A Life Pathologized

I used to be so eager to pathologize my life. My troubled teenage years were viewed through the lens of “disease” and maladaptive coping mechanisms. When I look back, it is outrageous to me how many characteristics of my life began to be seen in terms of pathology.

In early adulthood, a wise friend pointed out the foolishness and danger of “diseasing” my life, but I was too stubborn or indoctrinated to listen. Everything I valued and cared for could be thought of in terms of mental affliction. My desperation to understand my life, to achieve some kind of resolution, meant I was only too willing to accept every diagnosis.

My earliest memories of a world full of wonder got replaced with the idea that my life was a type of illness that needed to be cured – my great adventure into the unknown got replaced with recovery from trauma. The characteristics of my personality were seen in terms of neurosis. I never stopped to think about whether viewing life in terms of sickness would lead to somewhere I wanted to go. It didn’t and thankfully a part of me refused to bend the knee to this sick worldview.

The psychologist James Hillman described it accurately when he said:

“Our lives may be determined less by our childhood than by the way we have learned to imagine our childhoods.”

The great adventure of my life has never been diseased. At times it has been painful and difficult, but I wouldn’t change one step of it. I adore my life, and this has been the greatest gift. In the words of the stoic Marcus Aurelius:

“Accept the things, to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you, but do so with all your heart.”