Living With trauma: The Healers, 47

So, one might ask, Gentle Reader, why those who are most gifted as healers of our traumatized humanity are often the least likely, and the most sidelined, and the most marginalized of people? There are several approaches to answering this question. I will begin with what to me should be the most obvious, but people often seem rather dense and obtuse to the concept. It is precisely because we are the least likely, the most sidelined and the most marginalized that empowers us as healers. There is power in rejection. Yes, I know that this goes completely against popular thinking about the damage that is caused by bullying and social exclusion, but hear me out for a moment or two, please. There is something perverse in our human nature that hates weakness and damage. We are like the proverbial chickens in the flock that will attack with our sharp beaks and claws the wounded or weakest member. There is also a perverse tendency in many of us to hate those whom we harm, or one could say, I hurt you therefore I hate you. I am thinking right now of a girl who was ruthlessly bullied in junior high. I didn't know her, and I tried not to participate in the frenzy of undeserved hate, especially given that I had also been a target for bullying. There was absolutely nothing wrong with this girl. She wasn't pretty, but didn't stand out for any reason. She was quiet and shy, dressed very plainly, and lived on a farm. Likely a simple and beautiful soul, but who's to know. I remember one day seeing her weeping uncontrollably at her desk after the final verbal jab, her head on her desk and her arm shielding her face in humiliation. I can't remember the fallout, but she was left completely alone after that and, yes, we were thoroughly ashamed of our behaviour towards her. I include myself because, even if I didn't participate in the abuse, I did nothing to defend or protect her from the others, making me an accomplice. I don't know what happen to her, she kind of disappeared after that. Neither have I any knowledge of how she ended up. But kids like this girl often end up going through mental health and addiction crises, as a way of coping with the abuse suffered from their peers. Having suffered similarly, myself, I know that my own outcome was neither promising, nor particularly nice. The already weak or fragile member becomes the scapegoat of our individual and collective self-hatred so we attack and harm all the further those already damaged. I think we are fortunate in that this particularly gruesome trait in our human nature is finally being addressed and recognized and that measures are being taken to combat this, especially regarding the way marginalized people, such as gay, lesbian and transgender, and refugees are often treated, though those same people are still in other countries treated like garbage. Being wounded by life, being scarred, acquiring the Horrible Knowledge of Life and its accompanying Terrible Wisdom gives us a cachet, a power and a strength that often appear preternatural to the uninitiated. We are a silent and secret fellowship of wounded healers. We represent the passion of Christ, the way of the cross, no matter what we believe in, because this is the blueprint of our human redemption. The more we are abused and mistreated the stronger we become, though there are many who end up irreparably crushed under the wheel. For those ones, we who have survived and triumphed can offer the kind of healing and peer help that highly paid professionals cannot. But there is a high price to pay for this privilege...