The Best Years of Our Lives
Never forget that walking away from something unhealthy is brave even if you stumble a little on your way out the door.” — Mandy Hale
“Once you are real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”
-The Velveteen Rabbit
Many years ago, just after World War II, a multi- academy award winning movie-The Best Years of Our Lives-told the story of three military men returning from the war, how they tried to assimilate back into society. It was difficult and challenging. Think about so many of our service men and women now who go through the same difficulties, many times suffering PTSD, addiction, divorce and sadly, sometimes, suicide.
The Walking Wounded
Now think of our alienated society today …what’s the difference?
There is no difference. That’s the truthful “difference.” We are society’s ‘walking wounded” through the best years of our lives. All of our years- from birth to death- should be the best years of our lives. So what’s wrong? Well, everybody has ‘something’ going on. Some more than others. Many of us have deep psychological trauma from our family of origin- things like abandonment and abuse. Many of us suffer from depression and anxiety, especially with the fears rampant in our society today.
The ‘Spiritual Disease’
Now there is large group of people among us who suffer from what the famous author and doctor, Scott Peck called: “The Spiritual Disease.”
This disease does have a cure but based on twelve steps and those that follow and work those steps do recover. They recover what most of us never do: their sanity and a kind of psychological freedom finally to come home, and as TS Eliot said: “Know that place for the first time.” They begin to become real just like our friend: The Velveteen Rabbit. But see, unfortunately, most of us don’t suffer from that disease. I say unfortunately because that disease requires rigorous honesty and bravery from necessity. It’s a matter of life and death. If you want life, you’ll do anything like following those steps. Most of us don’t understand that kind of necessity like those solders in the movie, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives. ‘
Emotional Abuse: The Silent Killer
Many more in our society do suffer from so much more limping around, many times, in toxic codependent relationships and abusive marriages that never heal..until we die. You can’t heal from a malady if you don’t recognize the symptoms. And when you’ve been in an abusive relationship for many years, chances are you’ve ‘assimilated.’
You can’t see the ‘edges’ of it until the abuser attacks in some way like yelling at you or minimizing your desires or accomplishments-shaming you. You begin to accept these sharp violations to be normal as you sandpaper off those sharp edges into ‘just the way things are.’ As the years go by, one after the other, racing ever more quickly as we get older, you may realize you’ve been in a progressive abusive relationship for many years. Some of us will come to a crossroads. We may be in our 40’s, 50’s- even in our 70’s when we bravely decide to get a perspective on our situation, realizing that especially after many years we decide to accept the progressive abuse or we make that leap finally, with the time we have left, to live the best years of our lives.
Freedom Lies in a Leap of Faith
As one of those who tolerated years of emotional abuse, standing on the precipice of leaping into the unknown, I ask those of you who maybe didn’t wait as long as I did, throw off those invisible chains of abuse. Take that risk like those solders in that famous movie, knowing that anything must be better than suffering inside this kind of psychological prison. The life you save will be your own: the best years of your life still lie ahead-to be real, finally, just like the Velveteen Rabbit.
