I am a history
teacher. As such, I hear the phrase “what if” many times a year. I used to tell
the students “it’s pointless to play ‘what if’ history.” I used to steer the
conversation to what actually happened. Something changed this year. As a
class, we play ‘what if’ history a lot. What if the invading Europeans and
Native Americans worked together to figure out how to peacefully co-exist? What
if John Brown had been successful in his attempt to free the slaves, one
plantation at a time? What if women were valued as equal partners in the world?
What if we figured out a way to share the abundance of food our world produces
so that no one anywhere went hungry? I used to always say that we study history
to learn from the mistakes of the past so as not to make them again. Now I say
we study history to understand the dynamics of cause and effect so that we can
make choices today that will produce the effects we long for. We study history
so that we can understand how we came to be where we are today, with huge
national debt, continued racism, and poverty…as well as the high standard of
living that enables us to enact measures to protect the environment, the
freedoms of speech that allows us to question and protest and support what we
feel passionately about, and the leisure time to blog and check facebook.
I’ve begun to play ‘what
if’ history with myself, as well. So often I hear people with dissociative
disorders say that they would not trade their life for one without parts. I
used to say that as well. I used to say that the trauma of my past has made me
who I am today and that I like who I am. I remember a woman in the hospital
once get passionately irate about the term dissociative “disorder” because she
did not feel it was a “disorder” at all – it was a logical and helpful way to
cope with an illogical and painful trauma. All I could think was that she was
sitting in a mental hospital, stripped of her rights, shoeless. If the “disorder”
was so awesome, why wasn’t she out doing something she enjoyed???? Surely if
someone is so fucking happy with how they turned out after being sexually
and/or physically abused then they would be out fucking 3 year olds and making
them eat dog shit so that they, too, could have “dissociation.” Obviously,
mental illness is called an “illness” because it causes some kind of suffering.
A disorder is called such because it puts the individual or society at risk in
some way, it’s out of order, abnormal, pathological. It sure isn’t fun.
So I play “what if.”
What if I had not been raped? What if I had been molested, but my parents found
out and got me help right away? What if I had not been molested? What if I had
grown up in a secure, functional, stable home environment and my intelligence
and creativity had been nurtured and I never, ever, ever was sadistically
tortured during the crucial childhood developmental stages, or ever? I bet I
would have been happier.
What has trauma and
the resulting pathological dissociation taken from me? Would I trade who I am
today for someone who could have sex and enjoy it? Would I trade who I am today
for someone who never spent weeks or months trying to convince themselves not
to commit suicide? How about someone who could work a full work week, visit
friends over the weekend, get their house cleaned, take walks, read books,
listen to and play music, get a Master’s degree, a black belt, worship god with
a clean conscience, bake cookies, and not worry about getting too exhausted and
spinning into an emotional mess or having a psychotic break? Would I willingly
erase the burn scars and knife cut scars on my arms if I could? How about never
having to feel like I need to burn or cut myself in the first place? I would. I
would trade who I am today for someone who functioned more within the “normal”
parameters of American society. I not only grieve that there is a negative
social stigma to being abnormal, I grieve that I am abnormal.
But “what if”
history is only useful if it leads to an understanding of today and to choices
that bring desired effects. “What if” history is fiction, and I am living in
non-fiction. So I have to accept that I am who I am and move forward. Accepting
who I am does not mean embracing the abnormal/disorder/illness and telling
myself the lie that I would have it no other way. I would like it some other
way. That’s why I’m working so fucking hard to have a “more” normal life. I am
deeply sad that I will never erase the scars. I am deeply sad that what
happened to me has made me who I am. I am crushed that the “I am” who could
have been was murdered by trauma and you and the world and I will never know
her. The choices I make today are not so that I can be some fictional “what if”
person that is normal. The choices I make today are so that I can suffer less
with who I am. And that is sad.
