“Maybe you’ve seen her. Pretty girl, thinks she can leap tall buildings in a single bound, carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, yet still manages to laugh at some of my jokes.”
(Castle TV Series, S4 E09 “Kill Shot”)
This might be one of the most important things I have ever written - part reassurance about healing ourselves, part rant about selfish people who won’t let us, and as usual, on the whole, something that came straight from my heart. Sometimes we need to be reminded of how much we have healed and how far we have come (including me). Sometimes it’s easy to think that despite our best efforts, everything is futile, so whenever you feel like you need a reminder that you are doing better than you think you are, come back to this.
There are two types of people in the following piece, and in the world in general. The “growers” and the “deniers”. While both the terms are pretty self-explanatory, each category will become clearer as you go on reading.
On Vulnerability and Courage
For the last few weeks, I keep going back to one of my favourite episodes from the TV series Castle - Episode 9 from Season 4 titled “Kill Shot”.
Kate Beckett is a tough homicide detective in New York City, who became a cop because her mother’s homicide was never solved. In this episode, she comes across a series of homicides in which a sniper has been shooting and killing seemingly random people. Detective Beckett has lingering trauma from the time when she herself was shot by a sniper and almost died, but unfortunately, the shooter was never caught. So when she encounters this case, she starts experiencing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The lack of a motive against the backdrop of these random killings, means that the killer is still out there. So given that her shooter was never caught, Beckett starts feeling like she is walking around with a target on her own back. She starts spiralling - she hides in her apartment, drinks alcohol to the point of hallucinating and injures herself while trying to fight off an imaginary threat. But because she is the stubborn, hyper-independent Beckett, she refuses to acknowledge that something is wrong. She pushes away everyone who sees her struggling and tries to help her, even Castle, because it feels like her burden to carry - she is alone in her abyss. So instead of getting the help that she very obviously needs, she does what she knows best - she forces herself to power through the situation, because she believes that no matter what happens, her job is to catch the bad guys and bring people to justice. People and duty come first. She is “fine”. When she is barely able to function and cannot control her complex reactions to these triggers, she gets frustrated and finally finds herself standing impatiently across her administration-mandated therapist, Dr. Burke, with whom she has the following exchange.
Kate: (pacing across the room) “You don’t understand, I NEED TO BE OKAY!”
Dr. Burke: “That’s not always a choice, Kate. What you’re describing now, hypervigilance… it’s a classic symptom of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”
Kate: “I don’t have PTSD!”
Dr. Burke: “You were shot by a sniper. I think it’s fair to say that this case is going to bring up issues - issues you still haven’t dealt with.”
Kate: “Okay, then fine, I will deal with them. Right now, I need to figure out how to make this stop.”
Dr. Burke: “It’s not going to stop. Not without time and treatment. The psychological trauma is every bit as real as the physical trauma.”
Kate: “Listen, people are dying out there. I don’t have time to get all weepy over a couple of scars.”
Dr. Burke: “Okay, so what’s the alternative? Walking around feeling like you have crosshairs on your back? Thinking every glint of a window is a sniper…”
Kate: “Look there’s got to be a pill out there or something, right? I mean, something to take the edge off.”
Dr. Burke: “Medication can help, but not right away.”
Kate: “Well, then WHAT?!”
Dr. Burke: “Well, for one, I think you should consider stepping away from the case.”
Kate: “You don’t think I can handle this?”
Dr. Burke: “I’m saying that you don’t have to. You’re not the only cop in the city, Kate.”
Kate: “Okay, then you know what? I’m fine. Thank you.”
Castle, who is getting increasingly worried for her in the meantime, approaches Detective Javier Esposito for help. She has completely shut out Castle and all his attempts to help her. Castle feels that Esposito, who is ex-military and has been around similar situations before, is the only one who understands what Kate is going through and therefore, is the only one she might listen to.
Esposito takes her to the evidence room, where they have the following exchange.
