I’ve long suspected that Paul McCartney and John Lennon were onto something when they wrote “All You Need is Love.”

Who am I kidding. I thought they were terribly naïve and peering through some seriously rose-colored glasses. We need a lot of things to survive besides love, people!

Be that as it may, I happen to love teenagers, those sullen, traumatized, in-your-face paragons of pure attitude. I purposely affiliated with many foster homes during the time that I owned my own psychiatric practice, purposely because the thoughts and feelings of my own teenagerhood have never left me. I remember directing myself early on, by the age of 12, to never forget how it felt to have adults disparage me, treat me like a small child, and spend very little effort to listen and understand me. I took my own advice, clearly.

I remember a boy, 16 years old I think, sitting across from me in my office. It was an initial visit, one where I ask many difficult questions to learn and understand a person’s story. He was having none of it. Having read his file ahead of time, I asked about a particular event, not a pleasant one. “I’m not talking about that”, was his reply. Sometimes I say things like, “Of all the places on this earth, this is the one place you get to talk about all the hard stuff”.

I didn’t say that then. I walked from behind my desk and pulled the other big comfy chair to a position mostly facing him, and sat down, one leg curled beneath me.

“You know what’s interesting?”, I asked. No response, he was studiously and pointedly staring at the rip in the right knee of his jeans. His message was loud in the silent room. I am not talking. And you can’t make me.

I continued. “Every time someone says they don’t want to or aren’t going to talk about something, it’s because that something made them feel small and weak. It hurt. And because the feeling was so big, it seems true that anyone who hears this story will also understand that this person must indeed be small and weak. And of course, no human wants to present themselves in this light.”

His fidgeting had lessened, I knew he was listening in spite of himself.

“Also, because the feelings around the event continue to be so intense, the person is afraid of showing how much they still feel, of actually losing control of their emotions during the re-telling, when that’s the last thing they really want to feel – like they’ve lost control. What’s interesting is that humans think if we ignore something long enough and hard enough, it will go away. We’re a silly bunch of homo sapiens, because whatever we resist, simply persists. I guess that’s another way of saying that you might have noticed the longer you don’t want to talk about it, the worse it gets when it does come to mind.”

I’d seen the faintest shadow of a smile start to form when I talked about our innate silliness, but he was not one to give in easily. This was his only method of control, and he was using it to the max. He didn’t know this yet, but I admire courage, however it shows up. I kept going.

“We both know that there’s nothing I can do to actually make you talk, you’ve definitely had so many decisions and circumstances where no one gave much thought to what you might want, or how a particular decision might make you feel that it makes sense that you’re exercising what little power you feel you have left – which is whether you decide to cooperate or not. That really makes a lot of sense.”

“Jordon”. I said his (fake) name, leaning forward a little as I said it. “You wanna know how I know this?”

He glanced briefly at me, then remembered he wasn’t supposed to be interested. More staring at his ripped jeans.

“I didn’t learn it in a book. I lived it. I’ve carried my paltry belongings in a big black trash sack, not knowing where I’d spend the next night. The courts didn’t protect me, they only kept my dad in jail for one night, and he fooled them like he did everyone, convinced them he wanted to change and how much he loved his family. He loved us alright, those bruises that lasted for more than a month from just one beating – that sure felt like love. So that bullshit continued.”

I had his full attention now. I told him that I mostly don’t say much about myself, because these visits are for the benefit of each person who comes to see me. But every now and then I can sense when someone needs to know that I’m not just operating on book learning, that I’ve been in some dark places and experienced some ugliness that I never wanted to talk about either. It’s hard to even think about trusting someone who says they understand, and instinctively you know that they don’t. Why bother? I sure didn’t.

I told him that his stubbornness was a good sign, at least in my book, because it’s a form of courage to stand up to those that have more power than we do. I talked about sitting in front of different counselors that the court chose for me, and pressing my lips together so tightly you couldn’t wedge a molecule of air between them. Just sitting there, not looking at them, never answering a question, waiting for the longest hour to be over. He grinned a little, relaxing in small fractions in his chair.

I suddenly stuck my hand out to him, saying “You’re a badass, my friend, but I doubt you got anything on me!” He stuck his out before he could even think and shook mine. I couldn’t help but laugh a little at this point. “I never did talk, not to a single counselor. Wanna know where all that badassery got me?!”

He nodded. Grinned. Actually cleared his throat, and a gravelly “yeah, I guess” issued forth. A little bit of light entered his eyes when he smiled, although I’m sure he didn’t know it.

“Whole lotta nowhere, that’s where! By the time I got to be an adult, it was a lot harder to talk about, and took a lot longer to just tell my story, because my only thought was that whatever any adult asked me to do, I was going to do the opposite. You’re more than smart enough to figure out that attitude really helped me form some good relationships. (Teenagers lock onto sarcasm like nobody’s business) One thing I learned is, unless you can be honest with yourself, and talk about the hard stuff, you can’t be honest with others, and that means you can’t gather people around you that really care about you. You just can’t, and that sucks. All we really want is to be seen and heard. (He’s staring at me hard right now) Someone to show us love, and someone we can love in return.” (Is that a bit of extra moisture I see in his eyes? I’m not sure…)

“So – you can go down that road if you want to, not talking is certainly one of your options. But I’ve already been there, done that, and it ended up making things harder for me. A lot harder. Thought I’d just let you in on that secret ahead of time, so maybe you can make a smarter decision than I did. It’s also true that you can choose to change your mind, make the difficult choice and see if I’m telling the truth. It’s just when I see someone that has that same stubbornness as me, what I also know is that you got the intelligence and the persistence – my grandpa would call it pigheadedness – to make anything of yourself that you wanna make. The only thing holding you back will be yourself.”

This was a long talk for a traumatized teenager with a short attention span, and normally I don’t get so wordy. But I’ve also learned to just go with what my gut tells me at the time, and so far it hasn’t led me astray. I could see the wheels turning in his head, and he was consistently looking at me now, had been for a little while. He didn’t know how to start. So I led him gently into it, and as each story often is, it was heart-breaking.

Many years ago, when I first told my story to a therapist, she cried as I told it. I had divorced myself from my emotions for so long that I couldn’t cry at anything, even things I was genuinely sad about. The fact that she cried for me shocked me. It put me in touch with my locked-up feelings in way that I’d never experienced. I knew that was a no-no in the therapeutic world. A therapist doesn’t show their emotions, they don’t ever talk about themselves, the rules go on & on.

This obviously wasn’t just a therapist, a trained drone adhering to all the theoretical ways of doing therapy. Instead it was a human being who understood connection, and who had the courage to directly acknowledge just how awful that story really was, in the most visible way possible. She sat there, with her eyes on me, tears rolling one right after the other down her cheeks as I spoke. She never flinched, she just sat there listening to me, her eyes never wavering from mine. I felt heard, and I felt seen. And I began to feel the sadness deep inside that I’d never really known was there. Is there anything more beautiful?

I don’t know how that particular young man’s story ended, as if often the case. Foster homes move kids around fairly frequently, even though that’s generally not their goal. I know that growing up the few people who were able to connect with me, however briefly, made more of an impact than I’d bet they’d ever guess. I can only hope that my interactions have done the same. It sure feels good though, just spreading a little love around in whatever manner opportunity presents. It would be my greatest accomplishment, to have loved such that even one other person really felt seen. And heard. And – loved.

My favorite words from that well-known ode to love say it well –

“Nothing you can do, but you can learn to be you in time
It’s easy – All you need is love…”

Maybe, just maybe, love IS all you need…