My Story Didn't Begin When I Became A Mother. I Just Thought It Did.
I thought my life started at motherhood. That is afterall the moment I looked in the mirror and actually saw myself for the first time, and questioned if the person looking back at me actually represented who I thought I was.
I had my first daughter when I was 26 years old, so what does that mean for the years leading up to becoming a mother? I must have been a person with a full personality, right?
This was the beginning of an identity crisis, I didn’t know I was having until I sat down to write this. What is funny, is now I know who I am, and I am comfortable sitting with myself. So my identity crisis is less about who I am and where I actually originated. It turns out becoming a mother was just the catalyst to face things I never knew were part of me.
I had spent my whole life anxious, unsure, and uncomfortable in my own body. I feared any situation I couldn’t control, and there was a lot out of my control daily. I couldn’t control that my parents both worked full time, that my grandparents weren’t great supervisors, or that when my parents did have time off they chose to travel. Because of this from a very young age I felt mostly invisible unless I was doing something helpful. I pushed myself into the caregiver role, the helper, the yes person. It didn’t matter if I knew how, I was going to find a way because love and attention was transactional.
On the surface, that looked like worth. Underneath it, it was security. I didn't feel like I had people I could depend on. I needed to be helpful and needed. That way if I needed something I had earned it. If I hadn’t earned it then I couldn’t ask. I learned that I had to depend on myself, and my anxiety stemmed from what if I needed help with XYZ.
In nursing school I was so miserable, barely functioning, but also not believing medication would help that I sought out therapy. A very specific therapist who did visualization, meditation, and a little more spiritual. I thought she fit my needs and could help me dig deep and release whatever I was holding onto. I was 23 years old. By the third visit we were going deep into meditation. The goal was to identify a box and gently open it. The visualization was going well, I was shocked at how easy I dropped in, found the box, and cracked it open. Then without warning, I was hit with an assault of criticisms, the feeling of abandonment, of not being chosen for me. The floodgates opened. I can’t do this. I’m not ready. My carefully curated persona was cracking and I couldn’t stop crying.
Then the session ended. I thanked her, she asked to schedule next week. I said I’d call her. Went home, dropped back into meditation, found the box with the cracked lid. Shoved it closed, taped it, wrapped chains around it and locked it tight. I never went back to therapy after that.
I could argue I wasn’t ready, it wasn’t what I expected, maybe I wasn’t with the right person, or it could boil down to I was scared of what would happen if I faced that head on. I didn’t stay long enough to find out, and instead it turned into another way for me to turn on myself, because I even failed at healing.
I continued on as usual being uncomfortable and disconnected with myself for three more years until I became a mother and there was nowhere to hide. It was like I handed my fears and failures a megaphone and said let me have it.
Still Here,
Bethany
