For the College Graduate

Every year NBC News has a medley of college graduation speech clips and one of the clips struck a nerve with me. The comment was something to the order of "You do not need to make anybody proud but your parents, and you have." That statement bothered me because I know it is not true. The only person a college graduate needs to make proud is the college graduate him/herself. Sometimes, the graduate has no one else. Sometimes he does and those people are not supportive or simply just do not care. No one should ever say that graduating from college is not a laudable achievement, but there are times when the only person who celebrates that achievement is the graduate.


Lunch in the conference room on the psychiatric unit here can be interesting. It is not unusual for the converstation to deviate to the "my family was more dysfunctional than yours" competition. Mental health workers often go into the field because of a past history of experience in the area, either personally or with family members or both. Dysfunctional families are not uncommon. We have plenty of staff who did not have a firm support system to get them through high school, college or even further education.


Not every successful professional out there comes from a stable home. Some people had the strength of character to fight the battle to get an education and a solid future solely out of their own desire for a better future for themselves. It is not an uncommon maneuver to get married young to get out of an abusive home, but there are some people who have the sound minds to graduate from high school as quickly as possible, go off to college in a town far away and get an education. For some, proving their parents' assertion that they will never amount to anything is almost an act of rebellion. Some of these people are not the most emotionally stable people in the world and have a tough time surviving, but are smart and fight their way through. Some were lucky enough to have some kind of mentor to help them build up some kind of self esteem. A lot need a lot of Prozac and years of therapy before they truly feel confident in their abilities, but they pull through and often, become the kind of people who help those children who do not have a good support system at home.

We were joking about how disgustingly soppy the Mother's Day cards available tend to be and how often they just do not fit the occasion. Many people love their mothers, they gave them life after all, but do not have the kind of loving, entwined relationship these cards often seem to portray. Some of the sentiments that were toyed with for more appropriate cards were pretty hysterical:

Die!

You were sometimes verbally abusive, but you taught me how to get away with speeding, made sure I got a good education and how to check my motor oil level. Thanks Mom.

Mom, you put me through Hell but I am glad to be alive so thanks for making me.

Despite everything, I turned out okay.

I will refrain from naming which persons were active participants in this conversation, and for some, this amount of anger was a bit exaggerated, but sometimes a bit of sarcasm helps one get through the day.

My ultimate point is this. NO ONE can stop you from reaching your dreams but you. YOU DO NOT NEED ANYONE to believe in you to reach your goals but yourself. People who appear to be confident and popular may have been shy and awkward as children. Successful and wealthy persons may not have come from money. Loving, nurturing parents may have been badly abused. That does not mean they cannot change their lives for the better. I have seen it many, many times. And the people who have come from unhappy situations to happy ones find more joy and happiness in what they have achieved than anyone else. Because there is no true joy without sadness. And they know that everything they have in life, they earned themselves. No one gave it to them, it is theirs. Because they had no help, it was even harder to obtain and they know it.

Many people walk into that graduation ceremony with no one there to be proud of them and they may feel very alone and scared. You may be in that situation. You may know someone like this. Tell them to read this. If this is you always remember: Be proud of yourself, walk tall. You are stronger than you think.