“Today you are YOU,
That is TRUER than true.
There is NO ONE alive
Who is YOUER than YOU!”– Dr. Seuss
As abuse victims, most of us are familiar with failure. This is not necessarily because we have failed.
Many victims are successful in the work world. Work may actually help us to deal with the abuse we once endured. It can provide a focus for our energies, sometimes to the point of exhaustion [1].
What we experience, however, is a persistent feeling of having failed in the most important arena of all; having failed at love.
This feeling stems, in part, from a mistaken belief that we “deserved” the abuse to which we were subjected (surely, if we had been lovable, we would not have been abused, goes the thinking); and, in part, from the failed relationships resulting from that abuse.
But all human beings experience failure. Life is a process of trial and error for everyone. A baby tries to stand, and falls. S/he tries again, and falls again. Eventually though s/he learns to walk, then run.
A Slow Start
Some of us have a slow start. We may, in fact, have been advanced for our years – struggling to develop without the nurturing and encouragement we should, in all fairness, have been provided.
Still, for argument’s sake, let us say we make a slow start. That is no indication of how we will finish.
- One little boy did not speak until comparatively late. His parents feared he was mentally impaired. A teacher described him as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams.” The boy was expelled from secondary school for being “disruptive,” and was refused admittance to a prestigious university.
- We recognize now that Albert Einstein was one of the greatest minds of the 20th Century. He is regarded as the father of modern physics [2].
Rejection
With or without a “slow” start, we all experience rejection eventually.
- Teachers quickly grew impatient with Thomas Edison’s inquisitiveness. One called Edison “addled.” Edison went on to invent the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the light bulb. Altogether, Edison held over 1000 patents.
- Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame had every cartoon he submitted rejected by his high school yearbook.
- More than two dozen publishers rejected one children’s book, before it reached the public. The author, Dr. Seuss, ultimately wrote more than forty others, including such favorites as The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who! and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse 