I'm Different

Learning to See and Celebrate God's Fingerprints in Our Lives

NATHAN

I've always known I was different. It wasn't something I chose or an identity I one day decided to wear. Being different is woven into the very fabric of who I am. Part of it comes from the various "disorders" that have challenged me and my family, and part of it simply comes from the outside-the-box personality God decided to give me.

Being different has made itself evident in every corner of my life, peeking out and reminding me whenever I start to think I might be normal.

I know I'm different because when other children were content with walking on the sidewalk, I felt the need to climb the rails. Because when others' questions would stop, mine seemed to go on without end, often frustrating those who ran out of answers.

I know I'm different because when I was fifteen I began taking six showers a day and washing my hands until they bled.

I know I'm different because my mind seems to change channels at will, making it nearly impossible to focus on any one thing for more than a few minutes.

I know I'm different because no matter how hard I looked at the math problem or how many times my tutor explained it, my mind simply couldn't grasp the simple numerical basics that seemed to come so easy to my friends and siblings.

I know I'm different because while I long for affection, I am often scared to touch the ones I love for fear of contaminating them.

I know I'm different because even now as a twenty-seven-year-old adult, there are times when the weight of the world seems so heavy I don't feel able to leave my apartment.

I know I'm different because I've been told so by every important person in my life.

Sally

"Do you just try to be different?" That was one of the most familiar phrases of my childhood and youth and even into my adulthood — though I was not consciously aware of this until I pondered my life while trying to figure out Nathan's.

The message wasn't I love your uniqueness, your individualism.

It was Why cant you just fit in?

"Since you are so pale and blond, you will have to try harder to have color in your face. You will need to wear mascara and lipstick every day to look beautiful."

"Are you watching your weight? And when was your last haircut?"

"That's a strange thing to say. Why would you even think that?"

"You try to think up every weird ideal and decision to pursue — just to embarrass our family."

These messages and others like them were the foundation of my psyche as a girl growing up. After I became an adult, the criticism was more often implied than spoken, but I heard it loud and clear: "Please don't tell my friends about the books you have written. Your values are a little bit 'out there,' and we wouldn't want to give anyone the wrong impression."

And the theme of all this communication was You're different — and that's not okay.

I was not trying to be different. I just was. I thought differently. I questioned things as they were. School bored me. I bounced my foot nervously during church and probably talked too much. I was definitely a little wild and dramatically idealistic in my values and dreams. And that made some of my family uncomfortable. They wanted me to fit in.

I realize now that I was probably one of those children who today would be diagnosed with an alphabet's worth of letters — ADHD, OCD, perhaps a couple of other Ds. Those terms are part of my daily vocabulary now, but that wasn't true back then. My parents certainly weren't informed of such things. There were fewer resources and less understanding of learning issues and mental illness. And of course I had no idea these issues framed my life. I only knew that I frustrated others from time to time by just being myself.

So I just muddled through. Because of training and peer pressure to conform, I managed (mostly) to hide my differences. Looking back through the corridors of my life, I now realize that I "stuffed" and suppressed my feelings and learned how to pull back so other people would accept me. I learned to avoid the conflict of being misunderstood again. Only much later, through time and experience and especially Nathan, would I come to a different understanding about being different.

I am writing this from the haven of my small, covered deck, sipping my cup of hot tea as I gaze out at tall pines swaying in the whispering wind. Yes, I'm out here again. Being outdoors is one of the best ways I know to find peace for my always active mind. And life is good, because finally I feel at ease in my own skin. I have come to actually like who I am, at least most of the time. But the journey of liking who I am, as I am, with all my strengths, passions, flaws, and imperfections, has been a long journey. It has taken most of my life.

I have always had secret dreams, pleasures, and ideas bubbling inside me as well as an adventuresome spirit — a willingness to take risks, to experience life at its fullest, to question hypocrisy, and to point it out when others kept silent. All this plus a larger-than-life personality type meant I was often just too much for some of my family, though others in my world of friends loved the "bigness" of who I was.

My sweet mama, especially, struggled to cope with what I was like. She was a devoted and loving mama, but it took me years to understand that she was probably insecure and terrified that I might do something that would bring her criticism from her family or friends. I wasn't the one with a problem, in other words. She was. She had no idea how to accept me and to validate the person I was on a daily basis.

Let me add that I am long past blaming my parents and especially my mother. She did the best she could within the limits of her own perspective. She was a generous person, and she gave me a love for life in many areas where she felt comfortable. She also (inadvertently) taught me a valuable lesson that has served me well as a mama — that it is easy for parents to pass on unnecessary guilt, shame, and...