Who would you be without your story?

I have no idea who I'd be. Maybe I would be a person for whom there could be some hope, but I doubt it. My flaws are inherent, I think. And to be brutally honest, it's only when for some reason hope flares up that I suffer, because that's when I see most clearly how screwed up I am.

This is extremely important to remember. Isolated incidents and anecdotes prove nothing at all, and nobody needs to feel ashamed that they are not stronger or more resilient than they are. I'm really grateful to you for this post. Thank you.

Addendum to this - I have written most of my story myself, nobody else is responsible for it.

But why would there be anything to prove here at all?

I didn't come out and say that everyone who has a screwed up past can become strong and resilient. I didn't say that some people don't suffer a life long from their troubles.
I just believe, evil does not necessarily mean defeat.
And that doesn't need science - that is a fact.

I never even said anything about people having to feel bad if they are not stronger than they are.
It's like someone saying they went to the dentist and the teeth pulling did not hurt. That doesn't mean that the person believes that no one should feel any pain ever when a tooth is pulled. There is no connection between these two.

This post was a personal account of what I have found out for myself.
And I asked a question that everyone can answer or not answer for themselves.

I find it sad that often people who have positive experiences, people who have positive stories are treated like an exception. I don't think I am an exception.

My story is really evil. It started when I was 5 years old with my father physically harming me to the brink of death. I was sexually abused for years and years by a man and a woman who were sadists. I was their slave in ALL areas. Cooking, cleaning, looking after the babies and be at their disposal whenever they needed it. It is a miracle that I am alive. And I have seen things and experienced things that I would love to un-see. I only got away when I was 19 years old.
And yet I am here and I can live, love, have compassion and make decisions. And perhaps because of my story and my experiences I can cry for someone in pain, I can reach out the way I do to people who are suffering. I wouldn't have known how to do that at all, or what it means to suffer. But for unfortunate reasons I do. And it was this experience, that made me able to help others.
And I was helped by someone who has been through unspeakable evil herself. She was the only one who could understand what it was like to walk in my shoes. God, I am so grateful for her and that she understood, she was such an incredible life saver.

And by the way, I find it an insult if someone calls my experience and how I got out of it an anecdote. The definition of an anecdote is "a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person" My story is neither short nor amusing!
It's a true tragedy that I turned into a life worth living. So it's possible. That is not to say that everyone has the same story or the same way to cope with it. It's MY story. And in my story there is no judgment whatsoever how other people should cope with their story.

I think anecdote here was used scientifically, as in "anecdotal evidence" vs controlled experiment.

What was said was: "Isolated incidents and anecdotes prove nothing at all"
And I find my story or my recovery neither an isolated incident nor an anecdote. I am sorry, but coming out of my background and knowing how much I have worked to come to the place where I am now, I have a strong reaction to something like this. Especially when my post wasn't even out to prove anything in the first place. There was nothing scientific in here at all.. As there is nothing scientific in why some people are born into crappy lives and others aren't.

I think that the obvious answer is that I would be somebody else.

I don't mean to sound obstinate, nor intrude into your posts... still you have a wonderful insight to many questions and I love that, so I peek, and sometimes want to respond.
And in this... I have to ask, "So what... I am who I am, no?" I have my story even though I ashamed to tell it.
Still it's all who I am.
And wishing for something different seems futile.

Like you, I'm thankful for who I am regardless of whether or not it all seems hopeless or otherwise, and wouldn't change a thing.
Every tribulation that I endure, have endured or will endure are all part of building me into a better individual... it's a matter of perspective.
I have screwed-up, misunderstood, been misunderstood, mis-spoken, lied and came up with excuses that are laughable. But as embarrassing as much of that might be, I would not change it for the world.
I've learned too much to turn back now, and I feel as though I can still learn so much more about who I once was and the distinctions about who I now am or can be in some later date, to start wishing for some "other" story.

No, I'll stick with what I have... tyvm.

PS... I'm glad to hear you say that you say "...this may sound crazy and weird and I don't care!" That sounds like growth to me.
Peace & Grace, to you and yours.

Thoreau said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

I don't find compassion in a comparison of life struggles, so I don't find personal inspiration in the measure of magnitude of someone's painful narrative.

My life is what it is in totality. I try to make the best life I'm capable of making and neither apologize for it, nor eulogize it.

I've found that those who have been my best life teachers haven't viewed their struggles as inspirational.

Well, if the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, then thank God I am not them!!!

Those people I find inspiring don't view their struggles as inspirational - I, Amelia, am inspired by their hearts without them having to anything but just being themselves. Nobody compares life struggles here and what you totally misunderstand here, is that I don't find any inspiration in someone's painful narrative, but in the story of how they have overcome their story! And yes, absolutely, in that I find compassion, so much compassion!! And admiration and inspiration.

