Lessons on Truth and Love from Tara Westover
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By Michaela Choy, AMFT
A major way I continue learning as a therapist is through reading. Writers have a beautiful ability to capture what it is to be human. Through stories I am exposed to many worlds that are different from my own which builds my empathy, curiosity, and connection to others.
One of my favorite books that I reference in therapy and reflect on in my personal life is Educated, a memoir by Tara Westover. In her story, she shares the experience of being a Mormon, white woman growing up on a mountain in Idaho with her family. Her world is extreme and insular. Paranoia keeps the family isolated, the children do not attend school, and the family is wary of western medicine. The family is fixated on the end of the world and spends it’s time burying fuel and canning peaches. Some of the details are so shocking, and truthfully, so disturbing, I couldn’t believe this was real or a relatable experience. The more I read, the more I saw the humanity in her story and themes that connect us all. Two of these themes include the danger of mistaking your reality as the only truth and maintaining loving boundaries with difficult and hurtful family members.
Our version of the truth.
“Everything I had worked for, all my years of study, had been to purchase for myself this one privilege: to see and experience more truths than those given to me by my father, and to use those truths to construct my own mind.”
Our perspective of the world is shaped by our personal experiences and the people around us. Much of this is influenced by our caregivers. From this, we develop rules that guide our ability to move through the world informing our choices and how we see ourselves and others. In the beginning of Westover’s story, the rules are clear: men have power and influence, higher education is a waste of time, and the only people you can trust are your family. Additionally, her father encouraged a specific version of history - one that excluded slavery and the Holocaust.
Westover shares that for a long time, she experienced her father’s observations and beliefs as truth instead of truth particular to him. It was only after she spent time learning new versions of history and witnessing other paths in life, did she realize the narrowness of her lens. Westover stresses the recognition that our version of the world is not the only version, rather it is one of many perspectives. Our ability to hold multiple perspectives for ourselves and others, and to entertain many paths for ourselves and others, is crucial in the development of respect and empathy. Many of us accept our family rules and expectations as the only way, and we must all go through the journey of deciding for ourselves what is worth keeping and what is worth expanding.
Maintaining distance in order to love.
“You can love someone, and still choose to say goodbye to them.”
“You can miss a person everyday and still be glad they are no longer in your life.”
Later in the book, Westover is confronted with the agonizing choice to distance herself from her family. Later in her journey, it becomes clear that they do not accept the woman she has become and the way she sees the world. They are challenging and disapproving, and it is painful and unsafe to be around them. Westover concludes that in order to keep loving them, she can’t have them in her life.
Often we conflate love for family with an obligation to persevere through pain and suffering in order to maintain the relationship. Our society stresses that family is everything and we must stay in relationship at all costs. This pressure comes up so much in my work with clients. The guilt from holding boundaries and the pain from missing our family makes holding a boundary seem wrong. Westover’s story offers a compassionate viewpoint on the decision to distance: whether or not her family belongs in her life is separate from her love for them. Westover continues to love her family AND maintains distance in order to protect herself. She recognizes that in order for her family to be in her life, they must change, and whether or not they change is something she has no control over. These are powerful lessons we need to hear especially around the holidays. You have permission to hold boundaries. It doesn’t mean that you love your family any less, and you cannot change them, they hold that power and privilege for themselves.
This book is thought-provoking, validating, and connecting. I’m looking forward to reading this again soon.
References:
Westover, T. (2018). Educated: A memoir. Random House.