Learning to Be Proud

“Be proud of yourself.”

These are the most recent words that my husband has spoken to me, that also seemed to affect me deeply. Why do I struggle with this so? Society values college degrees; so I would be valued if I had one. Society values money and monetary success; so I would be valued if I had a career and could work towards this, college degree or not. And yet, as many of us have seen and perceived lately, and have also known if we have been acting in an environmental or social justice way for some time; society is flawed. It is just plain wrong in so many ways. Racism is alive and well, privilege and ableism are very real, and when we finally grounded the planes and stopped driving the cars, both which seem completely necessary for society to function at all, we found that the skies became clear and breathable, and that nature and wildlife began to reclaim and recover in just a matter of months. 

I have come to believe, that if one is not a complete outsider, then they are not really paying attention. I have been the outsider in artist co-ops and even felt discriminated amongst people in organizations that are designed to lift me up, like Washington Association for Mental Illness. The reality is, or seems to be, that any person or organization that is operating functionally on this corrupt ship of a society that remains afloat because of people’s egos, judgments, and privileges - and that are not working to take it down - are actually perpetuating a very sick cycle and way of life. I am not just saying this because I am on the outside, because I am also on the inside with my whiteness and my privilege. I rather have found that through the experience of being disabled, through being an artist/painter and writer, that even on the most liberated fronts, where we are supposed to be questioning society and attempting to make it better, lie people poised and ready to restrict, judge, and eliminate anything that truly does question their society.

I suppose if you think of it scientifically, it makes sense. Anything that exists within the society, does what it can to preserve and protect the current structures and values that are in place, because if it does not, it would be potentially compromising its very existence. I have had people within the mental health system cringe at the truth of my life, turn away and judge me. They were supposed to be there in Olympia, and at the WAMI conference, standing up for people like me - and yet when I was honest, they turned away. It happened, twice. So we learn to hide our truths. We hope that we may be accepted by our very sick and wrong system. We cower and struggle and pray for a miracle. We lose track of ourselves. We die on the inside. Or maybe we perpetuate the cycles of abuse, in order to preserve what little progress we have scrounged. It is often the very people that are supposed to be lifting us up, that could lift us up, that keep us down.

And so back to Steve’s words. I must learn to be proud of myself. Perhaps I can strengthen what I have in the way of an independent mind, by giving myself credit for finding awareness in this clouded and contradictory society. And I know that there are others out there like me. The people that don’t fit in. The people that have to fight for what they have. And people that choose integrity over bowing down to laws that they don’t respect, while conforming to their superiors. I am proud to be me. I am proud of what I have accomplished. I am not going to measure my intelligence by a GPA or a degree or a resume. I am different, and I am actually special. I have long journeyed to see and believe myself as gifted. I have to accept that society does not accept me. I have to live the loneliness of being on the outside. Because I just don’t fit. I wish that this did not feel like failure; because that is the furthest from the truth. The hope lies in those of us on the fringes, rejected by this sick and oppressive system that is as close to us as the air that we breathe. Sometimes we feel responsible for the enemy spitting us out like garbage. Perhaps you don’t have an issue with being on the outside because it is all you have ever known. For some reason, I have always struggled with wanting to belong. It has been a long journey consisting of rejection after rejection, where I am only beginning to learn to value myself for being different. For being gifted. I am proud. I am proud for whatever my nature dictates to be my reality. God loves me, and may the meek inherit the Earth.