Perhaps I still live in a world where I feel forever stunned by how amazing human beings can be, how powerful it is when someone holds someone else's hand with a deep understanding, how much power personal stories and ambitions can have in changing lives! Looking back in history, the people I find incredibly important, those who changed hearts and nations and history, those who made it possible for me to live as I want today... are people with painful narratives who took their story and turned it into a victory!

Why do people write biographies? Because everyone wants to feel like he has something to give. People want to feel like their life mattered. AND EVERY LIFE DOES MATTER. With a heroic story or without, I think every life's story is worth telling. And if someone's story gives people hope, if it changes someone's life - I see nothing wrong with that, quite the opposite, I think that is amazing!

I don't care if people think I am a soppy, naive freak, but I know how much power there is in overcoming evil and I am glad I do. I don't believe everyone just has to accept their reality, I believe we have the power to make our own reality. I am inspired by people who have amazing stories, but I am just as inspired when someone, who has been struggling for a long time, finds the courage to make a little baby step towards happiness.

And, in my own personal spirit of Easter, I believe beauty can come out if the deepest pain.

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i sent this to amelia the other day. i think it is similar to what she's saying in this thread. that the imperfect can be more beautiful than the perfect. so many of us here have imperfect and sometimes very broken lives but there can be more beauty in something that was broken and is now repaired or healed than in something that has always been perfect. while no one wants to be broken it isn't the end of our story. there can be hope that something even better will come out of the brokenness.

Eta: we're all in different places in our story. Some are just starting to seek healing. Others have many years of healing or recovery behind them and are an inspiration to those just starting out and to those who wonder if they will ever find healing. Our brokenness doesn't have to be the end of our story but it can instead be a beginning to an unexpected beauty.

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I would be the person I was always meant to be.

It is undeniably admirable when people turn their struggles into strengths and don’t let these ‘win’. However, some people cannot cope with the endless trials & tribulations that life brings. It crushes you (general you) to have to keep getting up again and again. And hope subsequently flees.

So, I wouldn’t say that suffering per se is what necessarily makes us stronger. Without getting into a nature vs. nurture debate i think it is more about (or a mixture of) attitude, personality or innate strength (hardiness) etc. which would determine one's ability to cope rather than how much suffering one endured.

I am who I am in spite of my "story", not because of it. What is amazing is not how strong it has made me. What is amazing is that I am as strong as I am despite everything I have gone through.

Maybe my story is different. Who knows? I would have been who I am in my core no matter what happened to me in my life. I've always had strong values, compassion, fortitude, etc. I was reared in an environment that fostered those strengths. My "story" didn't give those strengths to me. My family did. My parents did. My faith did.

If anything, my "story" of abuse and torture got in my way in my life. It slowed down my growth and development. It took valuable years from my life. I have no romantic ideals that my suffering made me a better, stronger person. I was always there, but my "story" kept that hidden from me for decades.

For me it's different. I didn't choose my story but my story and how I dealt with it is who I am now. If I was asked whether I would trade my story with someone else's who has not been through so much evil, my answer would be a firm NO.
I know for sure that I would not feel as deeply as I feel for people who struggle if I would not have known what it felt like to me. I know for sure that I would not love people and this life with so much passion if I had not known what it felt like not to be loved and being thrown away to die. I would not have met certain people who now mean the world to me if I hadn't had my story.

A few years back I worked with sexually abused girls aged 7 - 15 at a radio project. It was my story that made me able to understand what they were going through, it was my understanding of their pain that made it possible for me to make a deep connection. And I believe, without patting myself on the shoulder that I have made an impact on them and gave them hope. So if just one of these girls looked at me and found me helpful and if I made a change in just one of these girl's lives, then I am absolutely grateful for my story!

That doesn't mean I am glad I was tortured and abused and thrown away - It was horrible, painful, disgusting, pure emotional and physical torture. I have a lot of issues still stemming from then. I have nightmares, I have flashbacks. I had sexual partners look at me in disgust when they saw my scars on my body. I have a lot of fear sometimes. I have to move around just so my abusers don't know where I am.
But it was my story and I can't change it.. So I can only look back and see the blessings that came out of it, or I would be incredibly depressed and unable to live my life.

But as I said, this is MY story. I don't expect everyone to have the same attitude and I don't judge or belittle anyone's experiences. People are at different stages of their own stories.
But at the end of the day, I know healing is possible. And when healing happens, it gives me incredible hope and yes, it inspires me and touches my deepest core.

