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1/ Heal yourself, they said, and then come back and be part of society. You can’t contribute here if you’re broken. First you must care for yourself.
This worked for many whose bridge to healing was a short detour. They crossed that magical bridge & returned “fixed” & “whole”
This worked for many whose bridge to healing was a short detour. They crossed that magical bridge & returned “fixed” & “whole”
2/ Some, however, had been “broken” for years, even lifetimes & had no magical bridge to cross over into wholeness. The bridge was either absent or would take years or decades to repair & traverse. Or involve losses & dangers more severe than what we face on the “unhealed” side.
3/ But choosing not to heal is not an option they said! Broken people can’t contribute! Yes but many of us broken people had been doing just that our entire lives in various ways.
Telling us we must heal is basically saying we must give up what we’ve built & could still build.
Telling us we must heal is basically saying we must give up what we’ve built & could still build.
4/ When you say we must heal and recover you’re basically saying we should go away. You’re not acknowledging all that we have done and can still do even in our “broken” state. You’re forcing us to make a choice that may very well be far more damaging than the one we’ve made.
5/ Yes some would benefit from crossing that bridge. And smaller acts of self-care can happen in ways short of “healing” but unless you’re actually privy to the topography of someone else’s possible routes to “healing” you don’t get a vote. You don’t get to make rules for all.
6/ Also instead of telling us to cross some bridge of healing and come back, maybe focus on what can be done to support us here on this side of things? .......
Anyway why do we focus on *persuading* people to care for themselves? Or shaming/pressuring/outright bullying? I’d say let’s try to care people into caring for themselves. Or just back off bc if we’re not invested enough to do that we’re not invested enough to be helpful imo
