I Feel for other people

When I talked about “Ugliness” in my last post, I was referring to pain, sadness, fear, and insecurities. These things feel awful to me and I see them as ugly but only when they come from me. Strange but true. When it is coming from someone else, my heart nearly bursts like a dam with a flood of sympathy and emotion. I can't handle seeing other people suffer!

I was talking to someone not too long ago, saying, I would like to go back to college someday and become a nurse. I am not sure if I could handle it though. I feel other people's physical and emotional pain way too much.

There are times when I struggle to keep my composure while driving down town and I am forced to pull off the road as an ambulance goes whizzing past. The emergency, the panic, this feeling of tragedy overwhelms me and I fight tears.

Is it post traumatic stress disorder? I don't know. I don't know how I would figure that out but I can tell you I have had to fight tears for other people's misfortunes all my life.

And so here I'm going to tell you one of the most boring stories ever, at least to me, that is. It has become so worn out, old, and petrified with telling that it makes me almost sick to re-tell it yet again. But this is where my story starts so I'll make it brief and maybe this time the whole world will have read it and I'll never have to tell it again.

When I was 3 years old I ran out on the road in front of our house. I was hit by a car ( or should I say, I ran into the side of a moving car). I fell under the car as the driver slammed on his brakes. He jumped out and grabbed me by my feet and dragged me out from there but I had been pinned by the muffler on half my face. I was severely burned. I had scrapes on my head, knees and burns on my hands. Yup

Over the next few weeks in the hospital I really don't remember any pain. I rode around on a tricycle, ate Popsicles and generally was unaware of anything to serious. After all, I was 3. I do remember being stuck to my pillow because of the oozing wound drying at night. I still remember the scab coming off my face. I remember magazines being wrapped around my arms so I couldn't bend them and scratch my face. I remember a little boy named Rocky (ironically) throwing a rock at me and calling me pizza face. Still, I was only 3 and that didn't bother me for more then just the moment.

It was later that I began to be more aware of what I looked like. I became a little more self conscious.

I was eight when I had my first reconstructive surgery done. My mouth was pulled way up on one side and my eye was pulled down at a funny tight angle. I was fully aware of every one looking at me as we travelled home from the hospital. Even when we got home, there were always lots of questions from everyone, everywhere we went. Adults were generally polite and didn't pry, but children always asked what happened. I tried never to let any of it bother me but there were comments that made me think. I remember once in church during some evening program. My sister and I were both dressed in our brand new grey dresses that my mother had sewn for us. A well meaning neighbor complimented us as we stood side by side. “Wow, (to my sister) You are very beautiful and you (talking to me now) have such a pretty dress.” I must have pondered that for some time because I never forgot it. My thoughts were that my dresses were pretty but what I really wanted was for me to be pretty.

When I was nine, I was told by a child that I was so ugly that nobody would ever marry me when I grew up. I didn't like what he said but I was kind of used to brushing off people's comments by that time. Thing is, I told myself, it didn't matter, that I was fine, that it didn't bother me. I had convinced myself that it was so. That is until...

When I was 14 years old, There was a new kind of surgery that had come out to deal with scarring. I had had all the usual surgeries, skin graphs and the like. I was left with a large scarred patch on my face with a skin graphed patch in the middle. Kind of like an appliqued crazy quilt. I was quite self conscious inwardly about it because the edges of the middle patch of skin were raised up and it looked, for all the world, to me like a crater on the moon. Now a new kind of surgery was going to take that away.

This new surgery was a bit of a long procedure. The surgeons had to cut between the skin and the flesh and inserted a bag with a valve on top and sew it up. Through the valve they injected saline solution to fill the bag, stretch the skin and grow it so that they could remove the scar and cover it with the fresh skin they had forced to grow. It sounded hopeful.

Every week I went to the hospital and they injected more solution into the bag through my skin. They filled it until my body would go into shock and I would be shaking from head to toe uncontrollably on the hospital table. My skin would be stretched so far that it would begin to grow new skin cells. It was painful, ugly, and hopeful!

I was very self conscious. My face bubbled out on one side hugely. I wore my coat over my face in church, in town, in other people's houses. I even remember my father-in-law-to-be (I didn't know that then) asked me if he could see, just let him see what it was like and what was happening. I wouldn't let him. Not even once. (I always felt bad about that after). Then one day this crazy thing in my face got infected and within an hour my fever was raging and a small pin prick of an abscess turned into a hole the size of a quarter. I was rushed to the hospital. IV's were put in, surgery would happen immediately in the morning. I was sick but I was excited. I was going to be beautiful. There was only going to be a tiny line left on my face. I couldn't wait. It was what I always wanted.

