We Are All the Same in Different Ways

Mara here.

I've been thinking about this topic for a while...years actually. I have struggled with the concept of being different for my entire life.

I don't really understand why it's so hard for most people to stand apart from their fellow humans, myself included. Most of us want to simply blend in. We don't want to be different. And it's uncomfortable for us to feel as if we have experiences that nobody else has.

There are some people who revel in their differentness. There are people who dedicate their lives to doing things nobody else has done. But most of us want to simply chug along with everyone else.

I was most recently reminded of this struggle during the flood of #MeToo hashtags that popped up in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein sexual assault accusations. If you're not familiar with it, it was a movement to encourage people who had been victims of sexual assault or harassment to share their stories. And even if people didn't want to share the details of their experiences, simply sharing #MeToo on social media meant that you had had an experience. It meant you were part of the growing group of people who were no longer willing to keep their sexual abuse or harassment experiences hidden.

It was amazing how many people came forward, and I saw a lot of comments and articles about how surprised people were that so many people had had similar experiences.


How is it possible that so many people could have been victims of harassment and abuse, but nobody was aware of how pervasive it was? Why is it only during moments of group sharing that most people are willing to come forward? Why do we keep so many of our human experiences secret from each other?

People are sometimes criticized when they come forward with allegations of abuse if they hadn't come forward immediately after the incident occurred. This attitude surfaced as many women (and some men) came forward to accuse Harvey Weinstein. People were asking, why are they only willing to come forward now? Why are they only willing to say something if other people are speaking up? Why are they "jumping on the bandwagon?"

The thing is that it's scary to come out and say something that will make you stand apart from what's considered "normal." Aside from whatever legal, financial, or professional aspects that people have to consider, it's hard to come out and accuse someone of something that will make you feel like a target yourself. Aside from the stigma of accusing a man (or woman) of sexual assault, it's hard to accept that once you make an accusation, you are forever identified as a subset of people who are different from everyone else.

And admitting you were a "victim" can make you feel weak.

In addition, because nobody talks about it, it's easy for a person to convince themselves that they are the only person who's had this experience. And that makes them feel different.

It seems as if there is something about human nature that makes us instinctively self-protect by not standing out. Perhaps it's something about the predator and pray nature of being an animal in this world. Standing out from the pack makes us more vulnerable.

So we often hide the things about ourselves that we feel are different.

I had a sort of parallel experience recently, although obviously it's in no way the same level of severity as sexual assault. We had a crane fly infestation at our house. In fact, its level of "not-a-serious-problem" reinforces the point of my piece.

In January and February we had an unusual amount of rain. By the time the spring rolled around, plant and bug life was flourishing with unusual vigor. This included a crazy number of crane flies. Crane flies are bugs that look like flying spiders. They have very long legs and look a little menacing, although they're harmless.

I have a daughter who is maniacally afraid of spiders, so having these flying spider things buzzing around the house was not fun. Malia would run into the house from the driveway and anytime the door opened she would scream because two or three of the critters would swoop into our livingroom.

And I felt a little overwhelmed by them, too. On one hand, I knew that the flies were "normal." We get them every year, just not usually in the massive numbers we saw this year. But I didn't want to tell anyone about them. I had some people over to the house and I spent time spraying the doorways in hopes of keep the flies away long enough so our guests wouldn't notice them. I felt like somehow it was an individual failure on my part or with our house that, for some reason, we were swarming with flies.

My daughter would moan about how it was awful we lived in a swamp and she'd ask what was wrong with our house that we had flies bombarding us. And I would reply with the rational adult answer, saying that they were fine—a natural occurrence and that there was nothing wrong with them.

But secretly I couldn't help wonder if there was something wrong with our house. Did we have some kind of weird crane fly nest around our house? Was it because I didn't keep the outside of the house clean enough? I spent days brooding about whether or not I had done something that was causing the infestation.

And then a friend of mine posted a status on Facebook that simply said, "What's up with all the crane flies?" And I felt this crazy rush of relief flood over me that I was not alone in my struggle with the flies.

And then I felt ridiculous for keeping secret and worrying over something as silly as having more than the usual number of crane flies around. Years of working on accepting myself have resulted in my feeling more at easy with my concept of self. I'm much more comfortable in my body and with my self-critical thoughts. But somehow the crane flies threw me for loop. They felt so out of the realm of my control.

Honestly, why didn't I just ask someone about them? Even if I had somehow been doing something that was attracting all the flies, why did I assume it would somehow reflect badly on me?

And then I realized how easy it is for us—even someone like me who is relatively self aware—to get caught up in the need to not have any outward appearance of difference in a negative way. It was surprising that something as innocuous as the crane flies triggered that mental defense mechanism of trying to pretend nothing was wrong. It reminded me how strong the instinct is to believe that the negative things that happen in our lives are the result of our having done something wrong.

And that's the thing about the people who are coming forward after-the-fact with stories of sexual harassment and abuse. When you know other people have experienced the same things that you have, you realize that it's not your fault that the experience happened. You feel freer to admit you had an experience when you know that other people have too.

We are so quick to blame ourselves for things. And sometimes we are to blame—or at least we contributed. But we also need to be able to recognize when we are truly victims. And we need to realize that sometimes things happen for no particular reason. It's not always personal to ourselves. Sometimes things just happen.

It's been helpful to me to try and regularly remind myself that, given all the humans who exist and have previously existed, there's probably not much that any of us experience that is truly unique to us. 

So hopefully we can all be a little easier on ourselves. And hopefully we can all be a little easier on each other. There's nothing wrong with being different. Because the thing is we are all different—we're just different in different ways. In that regard, we are the same.