Last night I watched an episode of 9-1-1. A lot of the show resonated deeply with me. It was mainly about the character Maddie. She fell into what was initially thought of as postpartum depression. Turns out it was a thyroid thing. She was so depressed and convinced she wasn’t worthy to live, she attempted suicide. Thoughts of her hubby and newborn baby made her seek help instead.
She wanted to get healed before she went back to her hubby and baby whom she left months previously. She left because she was so exhausted from her medical condition she drifted off when the baby was in the tub and the baby slipped under the water for a few seconds. She felt on top of her condition she was a danger to her family.
There’s nothing worse than knowing there’s something medically wrong and no one will listen. Maddie ran from her family and her husband with baby in tow decided to find her. He felt responsible. She asked and pleaded with him not to follow, to give her the time she needed to heal. He didn’t listen.
Eventually after months they were in the same city. He daily sat outside a hospital where he thought she’d magically come walking out of one day, until a friend told him to get back in the game called life. That friend also told him that maybe, since he hadn’t found his wife, it was time to let go of what he so desperately wanted and let the “universe” do the work for him. As in, give back to the “universe,” and maybe the universe will give back to you. (Because you know, it’s all about what the universe can do for us.)
Eventually, Maddie and her hubby find each other and after the shock of the meeting, they finally get to talk. What it came down to is Maddie left because she knew her husband didn’t grasp the severity of her mental illness. He thought he could fix it by simply loving her through it. He had a good heart, but she needed so much more than he was gonna be able to give her.
Maddie had been through a lot of trauma. It hadn’t been respectfully dealt with, so the trauma dealt with her. Sometimes space is the best gift you can give someone who needs proper time to heal.
Maddie wasn’t able to heal while focusing on her family, job and all the life things. She didn’t leave to hurt them, she left to help them. She left to seek a deeper inner healing than they could provide. She knew in her knower it’s what was best. The fixers in this workd mean well, but people don’t need to be fixed. They need compassion and a safe place to land. We also don’t need our trauma to be trumped by another’s.
Listening is hard. Being vulnerable is hard. Fixing is nothing more than slapping a bandaid on a hemorrhaging wound. It takes guts to really listen with a compassionate ear. It takes guts to stop “running” from your pain and dealing with it. In reality, you truly can’t outrun your pain.
Maddie tried outrunning her pain by doing the daily grind and stuffing it down. But it came on her full force and it tried to take her out of this world. She succeeded in getting the help she needed. Sadly, many don’t.
I guess the point to all of this is, in a world where people are constantly trying to outshine one another in an effort to become noticed, we’ve forgotten what true compassion looks like. This “look at me and what I can do” world is a harsh place to exist. It’s even more harsh on those who feel they don’t have a place.
I’ll wrap this up with the new commandment Jesus gave us:
“And so I am giving a new commandment to you now—love each other just as much as I love you. Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”” ~ John 13:34-35 (TLB)
Notice it didn’t say to outshine one another. Because that’s not love, that’s selfish.
Blessed to be Broken 
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