If you're anything like me, vulnerable people just crack your heart wide open. I have so many lovebirds in my life who do that for me on a regular basis, and I couldn't live without them. There are also people that I don't actually know who have nestled into my heart. I'm sure there are many, but the two people who have stood out as of late are Marc Maron and Hannah Gadsby.
Maron Maron has been in my life for many moons, as I've begun most of my Mondays and Thursdays listening to him monologue (yes, I'm using the noun monologue as a verb here) about his mental and emotional state before his WTF interview du jour begins for more than half a decade. He has divulged his anxiety and fears over love and friendship and body and career and relevancy in the world. He has cussed and cried and yelled through his angst. I welcomed him with open arms years ago, and his vulnerability honestly helped me make peace-ish with my own troubles. Maron has a hot temper. He gets angry. He fucks up. He hurts people. Because he's human. Accepting and loving him, not in spite of, but actually because of his faults has helped me accept and love myself more. Well, it's still a work in progress, but I've at least warmed up to the idea. To him, I'm a fan and a subscriber. But to me, he's a teacher, a mentor, and a bit of a therapist. He makes me laugh and he makes me cry. It sounds insane (and maybe it is?!) but my virtual relationship with Marc Maron is a real part of my life.
Hannah Gadsby is a fairly newcomer in my life. Last summer, Netflix sent me an email saying that they had added a comedy special that I might like. Some woman named Hannah Gadsby had a show called Nanette. Sure, let's try this while I fold clothes. I clicked play and listened to the funny, touching stories she shared as I folded my underwear into little free-standing peaks like Marie Kondo taught me. The laughter stopped about halfway through the show. So did my folding. Instead, I collapsed onto the bed, head in hands, as I soaked up her words, her story, her trauma. Her life, actually. I took on her pain, and by the time it was over I was shaking. I've gone on to watch Nanette about once a month since last summer. That's a lot. But I crave it. There are moments that I feel sadness and pain, and I cannot pinpoint what it is or where it's coming from. And my next therapy appointment is too far away. And my patience is wearing thin. And my body tells me, watch Nanette; you'll learn something new, I promise. And it's hard for me to understand how, but I truly always do. I will always feel sad about the pain that was inflicted upon Hannah her whole life, but I will also feel gratitude for her courageous heart and willingness to share her story because her story has helped me, and so many others, navigate life after trauma.
Lately, the part of her story that has been etching away at my heart is the one about not coming out to her grandma. She said she didn't come out to her grandma because, although Hannah has made peace with being gay on an intellectual level, she still carries a lot of internal shame from her adolescence. In the state which she was raised, homosexuality was deemed not only a sin, but a crime. It was li-ter-al-ly illegal to be gay throughout her formative years! So, just like the majority of her culture, she too became homophobic. She internalized the pain and fear, and grew to hate herself. Sigh. I mean, can we just pause for a minute to send Hannah some heart hugs? Seriously, let's take a moment of silence for her and everyone else who was raised with a similar pain.
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Okay, I'm back. Deep breaths. While my story is very different from Hannah's (and I am in no way, shape, or form comparing her trauma to mine), my pain emerged from engaging in hers. In listening to her story, I found a whole new depth of the unbearable pain I've been carrying with me since childhood. Let's see, how do I even put this into words. My father had a hot temper. He screamed. He told us we wouldn't amount to anything. He hit us. He held us up by our necks. He threw us down the stairs. He tore our house apart. He broke our spirits. But then he crawled into our bedrooms on his hands and knees, weeping, begging us to forgive him. To love him. He laid his head in my lap, I felt his tears stream down my legs. I forgave him. And I loved him. Repeat, repeat, repeat. The story gets worse because I also had a hot temper. I screamed, I said "I hate you" to the people I loved the most, and many times, I turned to violence. When words couldn't possibly express my anger or frustration, I clawed the shit out of my siblings. I knocked things over. And then I cried and cried and begged for forgiveness. And they forgave me. But not before telling me that I was crazy. That I was acting like Dad. I hated myself. I mean, really fucking hated myself. And by the time I was a teenager, I decided that I would never ever do the marriage thing. My family and friends thought I was referring to fear of marriage because I didn't want to be a victim to the possible torture my spouse could cause. No. I swore off marriage and I swore off having a family of my own because I didn't want to victimize someone else. I knew the pain my dad inflicted upon us, and now I knew I was capable of causing the same pain. The thought of subjecting that torture on anyone else was enough to make me want to forego any personal happiness. My fear wasn't that I'd unleash my demons and then my spouse would abandon me. My fear was that I would unleash my demons and that my spouse would stay anyway. Because they love me. Because I'm their family. Just like we stuck around with my dad.
In my early twenties, I had an epiphany. The reason I acted the way I did, like the devil, is because that is what I was taught to do. My mother didn't speak up about her anger. She kept quiet and suffered silently in the shadows. I viewed her silence as angelic. I wanted so badly to be angelic. To be quiet. To swallow my anger. But I couldn't. I couldn't cower in the corner. I couldn't pray my problems away. I wanted to voice my emotions and I wanted things to change. I wanted to fix our broken family. Because the two examples I was given were so binary, the devil and the angel, I thought the only way to express myself was through the voice of the devil. I was the devil. I was my father. And, like him, I hated myself. That epiphany was almost half my life ago, but I still fear who I am. I still hate myself because I cannot think my way out of this one. I cannot filter this self-hatred through an intellectual netting. I cannot rationalize my internal shame. It's buried so deep that I may never find my way out. The way I explained it to my therapist is that I feel like a sham. I feel like I AM the devil, and every day that I come across as a normal, functioning human being, is because I'm good at pretending. I feel like I have faked my way into living a somewhat normal life, with coworkers and friends. And every day that I don't lose my shit, is a good day. Hopefully I can make it through one more. My therapist has ensured me time and time again that I am not the devil and I am not my father. My behavior hardly resembles his and my solution doesn't resemble his at all. He didn't work on himself. I've been in therapy for a decade. I work really hard to change. I show up. I dig deep. And if I'm being honest, my behavior has changed, too. But the shame is still there. And it's loud. And every single time someone tells me that they love me, my shame rears its ugly head. I am not worthy of their love. I'm not worthy of love at all. My shame overpowers everything else, and it shakes me to my core. But I'm still working hard, I'm still showing up, and I'm still holding out hope that one day, I'll give myself the space to love and be loved.
I don't know how to undo this pain. I don't know how to unravel this shame. But I do know that telling my story helps. And I know that hearing the stories of others helps. That's why these virtual relationships are real. That's why Marc Maron and Hannah Gadsby are as real to me as my closest friends. Their vulnerability is helping me make peace with myself.
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