I have to remember to say this if I have children, so I don't forget what it was like to be in those shoes. I'm not really saying anything unique, just something I mean to keep in mind. I haven't been out of them long enough, but taking the effort now will be easier than relearning everything later. This is why it's not pointless to fight for one individual.
Dear heart ...
An unavoidable problem in giving advice is that we can't really explain the transition between learning something because it makes sense, and understanding something because you've finally lived it enough times. An unavoidable problem with taking advice is that it always works differently on the inside. It's not medicine, it's just a tool. I don't have painkillers for your heart.
The best pieces of advice I ever got weren't like warm blankets, thrown down in to my hole to comfort me. They were ropes thrown down for me to climb out on, but it was like I'd never seen a rope before and couldn't imagine what to use it for. I got angry at the people who had thrown it, thinking they were just trying to humor me, someone throwing a catnip mouse to an exasperated cat. It made perfect sense to believe that my guardians treated me like I was all overreaction and no brain, invalidating the frustration of the hole. And when I realized what the point was, I didn't immediately scramble gratefully out, I planted hands on hips and demanded to know how a plain little piece of rope could be of any use. What was I supposed to do with a really thick string?
It was like I'd forgotten my world and believed the hole was the only place I could be even though it made me miserable. It's why I thought the planet was a hopeless place even though it wasn't. I convinced myself that the entire world was the hole, that whatever I could see from here was only a bigger and more elaborate trap. We just forget sometimes, when we're free, what confinement is like.
That's why a lot of people can't understand that you're sad, they don't really hate you. If someone tries to help you, you fight it, and they get mad, odds are it's not malice. Pushed in to foreign territory, that experience could be confusing, invasive, frightening, or painful, it seems to hurt more than it helps, your guardian looks like a jailer, and the hole seems to shrink with every question asked.
That impression sends the best people over the deep end, you're not to blame for tumbling sometimes. I came to think of it this way though: That sinking feeling, walls shrinking in on me, confusion mounting, hopeless frustration boiling inside, flashes of anger and indignation, were all the bad side effects of a very good sign: I wasn't used up yet.
When I contemplated dying, it was out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, it wasn't because I was done. Eventually you're bound to hear someone's diatribe on suicide, and a lot of them are only different ways to call someone a selfish, weak-minded attention seeker. People who say they've thought about it get it even worse. In those moments we can't fathom their frustration, and they don't get why someone would make such a mountain out of a molehill.
I heard someone say once: "The will to survive will always outweigh the ability to die." My reaction was so cliche, but the first thing I did was drop everything to listen. It was a concert DVD, of all things, that I couldn't even watch. It was Shinedown's "45," which everyone thought was about suicide. And in a way, it kind of is--it's about dodging it. A literal interpretation isn't accurate, but mine was that if I'm still hurting, still feeling so much, still asking so many desperate questions, then I must not really be ready to die.
If outrage, hurt, indignation and confusion are still there, you're still alive. If you're still asking questions, still throwing why in people's faces, still shedding tears, still feeling confined--if you still get up and pace sometimes--even if you lash out, it's not over. It might not be caused by a big problem, it might come from something really traumatic--but it doesn't help to tell you that. You'll know once you're out, because if you were unreasonable enough to fight what looked impossible, you're smart enough to understand.
And you do have the strength to get out.
I'll do my best to throw you a rope, when I see that you're trapped. I'll give you the time you need to find it, figure it out, believe it in the end. I'll be waiting, even when you can't find me, for you to take hold and start pulling yourself up. I'll climb down to you to give you a hug and stroke your hair all the time, even though it might sting when I climb out and leave you there.
There's more than one hole to fall in to. This may happen again and again. You might need to fight this fight until you can't count them anymore.
Humans frequently give one another, and other species, no choice in this matter. No one throws those people a rope. Those holes are so much worse than all of mine combined ... but it's still why I do what I do.
So I'll say to you what I've silently said to every trapped creature, human or not, regardless of the trap's nature.
When you get out ... it will be so good to see you smile again.
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