A Ramble About Being Wicked

A Ramble About Being Wicked

Probably my favorite musical of all I’ve seen is the musical “Wicked”. For those who don’t know, it’s based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, although it is a much more family friendly version of the story than the original novel (which is a well written, extraordinary work of fiction, but is also definitely not for minors). The storyline centers around Elphaba who would later be known as “The Wicked Witch of the West” and it recounts her early life as well as interweaving with events from The Wizard of Oz.

In the musical as in the book, Elphaba is born different from everyone else, and it is revealed in the book that she was assumed to be sinful and somehow worthless by her parents from a young age only because she was green. All affection is withheld from her and given to her sister whom her parents dote on. She is only able to attend university because her father in particular wants her there to look after her sister which is wheelchair bound. Throughout her life, she has demonstrated “unusual” abilities which she has been shamed into hiding but which come out when she is frustrated or upset. In the musical, one of these displays on her first day at college brings her under the wing of Madam Morrible who teaches sorcery and magic. She is given the hope that she could rise within the system and eventually serve under the Wizard of Oz himself, thus getting the approval, recognition, and even affection she had been denied for most of her life.

Sadly, it was not to be. Elphaba is a compassionate, sensitive person with an ethical code. She is horrified when one of her teachers, a talking animal, regresses into a bestial state. It is her hope upon finally meeting the Wizard that something can be done in order to reverse the regression of not only her professor but all the animals who have become mere beasts, and the discrimination rising against them. She comes to learn that the man she had put all her hopes on, the man she idolized, was the one actively responsible for the abuse and caging of the animals, including her dear friend.

In shock and anger, she turns away from the Wizard and when she runs, she is labeled “Wicked” by him and his government as an enemy of the state. In that moment plays the song which has come to represent the play, “Gravity”, where Elphaba declares “If anyone cares to find me, look to the western skies! As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly! And nobody in all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was, is ever going to bring me down!” It is her moment of self realization, and her understanding that in truth, while the Wizard had no magic and no miracles of his own, she had a rare and undeniable power within herself her entire life and now she was going to act on it.

Several weeks ago, I was listening to “Gravity” on the way home from class. The song had always resonated with me, and I was never entirely sure as to why. But as I was listening to it, and dwelling on a conversation my wife and I had earlier in the day, it hit me.

I was Elphaba. And I was still trying to prove to myself and those rejecting and disapproving authorities in my life that I wasn’t “Wicked.”

Like the Wicked Witch of the West, I too was born different. I was born with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. At the time in the late seventies, eighties, and early nineties no one, however, recognized my behavior and presentations as being autistic because the only version of autism which was recognized by the American psychiatric community (until 1994) at the time was classical, hand flapping, non-verbal autism. On top of this, my parents went through a divorce in the early eighties and I grew up without any kind of a stable father figure.

With my resulting behaviors, I was quickly labeled “the bad kid” for most of my childhood, and somewhat into my college years. No one knew what to do with me, or how to “control” me. I could not relate normally to virtually anyone, and in my frustrations I would often lash out violently towards either other kids or adults. Thing is, I didn’t want to be that way, especially as I came to understand that I was different as I grew older. I didn’t want to be the bad kid, but everything I did to try and be “normal” and “social” kept backfiring on me. I still remember when one after school daycare worker, after my mother had come to pick me up, responded to her “who would want him?”

This led to a period in late junior high and early high school where I was most at peace when I was at home by myself without having to deal with anyone else. I was absorbed into my own fantasy worlds where I felt “safe” without having to deal with the condemnation and rejection of other people.

But starting in High School, after God and I came to an understanding of our mutual relationship, I began to try to do everything “right.” I went to church every time the doors were opened, I started paying attention to, and passing my classes. I wanted to go into the full time ministry as either a pastor or a missionary.

I realized that night as I was driving home in my van, that a huge, subconscious motivator for most of my adult life had been trying to prove that I wasn’t “the bad kid” anymore. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I tried to “toe the line” with my church, and later with the schools I attended, somehow I always ran afoul of those authorities in my life from whom I was seeking approval. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop being “Wicked” in their eyes.

I continued to seek after truth. Perhaps this is what got me into trouble the most. Being autistic, I didn’t want to be wrong or on the wrong side. So I continued to study, and when I was painfully rejected by one group, I subconsciously sought acceptance by another. I kept studying and studying and studying. And with whichever group I fell under, I rigorously sought to defend and uphold their doctrines and policies, even if they caused pain to either myself or someone I loved. I was trying desperately to not be “Wicked.”

But none of it made any difference to whether or not those people I had sought approval from gave it. They did not, but instead kept themselves and their approval apart from me as though I was a project that still needed guidance at best.

I realized in the van that night that this subconscious need to be legitimized by some “gatekeeper”, by some father figure perhaps, was what was keeping me from reaching the “Gravity” moment without guilt. And every time I share my conclusions from my studies and reflections, when they differ from the various “party lines” I had been taught to keep to, somewhere in the back of my mind are the voices of those men whose approval and affection I sought shouting at me, as with Elphaba, “Wicked!”

And I still don’t want to be.

The truth is that I’m not entirely sure where to go from here into the rest of my life. I think it a good thing that I have come to recognize this within myself, but what the fruit of it will be I don’t know. I suppose only time will tell. I only write this now, because I believe that there are others out there like myself who have someone screaming at them “Wicked!” in the backs of their minds. It often demands that we give one of two responses. We either fall in line with the disapproving voices, or we rebel wholeheartedly against them, as Elphaba did. I’m not sure that either is really the appropriate choice.

I think maybe a third option exists. Maybe we reject the “Wicked” label, but instead of being in open rebellion we see the ignorance, arrogance, and pride of the people behind those voices for what it is. To see that, in reality, the hold they still have over us only really exists within our own minds. And like the elephant tied to the stake in the ground by a mere rope, learn that we too can leave our bondage any time we wish.