Never broken

I have an intensely visceral reaction to the word "broken" as it applies to people. It twists up my gut and tightens my throat. I find myself sitting hunched over, as though I'm fending off an attack.

I'm aware that my reaction is not ordinary. Nina talked about how broken can be beautiful. Sheena reminded us that perfection is boring, and that perfection is not synonymous with worth. I actually completely agree with Sheena's post. My reactions to the word itself are my own, and I'm aware they're a little… exaggerated.

I can't find a logical, outward rationale as to why the word bothers me so much. So I'm going to take my post to dive in deeper to the meaning of the word, as I see it. This is going to be more personal than many of my posts, since my reaction comes from my own prejudices, and my own flawed interpretation of self.

To me, broken means damaged. Broken means flawed. Broken means wrong.

Broken means you've lost something that you can never, ever get back.

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I want to make something very clear. On the scale of what everyone calls mental illness, what I have is extremely minor. I've struggled with depression and anxiety my entire life, and I did reach a point where I thought I would never, ever get better. I was so certain that I was destined to be depressed and anxious my whole life, and that what was wrong with me could never be fixed.

I place a good portion of the blame for my fears on the bizarre way that society views depression and anxiety. They tell us that anxiety and depression are Other. They tell us that we need to be fixed. This amazing blog post gives some examples of the warped portrayal of mental illness:

And when the screenwriters feel like tossing out a bone and allow a character an official diagnosis, the illness often becomes the character’s defining characteristic. Emma Pillsbury from “Glee” is diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and aside from her red hair, that seems to be her only notable quality... Her relationship with Mr. Schuster is unhealthily dependent, and neither he nor she seems to be able to accept her for who she is, OCD and all, as evidenced by his serenading her with the Coldplay song “Fix You.”
The amount of crime shows and horror films wherein the antagonist is discovered or assumed to have a mental illness or to be simply (and incorrectly) “crazy” is astounding. There is a constant correlation of “bad” and the “other” with those mental illness. There is little talk of treatment, therapy or a personality outside of the disability.
And it is the extreme cases that are getting more of the lime light. This perpetuates misconceptions as well as the idea that help can only be afforded to those who are past the breaking point. Those misconceptions keep people from seeking treatment and support.

From another site:

Subtle stereotypes pervade the news regularly. Just the other day, a local news program in Central Florida reported on a woman setting her son’s dog on fire. The reporter ended the segment by stating that the woman had been depressed recently…
And these pictures can have a big influence on the public. Research has shown that many people get their information about mental illness from the mass media (Wahl, 2004). What they do see can color their perspective, leading them to fear, avoid and discriminate against individuals with mental illness.

Picture shared by kind permission of S.T. on Flicker
No changes made.

The weird thing is, depression and anxiety aren't this wacky condition that happens to a few "weak" individuals. One in five Americans will experience some form of mental illness in any give year. ONE IN FIVE. And up to one in four women will go through an episode of major depressive disorder in their lifetime (the rate is closer to 1 in 10 for men) Depression and anxiety aren't an affliction of the weak and lazy. They're something that so, so many of us struggle with. And yet we're made to feel that we are alone. That we are Other. There's just so much shame - so much, that only one-third of those suffering from anxiety get help.


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Without meaning to, I absorbed all of those viewpoints the media put forth. I must be stupid and weak, I thought, to not be able to overcome this. My life wasn't hard. And so I internalized the belief that being depressed meant something in me had broken, that I'd spun so far from the path of normalcy that I could never be fixed. The harder I tried to reject and move past my fears, the stronger they grew.

One of the most important parts of healing, for me, was realizing that my depression and anxiety are a part of me. In my case, they're defense mechanisms gone haywire. I'd somehow internalized the logic that if I thought bad things about myself, that nothing anyone else said could never hurt me. It's a weird sort of self-protection, and it was entirely unconscious.

Picture by kind permission of Eric Malette on Flicker
No changes made.

