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If you somehow missed all the advertising, "Wicked" came out last weekend. I haven’t yet seen Gregory Maguire’s 1995 book-turned-musical-turned-movie, but I plan to. (To my fellow theater-goers, don’t worry: I’ll try very hard not to ruin it by singing along.)
I’ve always been drawn to the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West. It’s partially because of its nostalgic value: I grew up watching "The Wizard of Oz" recorded from television onto a VHS tape. But for me, its true charm comes from how the main character, Elphaba, uses her most discomfiting quality—her green skin—to become a powerful and feared figure in the land of Oz.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been rereading the book and listening to the musical again that I’ve had magic on my mind. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of being able to transform things, to bend things toward my will in a way that benefits me and others. But how is this accomplished? For Elphaba, her power stems from her differences and the ways they shape her from the moment she is born.
Perhaps in order to become powerful, you need an Achilles heel.
A Dream Come True
If you had told my younger self that one day she’d be writing for Psychology Today, she’d have been over the moon. Writing has always been a dream of mine. Before going to graduate school to become a counselor, I was an English major, and I’d thought seriously about writing or editing as a career.
But I didn’t become a writer. Instead, I’ve been in private practice for the last 15 years, quietly doing trauma-informed therapy with my clients. Though I am proud of the work I do, it has not earned me many accolades. Certainly, I have not accomplished anything in my career that might garner the attention of the editors of such a prestigious institution as Psychology Today. Even if I were to write about my area of expertise—trauma—it likely would have gone unnoticed because trauma literature is so ubiquitous now: surely others with stronger credentials and more laudable backgrounds have already written more eloquently and knowledgeably than I might.
No, if I was going to make my dream come true, it was going to take something unique. Something magical. And for that, I’d need to look to my own Achilles heel.
My Birthright
It turns out what sets me apart is that, like Elphaba, I have a difference of my own:
I have a fatal brain disease.
Huntington’s disease (HD), to be exact. Just like my green-skinned friend, I was born with it. It’s a genetic disorder that I inherited from my mother, though she was never tested for it in her lifetime (she died in 2009 and was not exhibiting any symptoms at the time of her death).
Unlike Elphaba, however, my difference was not obvious. In fact, growing up, no one told me what Huntington’s was, or that I was at risk. The only thing I knew about Huntington’s was that my maternal grandmother had died from it before I was born.
That was it, literally: A woman I had never met had some rare illness that killed her. Beyond that, it was never talked about in my house. It was hidden, a family curse that remained beneath the surface. I certainly didn’t realize in any meaningful way that the same thing that killed my grandmother could kill me.
Looking back now, I sometimes feel resentful that no one explained to me more about this aspect of my family history and the potential for it to impact my future. HD is referred to as a family illness because it is passed from parent to child. If a parent has it, each of his or her children has a 50 percent chance of inheriting it. It’s a powerful disease that can wipe out entire generations. One would think the fact that my grandmother had it would have been more of a talking point.
So why didn’t anyone talk to me about my own genetic risk?
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Huntington’s is so devastating. A neurodegenerative disorder that attacks people’s brains in mid-life, it is often described in the literature as a combination of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease), Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s Disease combined. It involves a long and thorough breakdown of people’s motor, cognitive, and emotional functioning, and it always ends in death because there is currently no cure—or even a way to slow it down.
In reality, even if I had known about my risk, I couldn’t have known for sure that I had it even if I wanted to, because you have to be at least 18 years old to undergo genetic testing. Learning whether or not you’re going to die is kind of a big deal, so they only allow adults to find out.
I can’t change the fact that no one told me. But even if I could have known, would I have wanted to?
A Crystal Ball
If I could somehow manipulate the boundaries of space and time, I wonder what I might tell my younger self about her future. I imagine her sitting in the middle of her AP Psychology class, dark-haired, moody-looking, dressed in black, and half asleep:
You might want to sit up and pay more attention, I tell her, because you’re actually going to need to know this stuff. You’ll be doing it for a living. You’re going to be a therapist.
“Wow. That’s cool.” Helping people sounds important, and her enthusiasm is genuine if subdued.
It is. And do you want to know one of the best parts? One day you’re even going to be asked to write for Psychology Today.
“Wait, really?” I have her attention. “I’m going to get to write? In, like, a famous magazine?” Even as a teenager, she knew what Psychology Today was. This was quite pleasing to her, a fledgling author in her own right: she’d just had some of her sophomoric yet oh-so-earnest poetry published in the school’s literary journal.
Yes, I say, smiling at her, endeared by her eagerness to scale the heights of scholastic nerd-dom.
“So, what am I going to be writing about?”
Ummmmmm…. I hesitate, not quite knowing how to break this next part to her. I’m hit with a sudden wave of affection for her as I see the light reflected back in her eyes, flickers of hope that things are going to get better for her (there's a reason she is moody, even if she doesn’t have the words to describe it yet). I don’t want to be the one to put that light out.
So I avoid the question. Let her remain blissfully unaware for a while. Quoting a certain famous witch, all I say is, All in good time my pretty, all in good time.
Defying Gravity
The situation is hypothetical, of course, but my overwhelming sense is that I’m glad my younger self didn’t know. What high school student wants to bear the burden of knowing that she carries the gene for a disease that will cause her mind and body to shut down and significantly shorten her lifespan? If any of my mom’s decisions not to tell me came from a desire to protect me, I understand it, because I feel it too.
What I might have told her, though, is that no matter what happens in her life, she could take heart. Because in addition to this unfortunate inheritance of death, she had something else hidden beneath all that black, something even more powerful than the illness that would eventually lead to her demise.
She had courage. She was going to face the truth of her ancestral burden in a way her mother never did. And she was going to take that curse and transmute it into an opportunity to write for one of the largest, most well-known mental health publications in the world. Maybe she would even bring awareness to this rare disease in some small way that contributes to its eventual cure.
Therein lies my magic. It is not the Huntington’s itself that makes me powerful. But the resolve to face it, and the willingness to talk about it? That is my true power, and it is what makes the Wicked Witch and I kindred spirits. At least, my former goth self would like to think so. If this is magical thinking, so be it.
In the end (spoiler alert), Elphaba dies too. Her green skin is highly allergic to water and cannot withstand a healthy dousing by Dorothy, just as I will ultimately succumb to my illness. But at least people are singing songs about the Wicked Witch. I should be so lucky.
LinkedIn image: leungchopan/Shutterstock
