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Foreword
One day it dawned on us ...
When we were in school, we learned how to read, write, and do math-we even learned how to drive a car, but no one ever taught us how to be ourselves. No one taught us how to discover our personal truths, how to show our love, how to connect in a deep and honest way with other human beings, how to communicate with our siblings or our parents, and certainly no one taught us how to grow into the parents we wanted to be to our future children. No one taught us how to deal with the thoughts and feelings we carried inside us every day.
Today, as adults, we pose the question, if we never learn these things: truth, love, communication, and the like, then does learning anything else REALLY matter?
We wrote this book with the intention of sharing some of the lessons we didn't get in school, the lessons that would have made our entire education more meaningful. This book is our gift to young people everywhere and to the young person that still lives within each and every one of us.
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Samples from Be The Hero You've Been Waiting For
If You Really Knew Me ...
Rich
Growing up, I looked really good on the "outside". I was smart, great in sports and good looking. People thought I had it all together. But, if you really knew me, inside my head and in my home, the self-deprecating voices never seemed to stop.
If you really knew me, you would know that as a teenager, I lived in a secret world of desperation and "trying". Trying to please, trying to impress, trying to get love, and, most of all, trying to make my father proud. Nothing was more important than pleasing my dad. In my house, pleasing my dad meant, “Today, I won't be yelled at. Today, I won't be hit. Today, I'll get it right. Maybe today, I could relax and just be me.”
I longed for the old days, when I was excited for my father to come home. I'd sing and laugh with my siblings, just waiting for him to open the door. He was my hero.
Later, as a teenager, I would hide in my room, scared of what might happen when he got home. How was his day? What kind of mood was he in? Some days he was fun and happy. Other days, he seemed angry no matter what I did. Almost every night I went to bed scared and lonely, sure it was all my fault.
If you really knew me, you would know that everyday in junior high, and most of high school, I felt like there was something wrong with me. My head was filled with voice telling me that I just wasn't good enough.
Every morning I woke up worried about how I looked, what to wear, terrified of what the day would bring. Do I look ok? Will I pass the test? Win the game? Who will judge me? Who will hurt me? Who can I trust? How do I please this teacher, impress that coach? How can I make my family happy? If you really knew me, you would know the voices never stopped, there was never a moment of peace.
I spent most of my time "smiling through the crap of life" acting like everything was just fine. I was trapped between two worlds. The world of looking good, maintaining my image, and achieving and the world of judgment, self-doubt, violence and loneliness.
If you really knew me, you would know that I never tried to kill myself, but there were many days I wanted to die.
If you really knew me ... you'd know no one really knew me.
If You Really Knew Me ...
Yvonne
I woke up to the sound of someone screaming, it was a young woman, but it wasn't my sister, this wasn't even my room. I sat up in bed confused, only to remember the nightmare that had started long before I fell asleep. I watched two men in white coats wrestle my roommate into a straight jacket like caging a wild animal.
Afterwards, in the silence, reality set in. I glanced at the sterile white bandages that hid my cut up arms and hands. Yesterday, I was a high school homecoming queen, cheerleader, class vice president. I was someone everyone thought had it all together. Today, I am my parent's worst nightmare, a patient in a psychiatric hospital. If you really knew me, you would know I wanted to die but I did not want to be dead.
I lay in my bed for hours, holding my breath, staring at the chipped paint on the barren white walls. A nurse glanced in the door, she looked scared, like she knew I wanted to die. I just wanted the pain to stop.
If you really knew me ... you'd know no one really knew me.
It was in the psychiatric hospital that I had the realization, which changed my life forever.
I was taken down a sterile corridor to a musty room. I sat on a cold metal chair with a group of patients. I wanted to run or hide. The world was caving in around me.
In the middle of the craziness, I remember being surprised that the man leading the group was so calm when everyone else was "freaking out". I didn't want to say a word, but like a balloon filled beyond capacity, I started to burst.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. I tried to tell myself to be strong and stop crying, but I was caught in my own emotional quicksand. I had no choice but to let go. Each inhale brought a more extreme release until I finally heard myself scream. For the first time in my life, I was encouraged to cry and let it out. So I did.
I cried and I cried. I cried for hours. I cried my sister's tears, my mother's tears, my father's tears and my brother's. In some ways, it felt like I cried the tears and screamed the screams of everyone who came before me. I wasn't sure where their tears ended and mine began.
I was shaking and trembling, caught in an emotional tornado as I spun my way into a corner of the room, to hide, or maybe to feel the walls tight around me as I crouched in a self-created womb.
I felt out of control, desperate for someone to do something. To fix me, give me a pill, call a doctor, say the magical words, anything to stop the craziness. It felt like the pain would never end. Then suddenly, like a raft popping out of a crashing current, I felt calm. As weird as it felt. something started to feel right.
I took a deep breath and calmly exhaled. For the first time in years, I was finally able to breathe. A sense of peace, a place of vulnerability, a raw sense of being OK was slowly, gently, starting to settle into my heart. None of it made sense in my head; in my soul, I somehow knew it was right. It dawned on me; I had made it to the other side.
I did it! I found myself once again. My spark, my light, somewhat familiar from many years past, dim as it may have been, was still my light. I felt alive. I felt hope. I felt me.
For years I had been waiting for someone else to save me. In that moment I realized no one was going to ride in on a horse or fly in with a cape to save the day. No doctor in a white coat, magical pill, nor perfect words could ever take the pain away. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when she suddenly realized she always had the power to go home, the biggest lesson of my life came in my darkest moment. I was the hero I was waiting for.