warm water. I have to get out before it’s too late — get out now and learn how to live!
To breathe.
To feel joy.
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