Armour

*tw: depression, self-harm, suicide

Over Christmas, I encountered a bully. He bullied me in person, and then online. He published a video about me, and then made two more. (I would link to them, but honestly, he loves getting lots of views and I would rather not feed his ego. I haven't even watched the second two videos because I don't want his numbers to increase.)

I was totally shaken, and I cried for days. How could this person do this to me? Why would he hurt someone he doesn't even know? 

My mental health was struggling, and I was tempted with suicidal thoughts. I even found myself experiencing self-harm (which brought so much relief, because the physical pain temporarily blotted out the emotional pain. This surprised me, because before this I had never understood self-harm. If you want to talk to me more about it, please reach out.). 

I could not understand this great agony I was experiencing. Why did the criticisms pierce? Why did the flood of online hatred go so deeply into my soul? 

Everyone kept telling me to let it go, but I didn't know how. How do you just not feel what you feel? How do you let things go when they have lodged into the core of you like an arrow with barbs?

Loving friends prayed for me. I received kind and supportive texts and messages, and people I don't even know thanked me for standing up to this bully. But the love and warmth fell off me like water off a duck's back.  None of it sank in. Nothing touched the stabbing pain.

And then one night I asked Patrick to look at the latest videos, because I wanted to know the worst. He read the title of one to me, and I burst into tears and ran out of the room. Patrick was baffled. Truly baffled. "This guy is nobody to you. How can his opinions hurt you?" he asked.
And I lay in the dark thinking about that. "Doesn't meanness hurt everybody?" I thought.
But no, it doesn't; not to this extent. I think meanness hurts everyone, but not like this.
So what is happening, I asked God, why does this hurt so much and why do I feel so alone?

And he showed me an unexpected truth.

My armour is on backwards.

When people say nice things about me, loving things, kind things, I put up my hand like a stop sign. "No, no," I say, quite literally, "Not so." And I stop them from coming in. My armour deflects them. They bounce off of me and roll away.

But when people say mean things about me, hateful things, unkind things, they slide right in. They slip through like arrows through mesh, slice into my skin and lodge in my heart. "You're right," I whisper, and I don't even raise a hand against them, "this is true."

My armour is on backward. I have a hard shell preventing the outpouring of love from coming in, but only a strip of mesh against the arrows of hate.

So I started trying to put it on the right way. I determined to try to let the love in, and say a firm No to meanness.

And I was startled by how often love comes to me. How often kindness is directed toward me; thoughtfulness and warmth. 

I couldn't start my van that first particularly cold day, so we took taxis to school. Mid-afternoon, two friends texted and one friend popped into the classroom to offer rides home and make sure we weren't stranded. "Let the love in," God whispered, and I experienced a paradigm shift as I realized these kindnesses weren't offered out of obligation or dull duty, but out of love.  Right there in the classroom, my heart swam and my eyes pricked with tears as I chose - maybe for the first time ever - to receive love as love, and to welcome it in.

My friends.

I have run into my bully a few more times. I have had opportunity to practice saying a mental "No," to the hatred and lies he spews. I have been able to let his meanness roll off of my heart and not let it lodge.

But I have been absolutely overwhelmed by the thousands of opportunities I have had to put down my armour and let love in. Kindness rains down, love and joy pour in. Taking it at face value and letting it in is almost painful in its sweetness. People say and do kind things all the time. I can't believe how much I resisted it before, how little I valued it and how fiercely determined I was to not let it in. And it's everywhere.

I still find myself automatically deflecting sometimes. "You look lovely," my friend might say, and I say "no no, YOU look lovey." But I've been learning to back up and shimmy out of the armour, saying "I mean, thank you!" And then, in my heart, letting that warmth right in, right in to the place where I store what other people think of me, and what I think of me.

And frankly, with all that love in there, there's not a lot of room for unkindness to stay. It has a harder time getting in. Even when I forget to put my armour up against the meanness, there's still a little extra resistance before it stabs my heart, a little breathing room for me to decide what I want to do with it.

I've raised my kids to know they're the bosses of their bodies and they have the right to decide if they assent to being touched or not: their consent matters. 

I never realized this applies to hearts too. 

I can say yes. I can say no. I don't have to take everything that's flung at me. I can adjust my armour.

It's blowing my mind.

I just wanted to share in case you, too, need to reconsider your heart's armour. Maybe you need permission and understanding, like I did, to say no to hatred and to affirm the love you're given - and to discover with joy that love is truly all around you.

xo.