My entire life I have felt like a bit of an odd ball. It may have been the role I played in my family in part, or that I have always been vastly different than they are. I always felt as a little girl that they simply did not understand it didn't have to be so hard, that life had possibility they could not see. Eventually I accepted that I was wrong, they were right and "Noone ever said life was fair!" . And i went on thinking that how they saw me, the part I was to play in the dynamics of the household was my place in the world. I was the responsible one, I was the care taker, I was making sure things ran as smoothly as they could as best I could. Briefly in high school I fought against that idea, that determination by others of who I was. I rebelled, a bit, and I dared be something a little more honest and a little less repressed. But after a terrible blow in my first year of college I shrank back, I decided I was really wrong after all, that even in the "real world" I had to be this half version of myself. I lived that way for another 24 years... Limited by the ideas I accepted that were based on the strangely colored perceptions of deeply troubled and wounded people who really couldn't fully take care of themselves.
Our childhoods, our religious upbringing, our culture, our neighborhoods, our towns and cities all influence us. They tell us what is good, bad and ugly. We accept it, perhaps begrudgingly at first because some place inside of us thinks they can't be quite right but over time it becomes our truth too even if we secretly wish it weren't. I grew up in a troubled family, a tiny little town and was a drifter among religious beliefs. None of the inherent messages I got about how stifled I should be or repressed I should be or originally sinful I was really made total sense to me. I tried to not believe I had to be this other version of myself but in the face of being chastised by preachers/priests, the condemnation and punishment of my family and the ostracization of the people of my home town I acquiesced. It was inevitable really for it to happen. A child can not be expected to be fully present and feel okay with who they are in the absence of the nurturing of that thing, much less the punishment of it. And while there were some significant moments that drove that message home it was an overall consistent theme as well.
I say all of that simply because it helps me understand how and why I am where I am today, not because I believe "they" did something wrong and it was unfair and therefore I shouldn't have to be the one to fix it... "It wasn't my fault damn it!" No, it wasn't, none of the really awful things that happen to us are. No one is responsible for their beatings, their abuse, their neglect, their humiliation, or their harm in any way by another. What they did is done now though, it is over and my choosing to take a stance that it was unfair so I don't deal with it is only going to prolong my own troubles. I can't go back to those moments and undo it, I would if I could but it can't be done. What can be done is my being willing to recognise the way those beatings, abuses affected me so I can undo how it is affecting me now.
I don't want to be a victim, to those people or events any more. I have lived almost all of my life in the beliefs those moments gave to me, those people gave to me, and I have been in varying degrees of unhappy the entire time. It was enough to have survived what I have survived I will not just be in survival mode forever because of it. At some point we all have to say "Enough is enough. I accepted your idea of who I was, I tried it your way and guess what? It freaking sucks! I am not happy doing what you said I should or should not do to be happy. I am not happy being who you said I should or should not be to be loved, liked, accepted or worthy. In fact being that person has made me feel half understood, half loved, half liked and not worthy of the love and passion I really want in my life. So, fyi now that I know for a fact and through direct experience your way is NOT the right way I am choosing something else!"
I am aware doing this is going to be a constant act of self determination and I will probably backslide. I am aware I still want my parents to accept what I do or who I am and for them to say I am doing a good job. That said, I just can't do it the way I have been anymore. And I won't! I can't spend the rest of my life trying to project an image someone else will think is "acceptable". I can't waste what time I have left avoiding judgements, it is not worth it to me anymore, it hasn't really brought me the life I feel appreciated in or just genuinely happy in. If I died tomorrow I would have regrets. My regret would be I never had a relationship with a man where he really saw who I was and he felt like I was the best thing since white bread. I would regret that I never showed up in my own life without apology for who I am, the best version of myself. I would regret not embracing the nerdy, dorky, honest and kind person I innately am because I didn't want someone to be unkind to me.