Kate: “Espo, what are we doing back here?”
Javier: “I want to show you something.” (pulls out the long sniper rifle)
Kate: “What is that?”
Javier: “It’s the rifle… that shot you.”
Kate: (shaken, with tears in her eyes) “You’re way out of line.”
Javier: “Just look at it.”
Kate: (backing away) “No, what the hell are you doing?”
Javier: “I’ve been where you are, I know what you’re going through.”
Kate: “Javi, I’m fine!”
Javier: “You’re NOT fine. You’re just trying to ACT like you are.”
Kate: (continues looking at him, a little shaken)
Javier: “This is just a tool - it’s a hunk of steel. It has no magical powers and the person that fired it is not some all-powerful God. It’s just a guy. With a gun. Just like the guy we’re hunting now. And like every other bad guy, he is damaged goods.”
Kate: (after a long pause) “So am I.”
Javier: “That’s right. And that’s okay. You think it’s a weakness? Make it a strength. It’s a part of you. (offers her the rifle) So use it.”
Kate: (gradually approaches him crying, looks at the rifle and then slowly, almost cautiously takes the it from him and they nod at each other with silent understanding)
This scene is almost poetic to me in its eloquence and imagery. Esposito knows that the only way for Beckett to move forward is to acknowledge her scars, and that first requires confronting and accepting the truth of what happened to her - including how those events continue to affect her to this day. When he shows her the rifle, he removes her trauma from its pedestal, and exposes it for what it is. It is not a monster that will consume her whole - it is just a piece of metal in the hands of the wrong people. It has no magical properties and it is not invincible. Her trauma is not bigger than her. She has the agency, the ability to overcome it. She has the strength to go beyond and claim the scars as her own - not just rise above and overcome them but also use them in moments of crises, in ways that only she can. IF SHE CHOOSES TO.
After this, Beckett doesn’t walk away from the case (because she is Beckett) and decides to keep investigating. Even when she finally confronts the sniper as he points a gun at her, her reaction is heartbreakingly humane. She tells him “I’m not your enemy. I can’t be. You and I have too much in common.” By the end of the episode, Beckett is back in therapy. What her therapist says to her now is not very different from what Esposito told her when she showed her the rifle. But notice how different this exchange is, as compared to the first one.
Dr. Burke: “So… how do you feel now that Lee Travis (the sniper) is dead?”
Kate: “I thought that taking him down would resolve things but… still there.”
Dr. Burke: “Because you haven’t fully dealt with what happened to you.”
Kate: “No, I felt it before the shooting. I think it’s always been there, deep inside, since that night.”
Dr. Burke: “The night your mom was killed?”
Kate: “Um-hmm. I’ve let it define me, drive me. It’s made me who I am. But now…”
Dr. Burke: “But now?”
Kate: “I want to be more… than who I am. (Crying) But I don’t think I know how to do that without letting my mom down.”
Dr. Burke: “She’s dead, Kate. You cannot let her down. The only person you can let down is yourself. Her death is a part of you, and you’re going to have to make peace with that. Just like you’re going to have to make peace with the scars from your shooting. But it doesn’t have to limit you.”
Kate: “How am I supposed to let go?”
Dr. Burke: “I can help you. But the question is, are you ready?”
Kate: “Yeah, I think I am.”
This conversation is important for so many reasons. But what stayed with me over the years is the strength it took for her to say, “I want to be more than who I am.” Kate Beckett is an incredible, extraordinary, strong, independent, badass woman who has survived and overcome everything that life has thrown at her. But to me, she has never been braver than in this moment when she is vulnerable. When she realises that she is more than the sum of her traumas; when she hopes to be more than the person she had to become to live through those traumas.
In my book, the bravest act is the act of choosing to love yourself and growing through the chaos. Vulnerability is precious. It is beautiful. Vulnerability is what allows us to live and feel and love and experience life as only we can. Vulnerability is courageous, it is the highest form of bravery.
