Why?
My therapist introduced me to many things. I started to realise the gravity of my childhood isolation and experiences. I had to come to terms with the idea that I was abused as a child. People have extremely specific ideas of what constitutes abuse, and I was no exception.
What I wasn’t prepared for was the grief. People sometimes talk about the stages of grief. But I started to notice the phrase everywhere.
Even my then-employer (a call centre) had a handy little pamphlet available to workers, which was proffered when a colleague had just lost someone or when something bad happened etc.
In therapy I learned that the “stages of grief” aren’t actually “stages” at all, nor were they ever meant to be seen as a linear process. Grief is more like a loop of feelings that you experience as you’re processing a traumatic event. It’s cyclical.
A person doesn’t just stop feeling the feeling, but the intensity of that feeling should ebb as time passes. While I mused at how confusing all of the conflicting information was, I also saw that there was a path forward for me: through the cycle of grief, through the anger and rage.
Sometimes when there is an underlying condition or unresolved emotional trauma, an individual will find themselves stuck in a “stage of grief”, which perpetuates that idea of a linear process.
In my case, the underlying condition was a combination of neurodivergence, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (cPTSD). I was stuck reliving things that made me feel powerless and helpless. I wasn’t haunted by single events, but by many overlapping traumas that crowded my mind all at once, bleeding into each other. Those events were what fuelled my frustration and anger.
Knowing why I was so angry provided me with a profound sense of relief. It also provided me with a greater target for my anger.
God.
I found myself feeling like I did as a child, asking “why?” again and again at every juncture:
Why would God let all this happen to me?
Why would God support my parents and their mission?
Why would God make me not only gay, but also unable to intuitively understand other people’s emotions?
Why would God allow my sister and I to be separated?
Why would God remain silent all those years?
WHY?
Still, silence.
On reflection, the continued silence was itself the answer to my questions, but I wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
My sister had wholly accepted the idea that God is ineffable: that there is no reason to expect that we as humans should ever understand in the machinations of a being of like God. That brought her peace.
Conversely, I have never been able to accept the incongruity of an impotent omnipotent God. I took it personally; it was something to pick apart and I was motivated to find answers. While my adolescent life consisted of choices being taken away deliberately or as punishment, as an adult, I now had agency.
I was going to take my grievances straight to God.
