On reframing
The first time I went to therapy, I was 23 years old. It was just after my attempted suicide and it was part of a free treatment program recommended by the hospital.
The therapist was a student, working towards his degree, and he certainly had his hands full with me. I have already shared how much of a mess I was in this timeframe – full of pain and acting out in every way I could find.
He did help me. It was the first time I said many dark things out loud and discovered that it didn’t actually kill me to release them into the world. It was the first time I even considered that there might be something happening in me that was not a lack of effort on my part. It was the first time I learned that I didn’t have to live so ashamed.
Near the end of the program, he asked me to think about “reframing” my life. He wanted me to take everything that had ever happened to me and try to reframe it – to see it as something with potential value and impact.
I was 23 and still so very lost. An 8-week program was nowhere near enough to make a dent.
I was absolutely not ready to do what he was asking. I walked out and never came back.
It was my last therapy appointment for more than a decade.
It felt like he was asking me to be fake. It felt like being forced to smile when everything hurt. It felt fundamentally wrong.
I didn’t speak up. I didn’t explain my concerns and my very visceral reaction. I simply plastered on a smile and left for good.
In my therapy appointment last week, my therapist asked me if I realized how often I try to reframe things by completely creating a new picture.
“Reframing is about keeping the same picture and adding a different frame to it. Not throwing out the picture entirely for one that feels easier and more positive.”
Sigh. She’s right.
I often do exactly what I accused that poor student of more than 25 years ago.
Soften the reality, which makes it not real at all.
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you’re going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
Anne Lamott
The one place that I think I have been able to hold the picture clearly, and reframe it in a way that feels true is in writing here with you. Maybe it’s because writing about it is easier for me than talking about it. Maybe it’s because of all the time and prayer spent prior to typing a single letter. Maybe it’s because I don’t have to look you in the eye, and can say the hard things with a bit of safety.
No matter what the reason, I’m grateful. Holding the picture steady while creating a new frame is painful, holy work.
All that I have shared is an accurate reflection, a snapshot of my life. And, today, I want to share the frame that is taking shape around it:
- I am deeply grateful that my marriage allowed me to homeschool my children.
- I love that my kids gained an entire family, who see them and love them.
- My children have amazing memories with a grandma, grandpa, and a man who was in almost all ways, their dad.
- I have amazing friends who love my kids deeply. We homeschooled together and our children grew up together in countless field trips, playdates and group science experiments. Our motherhoods and our children’s childhoods were spent learning, loving, crying, and having so much fun.
- I had the chance to be the wife and mom I had always dreamed of being. I was able to live my dream for more than a decade.
- When my children had extreme medical needs, I was able to be there for every single minute.
The picture I am reframing is too beautiful and too precious to blur. Yes, there are parts of it that are ugly and dark. But those parts don’t change the stunning beauty of it all. Both are an accurate reflection.
Ultimately, I am discovering that the framing and reframing comes down to love. I loved my husband and family with everything I had and until there was nothing left. I loved my life with everything that I had until it was gone.
If I could do it all over again, even knowing how excruciating the ending would be, I would absolutely do it again.
That’s the thing about love. It matters so much more than all the rest. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love is exactly the frame I want around my life.
