How to Be Brave

People have told me a lot over the last few years how brave I am. Since I started writing about my daughter’s death and about my suicidal ideation that followed, and then about my loss of faith and eventual rejection of my lifetime church associations:

“You are so brave.”

“Thank you for writing about this.”

“Thank you for putting words to something I have felt for so long.”

“Thank you for making me feel seen.”

“Thank you for being so much braver than I could ever be.”

The truth is, I never thought of myself as brave. I was just trying to stay alive because I had found that pretending to be someone I wasn’t turned out to be soul-destroying. It was one of the major factors in my suicidal crisis. I needed to be seen as my true self. I needed people to see the real me in order to feel community.

After all, they say that community is what keeps people alive. We humans need other humans. We’re herd animals. It’s just evolution. Instinct. Primal need. And even for someone who is as introverted as they come, even I need connection. Even being hated as my true self, it turned out, was better than being loved for being someone I was not.

I didn’t feel like I was choosing to be brave. I felt like I was drowning, trying to hold out a hand, trying to grab onto…