Healing means breaking down who you are - your identity, your very core - everything that you have built up over the years, intentionally or unintentionally; and then picking up every single piece and examining it through a critical lens. It means completely destroying the idea of “you” and building it back up the way you would like so that you have a healthy future, instead of leaving it to set by itself. It is the opposite of the Marie Kondo method - you can’t just keep the parts that spark joy - you have to sift through the damaged, the ugly, the not-so-perfect parts of yourself that you’ve left in the secret, forgotten, dusty chambers of your heart, mind and soul. Sometimes, you are lucky enough to rebuild those so that they finally do spark joy, but more often than not, you keep them for their imperfection - they aren't pretty, but they somehow got you to where you are. We cannot handpick the good experiences from our past and throw out the bad ones - they all are a part of us, the key to what makes us who we are. But like Beckett’s therapist says, they don’t have to limit you.
Therapy sounds straightforward enough - dismantle, assess, re-assemble. It is everything but simple. I like to think of it like broken bones - a fracture in your leg, if you will. Broken bones do heal by themselves if left alone. They will heal even if they are misaligned - they will build themselves back and create one whole out of the broken pieces in whatever crooked way they can. So at the end of it, you still have a whole piece of bone in your leg - but it will be so misaligned and crooked that it will impair the way you walk and defeat the very function it is meant to carry out - not to mention, it will be compromised in terms of structural integrity and will be even more prone to breaking. When that happens - when the bone heals in the wrong way - doctors must break it again, this time on purpose. They must realign it, then stabilize it with plates, screws, or rods - an external support system - for proper healing. That process of breaking the bone again is extremely painful, but it is necessary to ensure that the bone heals properly; it is essential to ensure that you have full function in your leg.
I look at therapy and healing in the same way. Growing up, it is inevitable that we will have experiences that wound us and break us in some way or another - it is impossible to live without getting hurt. But more often than not, we deal with these situations in our own unhealthy ways - patterns that often run across generations of family (from my own experience, I can tell you that generational trauma is very real) - because we or the people before us didn't know any better. So, all our lives, we go about carrying wrongly set fractures, angrily bumping into people with their own set of crooked legs. It takes a few brave people to realise that something is wrong - to be willing to step up and say, I am willing to be more - I am willing to go through the pain of breaking my bones again, so that the cycle is broken. I am willing to go through the temporary pain because I want to be healthy; because this isn’t the way I’m meant to live my limited time on earth - with a crooked leg, with a bruised heart, with a broken soul. I am willing to be whole again.
But healing also comes at a cost. It is lonely out here, because most people would rather live with crooked legs than heal for their own sake and that of others. But I know so many wonderful people who were brave enough to rise beyond that. I am proud to stand here today and say that I am one of them too.
On Non-Linear Healing
As I write this, I cannot help but reflect back on the times when therapy and working on myself seemed unfair, almost unjust. The fact that I was expected to keep putting in the work and grow as a person, even as the rest of the world stayed in their own garbage patterns, would elicit an almost primitive kind of rage in me. Why was I to be responsible for picking up the pieces while everyone else kept destroying the world I kept trying so hard to build? I wanted to stomp and rage at the world for being so unfair. But slowly, almost glacially, acceptance took over: the realisation that the world we live in is fundamentally unfair, began to settle in. In this world, there is no prize for good behaviour and hardly ever a penalty for bad behaviour. A small subset of bad behaviour, potentially the kind that falls under the category of criminal, might be tried under law, but even then, more often than not, it goes unpunished.
So, over time, that righteous rage turned into some form of reluctant acceptance. Naively enough, I thought that it would stay that way. But recently, while going through a particularly difficult emotional time, I came face-to-face again with that same rage. Misfortunes never come singly, and this time was no exception. My fragile, anxious, burnt-out self was going through extreme academic stress while working the maximum hours at my student job - which meant little to no wiggle room within my finances. Add to that a brutal Berlin winter and the resulting depression, along with a very ill-timed, blindsiding breakup after an intense few months, which once again, reinforced my (irrational) belief that the minute I open up, let someone in and allow myself to be vulnerable, it turns out to be a mistake that ends in my trust being broken. Everything felt like a mammoth task and I was barely keeping up.