It's taken a lot of work, but in the past few years, I'm doing so much better than I did. Changing deeply held, unconscious beliefs doesn't happen quickly. But my goodness, it feels so much better to just accept that I'm this crazy emotional person who worries too much about trivial things and cries at the drop of the hat. There's nothing broken about that. It's just me. It's just how I am, and I'm not ashamed any more.

I hope all of you who are out there struggling can find your way. It's different for everyone; broken can be an insult for some, and a powerful talisman for others. Find your own way, but don't be afraid to ask for some help if you need it. It doesn't mean you're weak, I promise you that.

Always remember: we are not Other. We are not wrong. We are not flawed creatures that need repairing. True, our best intentions can become twisted and warped. But we are beautifully, uniquely human.

And none of us should be ashamed.

The Power of Broken

 Before I begin, I have to say I have a love affair with the word broken. I think it is one of the most beautiful and powerful words in the English language. So when I write stories, my first step is to always, ALWAYS, find the broken in the character and that's when I fall in love with them.


THE LOGIC OF BROKEN

Think about this with me just on a storytelling basis. Forget any connotations you may have with the word, and let's focus simply on methods of telling a story.

Think world building. I learned this from Karen. If you'd like a story to end with a happy ever after, and you want your character to go through a journey, then at the start of the story something in the landscape of the story needs to be wrong. There should be a problem that needs correcting. This could be a villain, a hunger, danger, boredom, whatever.

It's called the conflict, obviously, and it's the heart of storytelling. Without conflict, there is no story.

I think that without brokenness, there is no character.

For exactly the same reason. The inner landscape of the character needs to have something missing. Or some obstical standing in the way of happiness; a need to be fulfilled, a heartbreak that needs comforting, or a loss that can be filled. That need is what drives a character's motivation, and also is the power in a love story.

What makes a character broken, is what makes a story powerful. Their brokenness is their greatest strength.

Through their journey in the exterior landscape of the plot, their interior journey through their brokenness is what will connect the reader to the character. It is what makes us care. And brokenness can't always be solved. But learning to deal with grief, and loss, and depression, and those twisted parts of us that aren't always pretty, is what stories have always been about. It's the reason we have stories. It's the reason stories matter. Finding a way to cope with brokenness, or finding a way out of brokenness is a story. No, it's every story.


THE THEME OF BROKEN

In every story I've ever written, and in every story I've ever loved, there is one universal theme. You don't have to be perfect in order to be of worth.

That is the message I need to hear a thousand times, and that is the message I will never stop saying.

To paraphrase Meryl Streep, "That thing you like the least about yourself is probably your greatest strength." There is nothing, no trick or twist, or author voice, that I love more, then when an author uses a character's weakness to save the day.

Perfect is boring. Normal is a word used to silence and to snuff out awesomeness. Whole is a mask.

Broken... now broken is real. It's universal. It's truth.

Broken is beautiful.

THE COST OF BROKEN

Poor characters. We beat them up so much and then they have to keep moving the plot forward. A broken character still needs to be active. They still need to participate in the plot, but the power of a broken character is that they do big crazy broken things.  And big crazy broken actions are 1. fun to write, 2. fascinating, and 3. shake up the plot.

F.S. Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby

However, and I hope I can say this clearly. I do not believe or like miracle cures. (realizes I wrote a book about a miracle cure, still continues on this train of thought.) Or I guess, more correctly, I do not believe that a miracle cure is necessary in order to have a HEA.  I don't particularly love stories where the message is, "Hey look, I lost everything that's wrong with me, and now I'm boring, and boring = happy." I'd much rather read stories where the character grows and accepts their weaknesses or flaws, or finds ways to turn them into strengths, for example, "Hey, I just learned how to punch with my nub arm."

But when the brokenness is a result of broken people damaging a character, then I adore this message. ---->

Tell me this message again and again.



A final though by someone not me...

Write on, humans.

~Sheena