This was a line a friend of mine gave me a few years back, at a time in my life when I was really struggling with not letting my depression control me. The Jenny who had just been in the room had been struggling with holding off some sort of attack (there were many, many tears). The Jenny this person wanted was the one who had sucked it up and put on her "happy-go-lucky" face (who can be pretty funny I must admit).
At the time I didn't think anything of the comment, because I understood where this person was coming from. It took me a few weeks and some wisdom from a friend to understand why this comment wasn't okay.
When I told one of my friends this story shortly after it happened, she was furious. I don't remember most of the conversation, but what I do remember her saying exactly was "Both those people are you Jenny! People don't get to just choose which one they want! It's all you."
Huh.
To be honest I didn't fully understand what she meant until a while later. Deep down I knew what she was saying, but I just kept telling myself she didn't understand how awful the depressed side of me was, and how long I had been there. I told myself this person had every right not to want, not to love, the broken part of me.
I think a lot of us who struggle with mental illness have felt this way. We feel like people should not have to deal with the less fun sides of us. Sometimes we just feel like we are just far too broken for anyone to love, and we cannot blame anyone for wanting to leave because of it.
Well, now that I am a few years out, I can tell you this belief is complete, and utter crap.
We have a God who loves us unconditionally, and we are in a GIANT family full of people who are called to love us the same way.
I mean can you imagine if that was how Jesus loved? If He came down and said He would take all of us, but not those of us who were broken? I don't think any of us would qualify.
Here's the thing about brokenness. We are all broken. And not one of us is more broken than the next person, we're just broken in different ways. And our brokenness is part of who we are, it doesn't define us--no God does that--but you can't just take the pieces of us you like and think you still have us. If you take out someone's brokenness, you take away that person. If you can't love someone even when their brokenness is obvious, then I'm sorry, but you are not really loving them.
Guys, every piece of you is so, so worthy. Even when you're hard to deal with. For people like me, even when your mind is keeping you in a cage for a long time, you still deserve love.
Which doesn't mean people need to just accept when you're not fighting it. Let's jump really quickly back to my story at the start of this post. At the time it happened, I understood where this person was coming from, and I still do, and I don't hold anything against them to this day, it's just a perfect illustration for what I wanted to say. I think this person was warranted in some frustration with me, because I wasn't doing much about the season I was in. I wasn't fighting the depression at all, and that attack I had been dealing with? I'm pretty sure it was my fault. Someone needed to say something, just not that.
To love someone is to push them when they need it. When I am in a place like the one I was in then, I need some tough love, I need someone to tell me to work on moving out of that place. But pushing does not mean telling me to "deal with it", and then just walking away until I can fix it. I think that's what my friend wanted me to do. Put when you push out of love (yes I know that sounds incredibly cheesy I am very sorry), you tell them they need to start moving out of that place, and then you stay and help them do it. We were meant to fight each other's battles together.
There are people who will do that guys. I have been blessed with many friends who have stuck with me through it all. And there have been many, many low points in my life. I have a friend who has helped to realize all of this, because when I thank her for accepting me (on a very regular basis), she always scoffs and says "I don't accept you Jenny. I love you."
I know this is not my best post, and I know it probably sounds a little jumbled, so I apologize for that, but I felt like I needed to write this now. I want to tell those of you like me who think your brokenness should not be something that other people should have to deal with that you're wrong. It's not dealing with anything. It's a part of loving you.
And you're worth that.
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