See, I think I am exactly the person I was meant to be.

My post was a response to Akama, and I was not referring to you. Everybody's story, taken individually, is an isolated incident, that's a simple fact and not a pejorative statement, and that's what "anecdotal evidence" means. Your story is interesting for many people other than yourself, but it does not tell us anything about how anybody other than you would react in a given situation. And some people will be inspired by specific stories, other people will be inspired by other stories, and some people find their inspiration elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that. At least you - unlike me - have a story that many people find inspirational

i think the concept of your "story" is meant to refer to your whole life, not just the awful parts. if one's story were just the bad parts then i can't see anyone ever wanting to focus on that. having a different story would mean the whole of your life would be different not just the bad parts. it's not about choosing your current life minus the bad parts. you would have been born in a different family--not of your own choosing--with different life experiences that may have been better or worse.

if i'm not mistaken it sounds like you have an essentialist view of the self. that probably explains why you view your self as mostly distinct from your experiences and having a core essence. that is one way to view the self but there are others.

a different view would be like this. i don't know the whole story of who started mothers against drunk drivers but i think i remember it was some mother who lost a child in a drunk driving accident. that is a terrible tragedy but what came out of that (MADD) and probably many other saved lives is a very good thing. it wouldn't have been a part of the MADD founder's story if she hadn't lost a child. in no way is her losing a child good--not at all! but because of it many others have not lost their loved ones. if that mom hadn't experienced that loss then in all likelihood she wouldn't have started that organization that saves lives. MADD didn't happen despite the loss of the founder's child but because of it.

so, i don't think the question is meant to be taken literally nor is it about our lives minus the bad parts (that would be a different question), but it is rather a way of acknowledging and appreciating the specific good that has come out of of our specific lives, and a way to have a hopeful perspective that great good can come out of specific tragedies. it can help us see that the tragedies are not the end or defining feature of our stories.

Matilda The Musical - Naughty - Lyrics!! (HD) - YouTube -The Matilda song is cute!

It is also possible to be accepting of our whole lives, and to have hope without choosing to ascribe the positive outlook to the painful experience, nor to draw some sort of relationship between the magnitude of the pain and the depth of insight.

Yes. It's possible.
Thankfully we are all wonderfully individual and can have a thousand ways to look at things. And thankfully, all our stories and the depth or even our perception of pain are unique and we can all get our own insight in what works for us or what gives us hope.

It gives ME hope that the worst pain can still be transformed into the most glorious victory.

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The person I am right now is the sum total of my experiences. Some parts of me are innate -- I think that I am inherently extroverted and cheerful. But even that, maybe it was forged through pain?

Without my story, all of it -- the pain, the failure, the love, and the success -- I wouldn't be me. The question is, do I like who I am and who I have become?

That's what I am working on in therapy.

My therapist has told me that I'm a miracle, given that I escaped a tumultuous upbringing. But my therapist had the intuition to not say such a thing to me at all in the beginning.

The beginning of my therapy was all about validating that I had suffered. The therapist validated that I had suffered before I even validated it myself. Previously, I was dismissive of my own experience. I discounted it. I refused to believe that anything about my life was atypical. I even said, literally, on my second therapy visit, "I was never abused."

Since the beginning of therapy, I've come to realize that I was abused. This was hard to realize, because it changed how I saw my own story. I realized that what I went through was hard.

And then, I had to grieve all that I had lost. And this process is still not over for me. In the midst of this grief, I had an awful thought: Sometimes, there is no silver lining.

Sometimes, we suffer and the result is simply that we suffered. The loss is bigger than the gain. The loss associated with a tumultuous childhood of abuse and abandonment is bigger than the gain of a loving stable childhood. And so in the end, I lose.

Or rather, I start at a point that is behind where others may start. Emotionally. Financially. In terms of any stability.

My challenge is not to overcome or surpass other people. Because life is not a competition or a sprint to any finish line.

No, my challenge in life is to accept where I am and forgive myself for my mistakes and have self compassion for what I went through. And through that, maybe be a resource to others. To be a story of overcoming and self-acceptance and triumph over adversity.

That's where the inspiration comes in. Not that I am glad that I suffered so that I can be an inspiration. But, I have compassion for my suffering, and accept it, and feel inspiration and hope that life can still be rich and full of meaning.

I really did have to come full circle on this. There was a point in my life where I was minimizing my early suffering, while at the same time, congratulating myself for overcoming so much hardship.

But then I had children of my own. And if I believed that my life was "richer" for having been abused, then what of my children's lives? How could I justify showering my children with love and affection and financial stability? Was I weakening them?

I am made of strong stuff. But if that was only forged through suffering, what then, will make my children strong?

