Joel, maybe 10 or 12 years old at the time, went into full Hulk mode. Throwing his ski poles, ripping his helmet off and chucking it as far as he could into the queue of people waiting at the T-Bar drag lift, grabbing his gloves with his teeth to wriggle his hands free...When he tried to get out of his ski bindings, he discovered he couldn’t anymore, because he’d already disposed of the poles, so he comically, grumpily figured out what every skier eventually discovers: that you can open ski bindings by stepping onto them with the base of the other ski. He went ahead and did that, carefully picking up one ski, carrying it to the edge of the lift line and chucking it in, then walking back to get his second ski and do it again.
The other ski school kids were confused, and I could feel their curious glances ping-ponging between Joel and me, their teacher, waiting to see how I would reel him in. All I could do was stand there and watch him, and so did all the other adults in the lift line, all of us enthralled with the goings-on of Joel’s performance, with absolutely nobody reacting.
Something was off, and we all felt it. Most of us have seen a temper tantrum before, as a ski instructor I certainly have seen my fair share of them, by all age groups mind you, but this was different.
And then I heard it. The silence.
Joel went through the whole emotional spectrum of agitation, starting with his lingering anxiety the group would ditch him because he was always too fast or too slow, followed by frustration because he couldn’t find the entrance to the lineup, eventually panic, and finally humiliation because he couldn’t get out of his skis - in absolute and complete - silence. Not a grunt, not a scream, not a whimper, not a mumble of curse words. Absolutely nothing. He didn’t even seem to breathe any louder due to the physical effort exerted. All the people that had witnessed this curious meltdown, adults and kids alike, could do nothing but watch him.
By the time he had decided to get out of his jacket, for reasons probably as unclear to him as to me, I snapped back to life.
I turned to the rest of the kids, told the most responsible one, a girl whose name I forget, but who was keen to be my second-in-command, to take everyone up the T-Bar as normal, gather at the top, and wait for Joel and me. Then I remembered what Joel’s mum had said to me at drop-off: “He can be a bit difficult. He has a few diagnoses, and he normally doesn’t do well in groups, so if you want to get rid of him earlier in the day, just let me know.”
Ouch.
I slalomed my way through the lift line crowd, picking up all his discarded gear, and carrying it back towards him. He looked up and when he noticed me, it seemed like he had just remembered that he wasn’t alone, but that he was in the middle of a ski day with a ski school kids’ group. When I dropped his gear in front of him, he flinched. Like I had just slapped him across the face. My heart broke for him. I knew that feeling so well. Being unable to express with words or reason what you need or feel, so your body takes over.
Joel started to mumble incoherently, I assume some attempt at explanation or expression of frustration or just some general commentary. I lifted both his hands palms facing me, did the same with my hands and started to push as hard as I could without pushing him over, so he could push back towards me, as hard as he could, until all the anxiety and nervous energy had left his body. We must have looked an odd pair, a ski instructor and a 10-year-old, wrestling, doing a kind of weird circular sumo dance because all the pushing with your upper body makes your legs step sideways.
When Joel had exhausted himself, I patted him on his shoulder, we simply put his gear back on, got in line together, and shared some gummy bears. Not a word was spoken.
We had come to an agreement. He needed to let his ramped up anxiety out, and I needed him to choose a better target. He also now knew, that I could be pushed against safely, and that it didn’t affect my kindness towards him. Hence, the gummy bears.
For the rest of the week, I took him out an hour earlier to get a few strong turns in, and to ease his body and mind, before we met up with the group. He impressed both himself and the group, by showing up every day, getting along with everyone and even making second place in the weekly ski school race. I have never seen a more ecstatic silver medal winner.
I never could figure out why exactly he had trained himself to be vocally still at all costs, even during the throes of absolute desperation, when he was perfectly chatty otherwise. Then, out at lunch one time, I saw his parents shushing him like it was an Olympic sport, and had a strong suspicion why quiet was the way to go for him.
He had negotiated a world for himself in which being quiet was the price he had to pay, because it had been made clear to him that his physical, visceral reaction to the world was not acceptable and made him a bad person. Sure enough, a different culture, a different time, different circumstances would have celebrated him for the very same thing.
But Joel was a child living the reality of his time and place, so he had no choice but to make a deal with himself to survive.
Healing
Healing, to me, is the active replacement of a bad experience with a good experience of the same nature or the active replacement of one need with another.
I presume Joel was scolded his entire ten-ish years on the planet for being “too much”. Too loud, too much energy, too whatever. I saw myself in him. I was the same. Heck, I AM the same. I was punished at jobs for wanting to push forward. Enough to start to believe I am a bad storyteller (Red Bull Media House). I’ve had multiple ex-boyfriends who were attracted by the “larger than life” energy, but scolded me in public when it took away their spotlight (think: the infamous Miley Cyrus and the little-r Hemsworth brother red carpet scene.)
Step one to healing is the radical acceptance of your feelings. There’s a great book “Radical Compassion” by Tara Brach. In it, she teaches the R.A.I.N. meditation. It stands for: Recognise, Allow, Investigate, Nurture. If, like Joel and I, you get pushed to abandon your own feelings from an early age for the demands and needs of others, this book is a solid start. Then comes the hard part. Proactively making different choices.
I’ll be honest, to this day I haven’t “forgiven” the weak bosses and cowardly ex-boyfriends. If I saw either in a dark alley tomorrow...I have enough angry energy toward them to have to call a lawyer after they’d “tripped”.
But what really fixed it was taking risks and working hard to make things better for myself. I quit and got different jobs. At first, some were inconsequential and just paid the bills, but eventually I had made all the right moves into a job I feel appreciated in.
When it came to relationships I had made a future for myself in which I truly didn’t want one anymore, because not only did I not want to break myself into a version in which I wasn’t “too much”, I didn’t want to let go of my guiding value in life: freedom.
When Christopher showed up, I didn’t need a relationship anymore, I just needed freedom.
I couldn’t fathom that he’d give me that. But he does so every day, and over time, we both have become more supportive and patient with each other, but we haven’t become less of ourselves. We are enhancing what was already there. I am still annoyingly “energetic”, as he calls it, when we are in a fight, and Christopher pauses way too long before he explains his true feelings about any given issue, but we have fun. The man came with the added bonus that he never turns down an adventure. Whether it’s backpacking to a remote lake, eating one of my culinary “creations” or even changing jobs and moving with me.
He can be accused of many things, but being cowardly or weak sure ain’t one of them.
So, healing came with the active replacement of the negative experience with a positive one, or accepting a need I tried to suffocate before.
I didn’t heal by meditating to forgiveness podcasts, wearing pastel clothes to create a softer-edged vibe, or writing my grievances on a piece of paper and letting it burn up in a bonfire ritual. (Though to be fair, the marshmallows and girl talk helped that day.)
When Joel and I added the hour or so of extra skiing, we added more positive time, of the same experience, easing him from doing it alone with the instructor into skiing with the group. He started laughing and singing, and just being a kid in the snow having a good time. I think of him often and wonder what happened to him. I hope his little, now adult, soul remembers:
Fight for a version of the same experience that makes you feel whole, instead of bending (and eventually breaking) into a version of yourself that you were never born to be.
Fight for the radical acceptance of a need you have and see if by accepting it, the need changes.
Fight forward. Don’t fight back.
Godspeed, my friends.