It only takes one to change your self image pt2

Finally, he buys completely into it. Everyone he knows knows that he is stupid and isn't shy about telling him so. He believes it so  he doesn't argue with them. He starts acting more and more stupid as time goes on, fitting more and more into the mold. 

But here's the thing. That guy that is too stupid to learn, too dumb to improve, too retarded to change, the one who has no self esteem and therefore no motivation to go out and get the things that he wants out of life, that guy, he isn't real. He is simply the product of lie after lie after lie stacked upon one original lie.

It only takes one person to start unraveling the lies, one by one, and gradually digging out the real person underneath it all. I look for truth, not evidence of one thing or another. I look for evidence of everything. I hunt for answers and discard nothing just because it doesn't make sense or agree with what I want to be true or am afraid of being true.

When I first met him, I saw many of the things that others were saying about him but something just wasn't right about what was being said. There was something off. So, I started digging. And what I found is that about normal everyday things that "everybody" knew he was pretty ignorant. His speech was not in any way at all elegant. He had few real beliefs. But the things that he did believe, he was very passionate about.

And most importantly he fought very hard and very creatively to maintain the stupid facade. It was no doubt completely subconscious the way he did it. But, it told me beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was untrue. I discovered while arguing with him about how stupid he was, that he wasn't at all stupid. He had just been trained by everyone else in his life to act that way because he and they convinced him that he was that way.

So, in my search for truth, when I started looking for evidence that he was NOT stupid, lo and behold, I found tons of it. My friend has not been well educated, primarily because nobody else believed he could be.

I have personally found if there is something that he does not understand, if I take the time to explain it to him, he learns it. He is intelligent, meaning he can take in new knowledge. He can make this new knowledge his own and although he often lacks the vocabulary to easily explain it to someone else, given time he can explain things in such a way that the other person at least gets the gist of it. Also, when we discuss issues that other friends of ours are having he often, very quickly, comes up with some extremely insightful yet simple solutions to their problems. This application of knowledge shows great wisdom as well.

In our talks he is starting to get to the point where he knows where a conversation is leading, has a good idea of what someone is going to ask him next, knows what the "acceptable" answers are and knows when his answers don't match up. In short, he is really really smart, just ignorant due to lack of proper education.

As time goes on there are more and more examples that he is not the dumb person that people have always told him he was. He is currently in school for a trade that he is pretty passionate about. And while not the highest scoring person in the class, there are plenty of people that are doing worse than him. He isn't rocket science material but in a lot of ways he really is above average.

Repairing his self image is about finding new evidence to replace the old. As they say, nature abhors a vacuum. You can't just dig up the old stuff and toss it out, because it just leaves gaping holes and then new garbage arrives to fill the space where the old garbage was. So, if you want lasting positive change you get to fill up the old toxic spaces with newer healthy things.

When possible, we, as his friends, will be showing him the examples that he is not an idiot, to reinforce the work he is doing to fix his self image. It is a process that will take time, but will lead him to a future that he will find worth living. So, it is worth doing.

How about you? What is your one? What person or event turned you from a happy, loving, carefree,  child into a jaded angst ridden mess? How old were you when it happened? How long have you been living in agony? Haven't you suffered long enough. Isn't it time you found the real you hiding under the facade of lies?