The next morning, or was it afternoon by then, I woke up from surgery. My eyes were still blurry but I watched the window to the hall for my parents. I wanted to know their reactions. I wanted to know what I looked like. I wanted a mirror. I was kind of expecting a new face.

Finally I saw them coming, I studied mom's face, my mother looked at me through the window as she walked. She started to cry. She walked right passed my room. I was devastated. I can't tell it even now without crying. That was one of the most disappointing moments in my life. I cried a lot and still cry at that memory every time I think of it..

When my mom did get herself together and come back I didn't ask for a mirror right away like i wanted to. I think it was the next day that I asked for one but she refused to get one for me. Later, when she left to get some lunch, I weakly crawled out of bed. I grabbed my IV pole for support and walked to the bathroom. I didn't call any nurses for help, I waited till there was nobody but me. Nobody was going to stop me. I went in the bathroom and shut the door behind me. I positioned myself straight in front of the sink and peered into the mirror in front of me. I was so shocked by what i saw that my head began to swirl and I grabbed on to the sink to steady myself and keep myself from fainting.

Well, eventually the swelling went down and healing took place, It was indeed better then it had been. Two more surgeries followed in the succeeding years but beauty never did.

I became very aware of everyone who looked at me and I despised my looks. I was always polite and I always answered people's questions kindly, except for once. ---- One time in Africa, at some friends place, I was sitting in a circle of friends, many of them around my age or slightly older (I was 18 at the time). I was actually quite embarrassed about myself most of the time because several of them were real nice young men and I felt so ugly, clumsy, and self conscious which I was sure was totally disgusting to them but I didn't know how to help it. So, I sat quietly listening to their fun chatting. All of a sudden I realized that one of the guys was staring at me. I'm sure he was seeing right past me but I shrunk up inside. I looked straight at him and with my eyes all big. I gave him the staring look right back. Oh, he shook his head and broke out of his stare. As for me, I was so ashamed of myself for making him feel bad. I figured the only reason someone would stare at me is because I was strange or ugly. Never again would I make someone feel bad for looking at me.

But these years of accident plus surgeries made me very sensitive to the emotions of other people. I did not want anyone else to feel inside like i did. I felt it was unfair. If there was to be pain, scars, or emotional trauma, let it happen to me.

I recall when I was 16, a friends little boy was filling a generator with fuel when the fumes made their way to the pilot light of a hot water tank and blew up. It caught everything on fire including himself. He was burned severely. I learned of this, and I cried uncontrollably for days. I kept saying over and over, “It's not fair! He was such a good looking little boy! I would have rather taken his place!”

Another time I had a friend who worked as a logger in the woods. It was rumoured that while he was cutting some trees, a large branch fell and took off his nose, and while it didn't kill him, I was just as devastated. Again I cried my eyes out for days for my friend. The same thoughts kept saying the same things, “It should have been me! He didn't deserve to be ugly!” Thankfully, it ended up only being a rumour and my friend was fine.

Now, years later, I still struggle. I stood watching a dog sledding race, here in the Yukon when all of a sudden the little musher lost control and fell off the back of his sled. His dogs raced on without him, pulling the careening sled behind them right into the face of a photographer who was laying on the snow trying to get the best shot. How bad the wound was, I don't know. There was blood. I was beside myself. I was in tears. I could feel her pain. There was her little boy, screaming in panic beside her. He was well taken care of by other relatives but I wasn't. I could feel his panic but I was totally useless!

You know, I don't see it as a bad thing to feel so deeply for other people whatever emotion they exude, (so long as I learn not to project my own emotions into their situations).  It is probably a good thing. I believe that Jesus feels our pain as fully as we feel it, maybe more. He came to Earth and endured every temptation, every rejection, every pain. The difference between him and I is that he uses his pain for the healing of the nations. "By His stripes we are healed."  I am striving to learn how to be like Jesus. How can I learn to be like him? If I could use my experiences to help one person find joy or one person find Jesus or one person find healing and strength, then it will all have been worth it. I must learn to do more then internalize their pain along with my own.  I must learn to lift them up!   How do I get beyond the helpless state and take someones hand?  I know the wrote answers, I think, but I want it inside of me to experience.  I want my experiences to make a difference for someone in a tangible way.

I would add pictures of me before accident and after and during my childhood if I had them but I do not own ny childhood pictures.  Maybe my sister could find some.