This post is going to be very personal. As I have mentioned before, if that bothers you, don't read on!! I write about my own experience and share it to help you reflect on yours. But if that is not helpful, please don't read.
Today I want to talk about growing up, and in particular my own maturing.
I did not grow up quickly. What I mean by that is that I look back on who I was as a young adult with something akin to a sense of shame. I was incredibly immature. I made many errors, but more, I just didn't understand the world as most adults do or can. I didn't know what was expected of adults, I missed a lot of social cues, and I behaved, I think, as many who were much younger than me probably would have known better than to do. Honestly, there are many people I wish I could apologize to for simple things that I just missed, didn't see and didn't understand. I lost friendships because of that immaturity, but at the time I could not understand what it was that I was doing or failing to do, or why people disappeared. I can see it now. But it has taken a long time to understand their reactions and more, my own lack of maturity in specific situations.
As I look back through my life, I can have compassion for my own slow maturity. I had suffered serious trauma as a young child. I believe that people often become stuck in the age of their greatest traumas if they don't deal with them in healthy, constructive, healing ways. As a young kid, I did not have the tools to do that work. And so, when I look back, I think I had become stuck in that early, young age in many ways. Add to this that I've learned as an adult that I have ADHD, or, to put it another way, I was and am, "neuro-a-typical." ADHD has some other issues that tend to go along with it, including something called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria which I also had in spades. When I was a child, these were not diagnosed or understood. Instead, the notes just went home to my parents: "She doesn't focus, she daydreams all the time, she's distracted, she's hyper, she's oversensitive and gets hurt easily." Yep. All those things. But now there is understanding. And while I find my ADHD to actually be very helpful in my current work (because my job has so many elements to it and it requires me to be "high energy" in order to get through the amounts of work I take on), it was not helpful as a kid. It was a struggle, and the lack of understanding from the adults around me (because again, it wasn't understood then) meant that it took an enormous amount of my energy just to get through each day, each week, each month and each year, to cope, to be able to simply function in a world that was not set up to handle those differences. Learning those coping skills meant that there were other things, like maturing in the ways others were, that simply did not get the attention that it did for other people in my peer group.
So what helped me to finally grow up? Well, first I will say that I still miss some social cues. I'm aware of it. I work on it. I still struggle with rejection sensitivity dysphoria, though I now understand when that is happening and why. I have tools to deal with it now. But growing is a process, as we all know. And I still know that I've come a very long way.
Interestingly, while I believe trauma was a huge part of keeping me young for a long time, I also believe that it is the trauma I went through as an adult that helped me to finally grow up. Then the question becomes, what was different about the adult traumas that helped me grow while the childhood traumas kept me stunted in growth?
First, the amount of support I had while walking through the adult trauma was huge. I cannot look back on that time without still being incredibly grateful to my friends, my congregation, my family and my pastor-colleagues for all of their support as well as the help of a therapist and spiritual director. That meant that I was working through it and processing it in healthy and appropriate ways while it was happening. For all of that, I am, again, incredibly grateful!
Secondly, I think the writing I've done through and after the traumas was hugely helpful in processing through, healing, and helping me to grow up. I continue to write, in part to continue to grow, mature and stay healthy. It helps me to process the past and to stay in the present. As many of you know, I've written a book about that time. I have yet to move on publishing it for the simple reason that I do not want to hurt anyone and I'm worried it might. I'll get there, but it isn't time and I'm waiting until it feels right. Still, the process of revisiting everything and editing what I had written at the time has been emmensely helpful both in growing, but also in maturing through it.
Finally, and I think this is a large part of it, despite the trauma, I had to continue to be responsible for caring for my kids and continuing to do my church work - to keep going and to do even more than I had ever previously done to step up, to learn, and to figure out how to function as a full-adult. People kept saying to me, "you are so strong!" and my answer now is the same as it was then... "There was no choice in the matter." I loved my kids. I loved my church. In order for them both to be okay, I had to figure out how to be okay myself so that I could help them and walk with them towards wholeness and well-being as well. As I said before, I didn't do this alone. Thank God, I didn't do this alone. But there also was no one else who could step into my shoes of being mother to my three kids, or to model what it was for their pastor to handle crisis with my congregation. That forced me to grow up. As simple as that, it forced me to do the work I had not done previously to be the adult I needed to be.
It's an odd thing: trauma. Would I ever wish any of what we survived on another human being? Of course not! To say it was "awful" would be the understatement of my life, and I even "revisit" it with a PTSD reaction, though it has lessened a little with time. At the same time, I find myself grateful for having survived it. I find myself grateful that I was able to become the person I am today, who is so very different from who I was 15 years ago. I am grateful to have the strength, and the confidence of knowing my own strength. I am thankful for my capabilities and for knowing what they are, as well as my limitations. And I am grateful that I now know when I need help and to ask for it when I do reach those limits. I am deeply thankful for my faith, which, while tested, came out much stronger on this far end. It looks different now, and I'm grateful for that as well. Mostly, I'm appreciative of the fact that it gave me the chance to do the growing up that needed to be done. I come to this moment with a great deal more compassion, understanding, and grace than I had before. I am more aware of what others expect of me and I am quick to try to give more than what is expected rather than less.
The truth is that growing up, I never liked who I was. I didn't like me, but couldn't figure out how to be different. Now, while I am very aware of my limits and my flaws, I mostly do like the person I am today. I have learned to extend the grace, compassion and understanding that I have for others to myself as well. That in itself has allowed me to grow up into a functioning, thriving, and for the most part happy, adult. And that is something I can celebrate!
