Today’s blog post is written by my friend, Dan Staub, who wrote this as part of a memoir class.
Tony
I am afraid to tell my story. Many times I have shared anecdotes about my life in some relevant conversational situation but there is no way I can tell MY STORY. One reason for my hesitation is that my story is very much still in progress. Another reason is that my remaining living siblings would object to, I imagine, my interpretation of our family’s history. The risk of pushback against and criticism of my voice speaking in this world prevents me from sharing my story with those whom it may help. Timidity. Anxiety. Cowardice. There are true details in my story that contradict what are seen as acceptable, normal and allowable behaviors. The consequent problems and my DIY solutions, for better or for worse, also defy convention. The miracles are just simply unbelievable. My unstable identity does not allow the receipt of positive feedback that may result from making my testimony public. Any positive social or interpersonal response to my truth deteriorates my self esteem. That’s the truth but I could never say it out loud on a public platform because my environment would correct me, I think, and say that my honest self-disclosure is not truthful or real, I imagine. The cross I carry now is the paradoxical self-esteem eroding shame machine in my mind. Decades of adolescent narcissistic competition have unhinged my heart-mind from my soul-spirit and I can only feel worse and worse as my life gets better and better. The environmental dangers were real without and real within my neurological mind, too. Once upon a time, I achieved a great success, by God’s grace, when I got a bus driver job at Logan Airport in Boston, Massachusetts. “All you want to be is a bus driver?”, the external environment interrogated. Bzzzt. Furrrp. Twang-Snap-Boing! My self died a little more beneath that crushing blow. THE END.
