Nobody ever asked.
A child acts out, seeking attention, needing support, begging to be asked one simple question. But no one ever does.
Deciding whether or not to write this and share it here has been a debate since the day I started this weekday newsletter. The subject is uncomfortable, and to some, it may not seem relevant in a newsletter intended to push us all toward our potential. But so many of us struggle to move past our pasts to create our futures. So this morning, I’m choosing to share in the hope of touching someone who needs to take the first step to help someone (or maybe themselves).
“…the question that we should be asking is not 'what's wrong with that child' but 'what happened to that child?’”
— Oprah Winfrey
The moment we’re living in has me worried about something I can’t change, and can’t seem to stop thinking about — how the stress of this moment in our world is leading to children being harmed every day. It makes me sad and angry, and it makes me feel helpless. Having lived the pain of childhood trauma, I know how long the healing takes if it ever comes.
The opening quote of today’s post resonates with me on a deeply personal level. When bad things happened to me and I told no one, what I hoped for more than anything was for someone to see the pain, to feel the need, to confront the reality something was wrong. Something bad had happened and it had changed me forever.
I felt lost, alone, trapped.
And I kept wondering…
Why didn’t somebody just ask me “What happened?” That would give me permission to talk about it, despite having been threatened with physical harm if I ever did. Couldn’t they see I was hurting?
So I remained silent.
I started testing the boundaries, acting out in the hope of getting caught. Surely then someone would ask me what was wrong and I could talk about it.
But my attempts failed.
Either I didn’t get caught doing anything wrong, or I was simply taught a lesson about why what I did was wrong and told not to do it again.
Slowly I gave up hope anyone would ever ask me why I was acting the way I was acting. I stopped constantly trying to get in trouble and decided to hide instead. To wall off the disgusting and obscene memories. To pretend they weren’t real.
No one ever needed to know.
I needed to forget.
And I succeeded to some degree.
For almost 20 years I locked it all away. But I paid a big price for making that choice. It fueled an inner beast that emerged as darkness, sadness, and ultimately constant angst and just below the surface anger.
There’s much more I could say, but this is not about my journey.
I’m writing this for one reason:
We all need to be acutely aware of what may be happening to some of the young people in our lives during this time (frankly, all the time) of high stress and continued uncertainty. We need to recognize when something has changed and dare to ask the question that gives them permits them to share their truth: What happened to you?
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P.S. If this message hits home for you because of your personal experience, please know I’m sorry you went through whatever it was, and I hope you have been able to move past it. I have no clue how things would have gone if I had been asked and I had spoken up. But I’m convinced it would have helped me.