On Seeing and Being Seen

Seated on my therapist's couch a few weeks after the election, the words tumbled out recounting both my successes and the rumblings of fresh anxiety now threatening my progress. As I waited for the elevator after our session, just one of her observations echoed in my head. Since then, it has etched itself on the walls of my mind in burning gold.

"You weren't seen. You need others to see you. Maybe someday you'll be able to see yourself."

The election shook me, for sure. It left me questioning,

"Can anyone hear me? Hear us? Don't they see us out here? Are they BLIND, or am I invisible? Do my tweets fall into a void? Does anyone notice my pins and posts and likes and upvotes? Do I make any difference?"

The new children's film A Monster Calls captures the emotion of feeling infuriatingly invisible.

"Do you know what I see when I look at you, O'Malley? I see nothing."

And then one day the invisible man decided, I will make them see me.

These blog posts document years of attempts to "make them see me". By their very nature, abuse and neglect have the effect of making victims feel invisible. So I've written about women erased from their own stories. About feeling hidden, and trapped. About learning to speak up, to take up space, to hold my ground, to live out loud.

Watching the Golden Globes, I was caught off guard by the powerful compliment Viola Davis paid to Meryl Streep:

"She sees you."

Davis went on, telling Streep: 

"You make me feel that what I have in me--my body, my face, my age--is enough."

Could that be what my counselor meant?

Maybe seeing myself is what I've been trying to do all along.

As if the selfies, status updates, blog posts, dates, marches, and performances on stage will somehow prove that I was here. 

I appreciate the people who can make me feel seen. For now, I still look to them for clues about how to see myself. Because despite my intention, I'm not there yet.

But maybe, someday, I'll be able to see myself.