You Want the Moon?

One of my favorite unexpected things about working with abuse survivors in the clinical setting is that I get to remind them:

You’re not asking too much. You’re not too much.

In fact, you deserve(d) so much more—care, compassion, dignity, protection, to be believed.

If you’ve watched the old Christmas classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life,”1 you may remember the scene where Jimmy Stewart’s character George asks Mary,

“What is it you want, Mary? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down.”

This was the quote that came to me in a session recently. This client has been trying to leave an abusive marriage and expressed feeling that she couldn’t dream too big or want too much for herself.

Another client—a spiritual abuse survivor who grew up in a cult—recently expressed fears that she might be asking too much from her current pastor (who has expressed a desire to understand and care well for her and her family). Her eyes welled up as she asked me, “Am I being too nitpicky?”

Yet another client—one who experienced childhood abuse by her pastor—speaks of the pain of feeling both “too much” and “not good enough” simultaneously.

(Side note: Clients who have worked with me for a while know by now that it’s not unusual for me to share “random” things that come to me in session. There’s that recent reel I love that captures this truth in a hilarious way:

Needless to say I do not subscribe to the “blank slate” approach to being a therapist—but I do subscribe to being human, while also respecting my clients’ agency and right to their own beliefs and values).

My point is this:

When you’ve experienced being minimized, abused, accused, ignored, harmed, slandered, gaslit—the problem is not that your needs are too big or that you are too much.

The problem is the harm that was done to you. You were denied some of the most basic things that every human needs: to be seen, safe, and secure.

To want and ask for someone to understand, to hear you, to believe you, to do their own work to become informed—this is reasonable and right.

To hope for justice, to desire freedom, to want more for yourself and your family, to seek legal action when possible, to share your story, to have safe relationships and set boundaries in those relationships that aren’t as safe, to cease contact with your abuser.

(Soft pivot that I believe to be absolutely relevant: to expect that our country’s leadership be people of integrity and not, say, felons and sexual abusers. To hope that the people around you who call themselves “Christians” call out wickedness and foolishness. To ask that people in power use that power to protect the most vulnerable—including immigrants, LGBTQ people, children, and other marginalized groups.)

If wanting these things is “nitpicky,” then nitpick away. You (we) are worth all this and more.

I’m so sorry that—in the harm done to you—your right to these things was denied. Your agency was taken away. Your dignity was violated. Your basic human needs were ignored and even preyed upon.

And if I may remind you:

You aren’t too much. Your needs aren’t too much. You deserve so much more.

In fact, you deserve the whole dang moon.

If you’re looking for a counselor to help you on your healing journey, please reach out to me. I offer trauma intensives for abuse survivors and also can help connect you with resources in your area.

1. I rewatched it this last Christmas season and was a bit disturbed by some of the behaviors from George toward Mary (it had been years since I’d seen the film). It’s weird to watch ole movies you used to love and see misogyny, abuse, sexism, etc. that you didn’t catch as a child.