when your heart aches, be honest
The holidays are coming up, and with them all of the inevitable questions.
“What are you up to these days?”
“What are your plans?”
“How are you?”
This is all well and good - if, that is, things are good. But what if they’re not?
It can be incredibly difficult to know what to say. No one wants to be the downer, the pessimist, the complainer, or - God forbid - a failure. It’s difficult to admit that you’re not okay, that things are not going well, or that adversity has prevented you from achieving what you’d intended this season. So when people ask about your life, it can be tempting to mask the truth of negative circumstances and tell a white lie to sugarcoat these experiences and emotions.
“Things are going well.”
“I’m fine.”
“I’m making progress.”
These are common refrains which echo across the conversations and even more-so across the minds of the downtrodden, especially during social times such as the holidays.
Of course, there are times when these white lies are appropriate. Not every stranger or casual acquaintance needs to know all of the details of one’s life, nor is it always worth the emotional energy it takes to have the sorts of conversations required to bring full honesty and vulnerability into a relationship. Not everyone is in your inner circle, and that’s okay.
But those circumstances don’t describe every relationship or situation - there are times when it’s appropriate to be more truthful. Giving oneself the freedom of this type of honesty is important.
If you always pretend to be okay, you’re depriving yourself of opportunities to get better. Social support is important in many ways, both to emotional well-being and to socioeconomic stability and resilience.
Being unwell is difficult. It’s draining on one’s energy and emotions. It’s depressing. And as with facing any adversity, when it is unrelenting over a long period of time it just wears a person down. It becomes harder to keep up hope and resolve to keep working towards one’s goals and a better future. In these times it is crucial to rely on others. When you cannot see the hope in a situation, loved ones can remind you. When you feel like giving up, your support system can cheer you on and keep you motivated. When you can’t go on alone they can walk beside you, or sometimes help carry you. But - importantly - they have to know what’s going on in order to do any of these things. If you never tell the people who care about you that you are struggling, they cannot love you in the way that they would have wanted to had they known the truth.
Moreover, if you pretend that significant struggles do not exist then you are depriving yourself of practical supports. If you pretend that you’re able to get out of bed and function every day when you can’t, or that you’re able to pay your bills when really you’re too sick to work, or that you are doing well in school when you’re actually failing multiple classes because you cannot find it within yourself to make it to school, then how do you expect to receive the practical supports that could help you to overcome these challenges? If you’re too tired to cook, you could ask loved ones to drop off meals for a little while. Many resources exist to help bridge financial gaps during times of crisis. Additionally, some people may have the option of staying with family or close friends for a little while - this is especially an option to consider if your situation involves a need for medical care or assistance with daily tasks due to symptoms. Students struggling to get to classes could ask classmates for notes or help studying, or work out arrangements for accommodations with professors and school Accessibilities departments.
All of these forms of help and support won’t necessarily be available in these exact forms to every person, but many will be available to many people. It’s been my experience that more people are willing to lend support during times of adversity than one would think. I learned this last year - in 2018 I was facing these interpersonal and practical hurdles. I was constantly torn between my need for help processing what I was going through and the compulsion to pretend that everything was fine. Maybe if I said those words enough they would become true. But I reached the point where honesty became necessary. I wasn’t functioning on my own. I wasn’t able to get out of bed. I wasn’t able to cook, or drive myself, or get to classes. I was struggling emotionally, and my faith was struggling. I needed help.
Once I admitted this my life became so much easier. I was, to be honest, dumbfounded by the reactions of those close to me. I had felt such anxiety about asking for help - I didn't want to be needy, or a burden, or annoying, or seen as un-resilient or lacking in resolve. I thought that admitting how bad things were, how scared and anxious and angry and depressed I was, or how much difficulty I was having managing my responsibilities would make people see me negatively. I thought if I admitted how tested I felt in my faith that I would be seen as a bad Christian. I was terrified that they would judge me or - worse - abandon me altogether.
But this was not the case - not at all.
Once I asked for help people came to visit me. They helped drive me where I needed to go. They cooked for me. They sat with me in times of great difficulty and cried with me, then laughed with me about the things that were still good and joyful. They helped me to see these happy and good things for myself. They prayed with me, and for me, and didn’t judge me for the thoughts that I’d judged myself for having towards God in the midst of my situation. Instead they patiently talked with me for hours on end about all of the thoughts and questions and difficult emotions rattling around in my head, helping me to process and start to make sense of them. They helped me to climb, slowly but surely, out of the dark hole that I’d been living in emotionally for the better part of the year. And not only did this help me to learn to be happy again, but it helped to deepen the relationships in my life (and build new ones) so that as I got better I was able to see how in life’s bizarre way my trials had led to a great enrichment through the formation of the kinds of interpersonal bonds that can only be formed by walking through great adversity with another person who sees and loves you through your pain.
Since then things have turned around. I came into 2019 low, but I’m leaving it high. In the time between I’ve recovered immensely, and since have walked through times of great joy with the ones who supported me during my trials. I’ve also had opportunities to be the “strong” one, who reaches out and takes the hand of another to support them through a circumstance in which they struggle to see the light on their own, as I once had. I haven’t minded this - it only reinforces what I’ve known to be true for a while now.
Alone, we are weak. We all struggle. None of us are perfect. But people are made to exist in right relationship - we thrive when we learn to not only love each other sacrificially through hardships, but also to accept this love when it is offered. We need each other. And this isn't a bad thing at all. Loving each other in such selfless ways does not serve the sole purpose of deepening earthly relationships (although that is a definite and important consequence). It is in its truest and purest form a way in which we learn to glorify God. By making less of ourselves and greater of others, we are making greater of God as well. After all, he did instruct us to love our neighbors as ourselves. After loving him this is his greatest command. Loving others in their times of need is a way of demonstrating God's great grace as it has been bestowed upon us, and making his blessings tangible to others. Receiving the love that others give is a way of humbling ourselves - by admitting our need we admit our imperfection. And it is a way of being reminded of the graces that have been bestowed upon us by God. Comfort during heartache in the form of earthly fellowship is a small but powerful manifestation of God's mercy. And we all need it.
Let’s not pretend that any one of us is somehow the anomaly - none of us are, even if we’d like to believe it.
So, if you’re going into this season of familiar faces and questions with a heavy heart, consider answering the people who care about you honestly. Let them see the truth, so that they can walk with you through it. The way is difficult, but not nearly as much so with those that love you as it is when walked alone.