My limitations at this point on who I am are self imposed because I am either choosing not to acknowledge that they are there, why they are there or that it is my responsibility at this point to change it. Noone else is responsible any more, just me and I am the only one who can do the work of looking at my thinking and beliefs and making steps to alter them. Being as this is the case, I just have to take the places where I am not allowing myself to just be who I am and express what is true for me because I am trying to control outcomes step by step, bit by bit. I have no clue how long that could take. It might be years, months, maybe one core belief that is the foundation of it all could bring the whole thing down. I don't know, but it has to be done. If I don't do it what is the point of a life half lived because I am afraid of getting hurt or not being good enough for someone? What good does having an underlying feeling of unhappiness do us? Besides, I survived so much don't I deserve to be really happy now?
Our childhoods, our religious upbringing, our culture, our neighborhoods, our towns and cities all influence us. They tell us what is good, bad and ugly. We accept it, perhaps begrudgingly at first because some place inside of us thinks they can't be quite right but over time it becomes our truth too even if we secretly wish it weren't. I grew up in a troubled family, a tiny little town and was a drifter among religious beliefs. None of the inherent messages I got about how stifled I should be or repressed I should be or originally sinful I was really made total sense to me. I tried to not believe I had to be this other version of myself but in the face of being chastised by preachers/priests, the condemnation and punishment of my family and the ostracization of the people of my home town I acquiesced. It was inevitable really for it to happen. A child can not be expected to be fully present and feel okay with who they are in the absence of the nurturing of that thing, much less the punishment of it. And while there were some significant moments that drove that message home it was an overall consistent theme as well.
I say all of that simply because it helps me understand how and why I am where I am today, not because I believe "they" did something wrong and it was unfair and therefore I shouldn't have to be the one to fix it... "It wasn't my fault damn it!" No, it wasn't, none of the really awful things that happen to us are. No one is responsible for their beatings, their abuse, their neglect, their humiliation, or their harm in any way by another. What they did is done now though, it is over and my choosing to take a stance that it was unfair so I don't deal with it is only going to prolong my own troubles. I can't go back to those moments and undo it, I would if I could but it can't be done. What can be done is my being willing to recognise the way those beatings, abuses affected me so I can undo how it is affecting me now.
I don't want to be a victim, to those people or events any more. I have lived almost all of my life in the beliefs those moments gave to me, those people gave to me, and I have been in varying degrees of unhappy the entire time. It was enough to have survived what I have survived I will not just be in survival mode forever because of it. At some point we all have to say "Enough is enough. I accepted your idea of who I was, I tried it your way and guess what? It freaking sucks! I am not happy doing what you said I should or should not do to be happy. I am not happy being who you said I should or should not be to be loved, liked, accepted or worthy. In fact being that person has made me feel half understood, half loved, half liked and not worthy of the love and passion I really want in my life. So, fyi now that I know for a fact and through direct experience your way is NOT the right way I am choosing something else!"
I am aware doing this is going to be a constant act of self determination and I will probably backslide. I am aware I still want my parents to accept what I do or who I am and for them to say I am doing a good job. That said, I just can't do it the way I have been anymore. And I won't! I can't spend the rest of my life trying to project an image someone else will think is "acceptable". I can't waste what time I have left avoiding judgements, it is not worth it to me anymore, it hasn't really brought me the life I feel appreciated in or just genuinely happy in. If I died tomorrow I would have regrets. My regret would be I never had a relationship with a man where he really saw who I was and he felt like I was the best thing since white bread. I would regret that I never showed up in my own life without apology for who I am, the best version of myself. I would regret not embracing the nerdy, dorky, honest and kind person I innately am because I didn't want someone to be unkind to me.
My limitations at this point on who I am are self imposed because I am either choosing not to acknowledge that they are there, why they are there or that it is my responsibility at this point to change it. Noone else is responsible any more, just me and I am the only one who can do the work of looking at my thinking and beliefs and making steps to alter them. Being as this is the case, I just have to take the places where I am not allowing myself to just be who I am and express what is true for me because I am trying to control outcomes step by step, bit by bit. I have no clue how long that could take. It might be years, months, maybe one core belief that is the foundation of it all could bring the whole thing down. I don't know, but it has to be done. If I don't do it what is the point of a life half lived because I am afraid of getting hurt or not being good enough for someone? What good does having an underlying feeling of unhappiness do us? Besides, I survived so much don't I deserve to be really happy now?
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