Creating Your Inner Narrative

This is an archived post that was originally published at beyond-terminal.com

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, but I’m surprised that I didn’t realize the importance of talking about what I went through and seek out therapy earlier. That said, every inch of me tremored when I just thought about the trauma I had endured, let alone try to talk about it. Better to stuff everything down – or so I thought.

The challenge is that my brain, against my will, would make connections between people I had just met and someone from my past, and this would trigger my body and make me feel like I was back in The Hospital reliving everything in real time.

In this entry, you’ll see how this triggering impacted me on my very first day of class at Northwestern University. Ugh.

To complicate matters, my inner critic was ruthless. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the awareness to know how this inner monologue was so self-defeating and ended up perpetuating my panic and fear.

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The excerpt below is from the chapter “The Test,” and takes place on the first day of classes at Northwestern. Note that Dr. Burns, who is referenced below, is the therapist who claimed I had been sexually abused since I had only drawn my parents’ and brother’s faces when asked to draw a picture of my family. It’s unfortunate he didn’t think about other possibilities (e.g., poor motor control/coordination) before stating that this indeed was what had happened to me with such conviction.

It’s the first day of classes. Alysia and I are both signed up for Intro to Econ, and we walk from our dorm to our class together. We enter the auditorium and choose a table toward the back. I scan the room and do a quick headcount. I bet there are close to 300 students. A buzz of anticipation fills the room as we wait for the professor to show up.

Right on time, Professor Walton enters the room through a door on the ground level. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, khaki pants, and a tweed sport coat. I glance at Professor Walton’s sport coat for a second time. It has a knotty texture to it. Why is my eye drawn to this?

And just like that, Dr. Burns’ image is superimposed onto Professor Walton’s for the briefest of moments. A shudder runs through my body.  

Why in the world would I be thinking of Dr. Burns, that creepy psychologist I saw when my best friend moved away, right now, of all times? What is it about Professor Walton that reminds me of Dr. Burns? They don’t look anything alike. Professor Walton is young and clean-cut.  

And then it comes to me. It’s the sport coat. Dr. Burns used to wear sport coats with that same knotty texture. The exact same kind. Another shudder runs through my body once I’ve put this all together.

But then I become irritated with myself. I can’t believe I’m getting distracted and worked up about something that happened eight — eight! — years ago. Shouldn’t I be over that already? I came here with the intention of putting the past in the past, damn it.

“So,” Professor Walton says after a brief introduction. “Can I have a raise of hands showing me how many people took Econ in high school?” 

Over half of the students raise their hands. My stomach flips.

“Let’s begin,” Professor Walton says.

The professor grabs a piece of chalk in his right hand and a yardstick in his left. Running the chalk along the length of the yardstick, he makes an L-shaped graph on the blackboard in two swift movements.  

“As most of you know, the x-axis is ‘price’ and the y-axis is ‘quantity.’” Professor Walton goes over an “easy” supply and demand example using strawberries.

I’m still copying this graph when I hear a screech. I look up to see that the blackboard with the strawberry example has been moved. How did that happen? When I look more closely, I notice that what initially appeared to be one blackboard is actually six individual blackboards that are somehow rigged to a pulley system. Seeing this reminds me of that little number slide puzzle I used to play with when I was younger, the one that had tiles with numbers ranging from one to 15 with one open spot so you could move the pieces around. The blackboards are like that, except there isn’t an empty spot. Every single one of them can be filled with information.

“Now that we’ve reviewed that,” Professor Walton says, “tell me what happens to the supply of strawberries during the winter.” 

A girl in the front row replies, “Farmers aren’t able to produce as many strawberries during the winter, so quantity supplied goes down, which shifts the equilibrium price up.”

Whoa, whoa. It’s like this girl is Professor Walton’s plant and she’s already listened to this lecture and knows exactly what to say. What blows me away the most is that she, as the student, is the one introducing terms I’ve never even heard of before.

“You’re right,” Professor Walton says. He draws a second graph on another blackboard and provides a quick explanation of this new scenario.

It’s when Professor Walton is working on his fourth graph on the fourth blackboard and I’m left trying to copy the second graph that my breath quickens and my heart races. You’re still too slow. Mr. Dalson was right. You don’t belong here. I look around to make sure no one is watching me and about to call me out for what I am – a fraud. 

I convince myself that I can work through discomfort. After all, if I’ve learned anything, it’s how to push my body. So, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll push and push. And push some more.

By the end of the lecture though, I feel like I’m ready to crawl back into bed. The effort it took to fight through my fear has left me exhausted. But I believe I have no other choice than to walk directly to the library, crack open the book, and make sense of the lecture I just heard.

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As I said at the onset of starting my blog, one of my goals in telling my story is to help and inspire others.

What Jill Bolte Taylor stated in her book “A Stroke of Insight” is true — the energy of an emotion lasts 90 seconds. The inner turmoil that you continue to feel after the emotion has passed is because of the self-defeating inner monologue that’s running through your head.

One thing I learned to do throughout my illness and afterward was work hard and persevere. What I didn’t learn to do until later in life was how to address my self-doubt. While what I went through was unique and led to a lot of self-defeating thoughts, I don’t think I’m alone in having a staunch inner critic. Because of this, I believe we need to teach our children about this inner voice and help them learn how to channel positive thoughts and affirmations.

Many of you know that my husband Dan and I taught in Thailand from 2007-2009. This was a positive, life-altering experience. It was fascinating to learn about some of the cultural differences between the West and the East and see them play out on a daily basis. One difference that continues to stand out to me is that parents in Thailand often tell their children what hard workers they are whereas, in the U.S., parents are more likely to say how smart their children are.

What’s interesting about this duality is that “smartness” is seen as an inherent quality, that is, something you either possess or you don’t. On the other hand, “trying hard,” is a changeable quality, and implies that, if you try harder, you can do better.

Do I tell my kids they are smart? Absolutely! I am an American, after all. Yet I also try to balance this with the message that their willingness to try hard will help them become smarter.

I think this messaging helps our children from falling into a trap where they think, because such-and-such doesn’t come easily to me, I’m not good at it.

Helping our children shape their inner narrative so that it’s more positive can have life-long effects.