And I realized that, I am made of strong stuff. That existed before the abuse and it is what got me through. The abuse was a net negative. The strong stuff, my inner metal, that was there all along. It was a gift.

God does not wish us to suffer. He wishes for harmony and peace and love among all people. And he can take even evil and turn it into good. That is the inspiration and the hope of life!

I know that my children will suffer one day. It will not be by my hand. Someone else will break their hearts and that, too, will inform and shape their characters.

Thank you, Amelia, for this thread. And for giving me a chance to share my thoughts!

Therapy really helped me with a lot of this.

I think, that it is important to understand, that nobody says that pain is good, that suffering is necessary to become strong or that having a bad past makes for better person in later life. And nobody says that people who have not suffered horrible childhoods can not be inspiring. It's not about comparing pain and suffering either.
None of that is true. And I think that is the misconception here in parts.

My perspective is simply that having a painful past does not condemn us to eternal suffering. That out of darkness incredible light come come forth. What I am saying is that people should have the right to be proud of every little thing they have achieved despite their suffering. What I am saying is that I find people inspiring who take their story and make it a triumph over evil.

It is not about minimizing the suffering, or denying it the rightful grief. I find it incredibly important to treat people who suffered with love and compassion and without expectation.
But it's about maximizing what an incredible achievement it is to overcome the suffering. Even a small step to happiness is an important and, to me, very inspiring achievement.

In all I went through, I am so very grateful. Not for the pain. But that it didn't make me bitter. That it didn't make me hate life, people or beauty. That I have the ability to use my experiences to help others instead of using it for the rest of my life so people can help me.

I wouldn't want another story. And I wouldn't want to be any other person than who I am now. People can love me or hate me or simply be indifferent, it would not make a difference about what I think about myself. And that I find my own personal achievement

I love what you wrote, I think the process you have gone through is similar to mine. And I think you said perfectly: "He can take even evil and turn it into good. That is the inspiration and the hope of life!"

Exactly! The inspiration is not in the suffering. It's in the good that can come out of it.
Thank you!

Without my "story" I would be worth something, to myself and others. I wouldn't be hated or an object of disgust. I would have accomplished something meaningful. I would have been a good parent. I would have given pure love and been a person worthy of life.

Calista, you ARE a person worthy of life. You are NOT an object of disgust. You are worthy of life and your life is of tremendous value!!
I hate that your story has made you feel that all this isn't true. And I am so sorry! But you still can become the person you like to be, you have still the chance to accomplish something meaningful.

And I hope and pray you are able to see that one day.

I don't know you or your story, but I am someone who feels utter compassion for you. You are worthy of life!

With love,
Amelia

I often wonder who I would have been with a different 'story'. I am working at changing my story, but its not inspirational or enriching. it's been a nightmare that I'm still wondering if its possible to change. I'm really pleased that you are at a point where you are seeing some positives, but I know for me I wish I had had a different one that meant life was not always a struggle.

Willowleaf, my life is a constant struggle too. I don't minimize that I am in a horrible position right now. I wish I wasn't sick and I wish it wasn't final. I wish I had my siblings here with me, my friends from home. I wish I wasn't alone most of the time. I wish I could erase my fears and I wish I could switch of intrusive memories. I wish certain people who I loved so much would still be alive and right here with me, but they are not and that was a result of my story too.
My life is not bliss or rosy, even though it may seem that way sometimes.
And that's not what this is about anyway.

It's about finding moments in a life of turmoil that are absolutely precious. It's about accepting the story and transforming it. It takes a lot of courage and energy and I know that is not easy to find sometimes.
I have to remind myself everyday of the blessings I have and that I am loved, that I am a beautiful person who has things to offer and that my life is absolutely worth living and has meaning. Even little things make me happy. Sitting on the porch right now in my pajamas, having a cup of tea and hearing the birds sing and the squirrels chasing away the birds from the bird feeder Knowing that later I am going to watch my favourite movie from a comfortable bed. Taking over the Easter bread I made to the neighbour's kids and chatting with Big Mama for a minute. It's the small things, that matter when the bigger things are impossible at times.

For me, the mere fact that you are working on changing your story, is enriching and inspiring. That you go to therapy every week to make a change is more than some other people do to take their lives into their hands.
So I think you are doing great and I hope one day you will see that life has undeniably wonderful moments and that you story doesn't mean you will suffer for the rest of your life. And most of all, I pray and hope, that you will feel absolutely loved and valued by someone in your life. For now, I can step into that place for a moment and tell you that I have love for you and that I will keep you in my heart. And if you ever feel like talking, you can always pm me. There is good out there, believe me

Much love,
Amelia