So the rage was back and this time, it felt familiar and even more primal. Why was I the only once fighting all these battles, learning all these lessons, being thrust into problems and wretched situations over and over again? This time, I had done even more of the work, I had shown up for myself in even bigger and better ways. Why couldn’t I simply catch a break? I was angry at the world - at the university that expected me to be superhuman in order to graduate, at the German bureaucratic system that wouldn't allow my so-called respectable academic job to increase my hours or pay me more than minimum wage, and God was I angry, absolutely livid at the man, an old forgotten friend at the time, who pursued, love-bombed and reassured me, only to then discard me like a piece of trash when I suddenly no longer fit his idea of a partner.
Above all, I was angry at myself. I was angry at myself for still struggling, for not being able to manage everything better, for not being able to breeze my way out of university, for allowing myself to be too vulnerable too soon, for putting my trust in the wrong man and getting thus humiliated. The rage was so all-consuming that it became impossible to contain it inside me. That is when I started writing this piece - to let it all out, to stop being sad and angry. Now, after several months, I’m still writing it but thankfully, these last few months of time have brought me the benefit of hindsight. I can see myself much more clearly - what I have overcome, how far I have come, how far there still is to go. Rage is still in the driving seat, but now there’s also a tiny piece of wisdom accompanying me on this ride. Would I go through it again? Probably not. Would I deal with it better if I have to ever go through it again? You bet.
On Community and Environment
Having said that, there is something very important I want to highlight. Healing, as much as it is an individual’s own responsibility, often happens in relation to others - our families, our friends, our partners, our society. You simply cannot keep a healthy plant in a toxic environment and then expect that it won’t wither away. Resilience can only do so much, especially if all it is being fed is poison. In a poisonous atmosphere, even the most healthy plant is going to die, so now imagine a sick plant in its place - how on earth is it supposed to thrive? I read somewhere the other day a different perspective on attachment - you’re not anxiously attached, your partner is simply unreliable, which is exactly the thing that is making you anxious. With a reliable person, you have no reason to be anxious because they choose to show up consistently every single time. Even if you are anxious, you slowly heal from it because you now have a person you can depend on. While there are some nuances to this, I do agree with it. Under healthy and abundant conditions, people thrive. On the contrary, imagine having friends, family or partners who criticize you all the time. I’d think you were a psychopath if you weren’t affected by this kind of an environment (the irony is that more often than not, even psychopaths are made and not born, from some kind of traumatic experience in early childhood - talk about ‘nurture’ vs ‘nature’).
Therefore, having a support system is imperative - be it for healing broken limbs or traumatised people. It doesn’t make you small to ask for help. What carried me through my difficult time besides therapy were my girl friends, my soul sisters who genuinely loved me and cared about me - enough to call me out both when I was too hard on myself and when I was being a complete ass. These wonderful female friendships are one of the greatest joys and one of the greatest privileges of my life. I have talked to them, hugged them, cried with them, laughed with them, even fought with them when we were collectively losing our minds - but regardless of the circumstances, I have had them in my corner and I have stayed in theirs.
So one of the things I can say from experience is that you cannot say the wrong thing to the right people. The right people will not judge you. The right people will stay by your side at your lowest moments. The right people will give you the patience and the space to grow, and they will give you love, kindness and grace, when you cannot give it to yourself. But like one of my best friends, Mon says, you have to be willing to help yourself, and it is something that will stay with me forever. She would say this to me when I was struggling, and it reminded me that I have always believed this and lived accordingly. And as a result, I have also gotten better at asking for help.
