Defective

It's been no secret over the past year that I've been in intensive therapy for mental health issues, even that I have a diagnosed personality disorder. Less often, I've shared with a few people that even an objective, official assessment of my functioning concluded that I am not currently capable of working or carrying any other great responsibility on my own. What I haven't shared so much, is how this whole thing makes me feel.

When I sat down in a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) session a year ago, I was asked to identify the thoughts I had about myself, the core beliefs I held about who I was. I selected a few things.

"I'm a failure."

"I'm broken."

"I'm incompetent."

"I don't matter."

"I'm defective."

As I read through a list of common negative core beliefs, this one stood out to me the most. It's exactly how I'd been feeling - like somehow, between that day and the day God designed me, something had happened that had broken me, knocked a piece or two off, made me less than everybody else. Like I simply wasn't capable of the things most people are capable of, and that was my fault and it meant I would never contribute to the world in any significant way. I was broken. Send back to the factory, toss in the scrap heap, this one's no good.

Sometimes I still think that. 

But it was a few weeks into my intensive therapy program when I hit this startling realization, which is what I use to remind myself to this day, that everyone is flawed in some way and it does not decrease our worth, our contributions to the world. 

I'd heard "defective" used to describe human beings before, somewhere else.

Remember Katie?

Or how about Brett?

Or Marla?

All of these precious children were declared "defective" by doctors in their home countries, and as such sent to live in orphanages. Any child who was not adopted before their 16th birthday was transferred to a mental institution for the rest of their life. When Katie's mama went on that first trip to meet her daughter, the ward room that little girl was in was labeled "malformations".

Did I ever think of them that way? Malformations? Defective? 

Of course not, not for a second.

(And by the way, Katie has grown by leaps and bounds since she was adopted over 3 years ago)

NOT defective.

Down Syndrome. HIV. Cerebral Palsy. Osteogenesis Imperfecta. Limb differences. Arthrogryposis. Autism. Hydrocephalus. 

When they're present at birth, we call these diagnoses "birth defects". 

Like, because that child is different, she is somehow broken, less than. It's this idea that I've spent the last few years of my life fighting, tooth and nail, on behalf of kids like Katie, and Brett, and Marla.

The are not defective.

Even closer to home there are examples. Most, if not all of you should be familiar with the story of my mom's little brother, my Uncle Tony, who was born with Down Syndrome.

Also NOT defective.

The doctors said he would never walk or talk, he belonged in an institution, he couldn't learn, he was defective. My grandma and grandpa though, they looked at him and they only saw their son, who they loved no matter what the diagnosis, who they KNEW was not "defective". In the 1960's, this was a relatively uncommon attitude, and its always been one of the things I admired about my grandparents.

Then there's my best friend, Angie.

Try and call my best friend defective and I'll break your face.

She babysat AJ for me that day. From her wheelchair. Wearing her prosthetic leg. 

AJ was NOT an 'easy' baby. Anyone who took good, loving care of this little boy (with a set of lungs like you wouldn't believe!) could not possibly be defective.

Further, she was my best friend. And she had cancer. And it took her leg, and then her lung, and then her life. More and more cancer cells popping up with every scan, all over. 

Cancer means that cells grow in your body that are not supposed to be there and that cause you harm. Isn't this the very definition of a defect - a problem that is not supposed to be there? Well, maybe in the individual cells, but in the person? In my best friend? No, cancer did NOT make her "defective".

As I sat through weeks of CBT sessions this thought lingered in the corners of my mind. How could I call myself "defective" when I wouldn't call any of these human beings - souls that God made by His own hand and in His image, by that term? Was there a core difference, that because my problems were psychological instead of physical or developmental, I could be defective and they could not? Even I know that doesn't make sense. To further muddy the waters, what about those children with conditions that could be classified as psychological? Self injurious behavior, attachment disorders, even autism skirts the line between developmental and psychological - but none of those kids are "defective". For that matter, what about the person sitting next to me there, at CBT? Of course I would never describe them that way.

So what made me different?

Why was I allowed to be defective when I balked against the notion that any other human being be described as such?

C, my individual counselor in the program, told me that this was an issue of a lack of self compassion. A double standard wherein you hold yourself to a higher ideal, even an impossible ideal, that you would never dream of holding anyone else to. There was no difference, there is no difference. Physical, developmental, psychological, cognitive,whatever - PEOPLE ARE NOT DEFECTIVE.

I work with car seats a lot, helping parents keep their kids safe. Sometimes they're recalled because they are defective and may not keep a child safe. I put a CD in my disc player and for some reason, all it does is spin, no music. Either the CD or the player is broken, defective. But people? No.

People are not defective. People cannot be defective because each and every one of us was created by a loving God in His own image, and He does not make mistakes.

Struggles. People can have struggles. People can have problems, wounds, imperfections, but people ARE NOT problems, wounds, imperfections.... defects. People are people. There's no one way a person should be, no factory stamped seal of approval that declares a person "normal" or "right" - and if those things remain undefined, it is impossible to define "defective".

I'm not sure who I'm writing this post for. Maybe you. Maybe the world. Maybe me. Probably me. Because I still have to remind myself sometimes - okay, all the time - that I can't label myself as defective when I would not apply that word to any other human being. Knowing this doesn't make the emotions, the feelings of inadequacy go away - but it does give me a chance to question my thoughts, because I thought I was defective, but I just proved that wrong. Maybe I'm okay after all. Maybe I just have different kinds of struggles, maybe I'm striving toward a different kind of normal - just like all the other beautiful souls I mentioned. And that's okay, because isn't everybody striving toward their own normal, their own best?

It reminds me of a quote. "If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life thinking it is stupid." (The attribution for this quote is disputed.) Everyone has their own unique abilities, their own personal goals, and NOT ONE OF US is defective.