Right Kind of Hard

I would say over the last several years that there has been a lot of talk about a mental health crisis.

Especially among our teens.

I have heard it from therapists and teachers and parents. I have even said it myself. But I’ve been thinking: what if it’s not a crisis so much as an unraveling.

What if those of us born in the late 1900’s have decided that sweeping things under the rug and shoving trauma to the pit of our stomachs never to speak of it again is not only toxic but tragic.

What if we’ve decided that we are a generation worthy of healing and instead of persistent pain, we’re passing healing onto our kids.

The thing I have learned about healing is that it is ugly and messy and awful and hard.

And just when you think it can’t get worse, it does.

And just when you think you can’t take anymore, you do.

And just when you think it is never going to end, it does.

All of a sudden, on one random day with no explanation or warning you wake up and the world seems lighter- both literally and figuratively.

But not everyone is going to celebrate you for it.

And not everyone is going to understand why you have to do it.

Your healing will inevitably bring out the unhealed version of those around you and that is both the beautiful and bitter truth of healing: it rips open the wounds of people who may not be ready to acknowledge that they’re bleeding.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t heal; I think it just means we have to be prepared for how hard and lonely and gut wrenching and soul crushing it can be.

Until it’s not.

As horrific as the healing journey is, it is worse living in unspoken agony.

Only when we have been broken down completely can we rebuild into something unbreakable.

If we can just hang on to our hope during these ugly, messy, awful, hard parts-when all hope seems unbearably lost- then maybe we will wake up one day having raised an unbreakable generation of healers.

Maybe what we are seeing isn’t so much a crisis as a revolution. Maybe the collective we are in the throes of a healing journey so complete it will restore our humanity.