Ripping the Bandaid Off of Your Fears

I have heard many, many times in my life that telling people your issues and fears is scary and painful. We always feel that revealing our weaknesses will cause us to be in pain and suffer unimaginable consequences, so we hold them close and cover them up, even when they are so painful we can hardly breathe. Our past mistakes and our fears of the future are like open wounds that keep bleeding and don’t scar up, which leads to us bleeding our pain all over other people, all the while insisting that we are “fine.” (You’re welcome, by the way, for that very graphic description. It’s accurate.)

As we all know, the phrase, “I’m fine, everything’s fine.” usually means we are the exact opposite of “fine,” but we are scared of airing out our issues, so we cover it up with a flimsy, thin bandage and pretend that everything is all good.

When did the fear of being open about our weaknesses start becoming a part of our society?
I suppose it goes back to biblical times, way back in ancient history, and is attributed to another kind of fear: the fear fo being judged, and found unworthy. After all, judgment of others is so common amongst us that most of us do it without thinking (social media ring a bell for anyone? Talk about a society based on judgment of others on only a portion of the facts). When someone supposedly does something that we ourselves would not do, we measure them by our personal standards: “Well, I would NEVER have done that, so this person’s got issues.”

Yeah, maybe they do, but so what?

Imma stick by what Jesus said, “How can you say to your brother/sister ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time, there is a plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:4, and yes I’m pulling out Bible verses on you guys, but He’s got a point, no?). In other words, don’t be measuring someone by your own standards, your measuring stick might be flawed or broken. Maybe you are the one with something skewing your vision.

You have your own open wounds that you’re hiding under a bandaid, even if you pretend they’re not there.

So what about the part about ripping the bandaid off of your wounds? What is the value in doing yourself, and revealing your weaknesses and scars to other people?

You may think, “Absolutely nothing, that’s terrifying to even consider. What if they use those wounds against me? I’m gonna hide them right here, maybe no one will notice.” (They notice, by the way. We may not know what it is that is bugging you, but we can see that there is something wrong.)

Again, that’s them passing judgment on you with their own broken measuring stick, and that’s their problem. If someone can’t show you respect, courtesy, and mercy in the face of your weaknesses, that’s a them problem. It is so not a you problem. But this is the value for you: you will benefit the most from becoming comfortable with your wounds, from revealing that you have been hurt by others, or even by yourself. And then you will be able to realize a key factor in growing in life: Mistakes and wounds are not weaknesses, they’re the most human aspect of yourself, and that’s ok.

Think about why we wrap wounds up to begin with. We use bandages to protect the wound from infection, and to keep medicine on the wound to repair what was broken. But eventually, the wound doesn’t need the bandage anymore, it needs oxygen. A cut needs to breathe to heal, just like we need to be able to breathe to live. But when you’re carrying around all your wounds, wrapped up like a mummy, is it easy to breathe? I’ve found that covering up my wounds and pretending everything is fine has made getting out of bed in the morning, and, yes, breathing, incredibly painful and difficult. In fact, there were many times where I felt as though I was suffocating.

When I kept all my wounds wrapped up, I was in a constant state of anxiety. I thought, What if someone sees this wound I’m hiding? Will they hurt me in the same way again? Will they poke at my flaws? Won’t they say what I tell myself, that I was stupid to make the decisions I did?

I couldn’t even talk to people, I couldn’t speak. I kept everything wrapped up and waddled around like a mummy, stumbling into all the obstacles around me because I couldn’t see anything through the gauze. I had to rip off my bandages and talk to people, or I felt that I would really die. Dealing with my wounds became something that was necessary for my survival.

The people I revealed my wounds to weren’t always trustworthy, though, and some of them gave TERRIBLE advice. On more than one occasion, my words were used against me, and my wounds were used as arsenal to hurt me again. What I came to understand, though, is that:

a) It’s more important for me to trust my own instincts and continue to work through the healing process rather than care about someone else’s opinion; and

b) Their judgment of me and attempts to manipulate me are SO not my problem.

I also learned how to seek out appropriate friendships with people. Now, it may limit my close friend/confidant circle, but it does give me more meaningful relationships with those chosen few. And that’s way healthier than caring about the general populace.

The most important thing about all of the things I went through, though, is that my wounds finally scarred up. They were healed. Scars, they only look painful to outsiders, but the fact is that scars don’t hurt anymore. Instead, they are beautiful markers of what we have been through throughout our lives. Anyone else seen the movie The Passion of the Christ? Think about how many wounds Jesus had after his own people beat the crap out of him. Wounds on his back, head, hands and feet. What was the first thing he did after rising from the dead? He showed those scars to his followers, to show that it was him, he was the same Jesus they thought they lost. Those scars were his testimony, part of his identity.

Your scars are the same. They are part of who you are, and represent all that you have overcome. Getting to the place where the healed wound only looks painful, only holds a distant memory of pain, is an incredible place to get to. You will be a better person for it. Walking around in pain all the time only makes you a bitter person, who inflicts the same wounds you have onto other people. A person with scars gains this incredible superpower called empathy, and people will envy you for it. Healed wounds only make you a more powerful person, not a weaker one.

So this is my message: stop trying to cover up your deep wounds with a bandaid. You’re not accomplishing anything, you’re not fooling anyone, and you’re not going to be happy. Rip off the bandaid and let yourself breathe. Whether or not people can perceive your wounds with mercy and love is up to them. But the healing process? That’s up to you.