The self and the community, therefore, both have important roles to play. A toxic self will always blame the community and a toxic community will always blame the self. You can only thrive with a self that's willing to put in the work and a community that allows a safe space for it to do so.
Of course, not all trauma comes from being shot by a sniper, but all trauma leaves a mark, often the kind that lasts for years, even decades. And while we try our best to make peace with our scars, we must give ourselves the credit for wanting and trying to be better. Be proud that when life handed you rotten lemons, you still tried your best to make good lemonade. Not everyone can do that. Not everyone does that. Most people would simply throw those rotten lemons at others. But you didn’t. You chose to rise above it. You strived to do better, be better. You’re the growers - you grow - that’s what you do (and for the record, it has nothing to do with productivity or your material achievements). It’s the furthest thing from easy and that’s what makes you brave and strong. Kate Beckett chose that. I chose that. You chose that. It was a choice. A brave one, a strong one and a rather difficult one. Acknowledge its magnitude and celebrate it.
Finally, The Rant
I want to now talk directly to those who refuse to work on themselves or even acknowledge that there's something wrong with them - the deniers. I wonder if you guys will even realise that this part is about you, or that you are this person. So here’s the deal - you have my compassion but you do not get my empathy. Not anymore. For the longest time, I would give people the benefit of the doubt because we all have our reasons for being the way we are. But I have come to realise that what is more important is that we don’t justify bad behaviour in the name of trauma. You do not get to treat people horribly just because you are hurt, you don't get to damage people just because you're damaged. And I have developed my own litmus test for this - would I ever do to you what you did to me? Would I ever treat you the way you treated me? Would I ever behave towards you the way you behaved towards me? When the answer is a resounding “NO”, then I know that that right there has to be the limit of my empathy.
All I have to say to you is this: Please take some accountability for your actions and accept the responsibility for the hurt and the pain that you have caused, and continue to cause, because you won’t do the simple act of looking inwards. I understand that your actions and reactions probably also come from a place of trauma that you may have experienced and I understand that you probably don't have an awareness of it or even have control over it, but it is still no excuse to treat people poorly.
Real accountability only comes through real vulnerability. And vulnerability is real only when there is some form of self-awareness, followed by self-acceptance.
When people tell you that you hurt them, listen. Acknowledge it. Don’t defend or justify it. Whatever your reasons were for acting the way you did, you don't have the right to convince them that it was for the greater good. If you caused hurt, even if unintentionally, apologise. And then try not to do that to another person. And if you cannot face your emotions and your feelings and if you are not ready to do the inner work, then please, PLEASE stay away from those of us who are working hard to heal ourselves and grow. DO NOT insert yourselves into our lives. Stay away unless you are ready to change. Because God, I’m tired, I’m so tired of people strutting in without intention and upsetting the balance I’ve worked so hard to establish. We simply cannot continue this dynamic - me working constantly to heal myself, only for you to come into my life and re-traumatise me, hurt me and then abandon me - and then refuse to take any responsibility for the part you played (avoidantly attached people - yes, I’m looking at you. Also, dismissive avoidants - you guys are quite possibly the worst kind of people.)
You know what they say. Hurt people hurt people. But I have done my part and continue doing my part to not be one of those people (and so do so many wonderful people I know). We struggle and we break down, but we build ourselves back up. Most importantly, we put in the work, and we do our best to break the damn cycle. So no, you don't get a free pass to hurt people just because you’re hurt or because you're not aware of what you're doing.
You think you're in tune with your feelings? Well, breaking news - you're really, really not. People in tune with their emotions do not shut down at the first sight of big feelings, they do not push people away simply because they don't know how to deal with emotions.
I want you to know that the neatness of your emotional world is built on the wreckage of ours. Your fake emotional stability comes through the real destruction of ours. When you're done with us, we continue to suffer. While you close yourselves off and move on with life, we spend months and sometimes, years in therapy, facing and unpacking self-doubt, confusion, guilt and every other vile emotion that YOU have put us through.
But you refuse to acknowledge your own emotions, so how can you even begin to understand ours? Regardless, I want you to know that you are the cause of so much pain and suffering in this world, and for once, it would be great if you owned up to it. It’s your turn to have some empathy - to look inwards and take on your share of the responsibility. Go to therapy, face yourself.
You’re having big feelings? Guess what, we all do.
Give yourself the time to feel them. Understand them.
And then learn to manage them.
You’re having strong and complex reactions to things? Guess what, we all do.
Sit with that discomfort. Notice where it is coming from.
Understand it and then learn to manage it.
You have the urge to shut down and run away?
Stop. Breathe. Think.
Maybe there’s a better way to deal with it.
You’re feeling overwhelmed by the burden of your emotions?
Guess what, that happens to all of us.
Communicate. Overcome the shame, at least enough to ask for help.
There is no growth in comfort. And this is as true for the emotional world as it is for the physical world. So stop running from the discomfort and the difficult conversations, and let people in. Don’t throw away the humans in your life and then pretend to be oblivious when they demand to understand the reason.
I shouldn’t have to heal from you because you refuse to heal from yourself. I shouldn’t have to bear the burden of your trauma AND the actions that stem from it, while you walk away acting like you’ve done no harm. Your fractured leg is not my problem. Take your crooked leg and go see a doctor. Fix it. But start by accepting that it is your leg that is crooked. Ask for help, and help yourself in the meantime.
But know this: if I had to heal from you, you do not have space in my life and my heart anymore - not unless you’re willing to take accountability and do the work. And certainly not until after you’ve done the said work. In the meantime, stay as far away from me as you can.
One of my favourite quotes from the Harry Potter books is “help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.” The world is one giant Hogwarts - you will always find help as long as you are brave enough to ask for it.
But first comes the acknowledgement.
Then comes the discomfort.
Then comes the work.
And then comes the healing.
And this happens in waves.
And then it goes on for the rest of our lives.
And somewhere along this path, you’ll come face to face with accountability. And hopefully, in that moment, you will realise that it really wasn’t that difficult, being accountable.
It is true what they say - if suffering could be traded amongst humans, there would be a lot more kindness and empathy in this world. If you could walk a day in my shoes, live a day in my head and feel the pain that I feel in my heart, even if temporarily, you wouldn't hurt people the way you do. And I wouldn't, either.
I write this, therefore, with immense rage and sorrow, and maybe a little bit of dark, delusional hope. The next time you feel the urge to act out, I hope you come back to this. I hope that this letter haunts you in moments where you stand on the precipice of selfish and impulsive decisions - for your sake and for the sake of the poor, oblivious people in your lives who only want to love you and be loved in return.
Do better. Be better.
Who you are is not set in stone.
If I can work on that, so can you.
Reflections
“Kill Shot” is one of my favourite Castle episodes for a reason. In moments when I have felt completely broken, I have often gone back to it. I’ve always felt that I embody Kate Beckett in very specific ways - strengths, flaws and all. I see so much of me in her and so much of her in me. Some parts I aspire to become, while some belong to me on a very fundamental level. She is the woman I am and she is the woman I want to become. And so, even as a work of fiction, this episode has stayed with me as a powerful reminder that no matter how strong you are, sometimes it is okay to struggle. We were never meant to carry our burdens alone, and sometimes the bravest thing we can do is allow ourselves to share not only the good but especially the bad parts.
I know I cannot change anyone. I can only work on myself and continue to try and become a better version of me. But I’m writing this in the hope that someone will recognise their own patterns and take the first step towards resolving their unhealed traumas.
To the deniers I want to say: do better, be better.
You can be more than who you are.
All it takes is the willingness to be more.
And to the growers, to my fellow humans who are doing their best to be more: I’m so, SO proud of you. I hope you are proud of yourself too.
- Gayatri Shejwal
