It's 4 am and Karl says to me, "I love being with you!"...He fiddles with his coffee and then turns to leave for work. I say... "but I hate being with myself."
Who am I?
This is a question I have been asking myself for a long time. I like the color green and love animals a whole lot, I have passions, but who am I really? I don't know and I am feeling a deeper and deeper calling to find my inner life force. I may be alive, but I am barely living.
Who do I want to be?
What is my place in this world?
These are questions I am asking myself again.
"Those who do not grow up in a healthy environment—perhaps one scarred by emotional or physical abuse, neglect, or over-parenting—may not develop a sense of self in the same way. Their identities may have been minimally acknowledged, if at all. When feelings and thoughts are ignored in childhood, children may grow up not recognizing that they have their own ideas and sets of behaviors. If children are forced to yield to others’ thoughts, wants, and needs continually over time, the development of their identity may suffer. As they grow into adults, they may question, 'Who am I?'..."
This was me. This IS me.
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| Hoh national Rain forest |
"And how do you plan to do that?"
...
"Are you sure you are smart enough to__?"
...
"Do you really think you can handle __?"
...
The little bit of me that had hope as a kid was ripped away.
This isn't a blog post about blame. It's not about pity or feeling sorry for myself. This is about my reality. The reality for many people while growing up in a challenging or adverse environment, and the ways in which we discover along a way to overcome the odds.
My hope and drive to BE something and establish my identity was taken away before I even got to try. The seed of doubt was planted in me. If I was thirsty while running errands I was often told "too bad, swallow your spit." If I was too loud or 'stimming' by making mouth noises or bouncing my legs while out in public, I was slapped and told to stop moving or I would be sent to the car. If I was being imaginative, quirky or what they considered to be overly sensitive/emotional, I was called weird and laughed at by my own sibling and parents. There was no autonomy. I was pushed to the edge and then fingers pointed "see, you're acting crazy." If I made my own food choices they were ridiculed or laughed at. Once, we were on a "Sunday drive" and I had to pee, I was told I would have to get out of the car at night in the middle of nowhere and go into the cornfield alone. I remember that night so vividly, that must have been the first time I felt like I could explode first from having to pee so badly and second from feeling so alone in that moment. I was verbally and emotionally abused every night during homework because school moved too fast for me. The lights were too bright. I could not focus. I could not understand, because I had a different learning style and that is not accommodated in public school. Kids like me were forgotten and passed regardless of academic level. This is not uncommon. None of this experience is unique to me.
Children are supposed to be guided, supported, nurtured, and told they can do ANYTHING. You lie and tell them you'll find a way to make their dreams come true even if you have no idea how! You let them push boundaries and learn about the world around them. You tell them they can be anything in the world, and you do everything in your power to lift them up, inspire them, and give them stimulating experiences that will help grow their strength and confidence within themselves. You tell them they will always have a place to call home. Somewhere to come back to where they are always welcomed and accepted for who they are. This is ideal, and sadly does not happen for a large number of people. We aren't all set up with the same opportunities and guidance. These experiences may make us stronger, resilient and more independent, but it also makes some things in life much more challenging later on.
During the time in our lives when we are supposed to be developing our own personality, and having those crucial learning experiences as teens and young adults, I was navigating my parents (long overdue) divorce. I know I am not alone in this either. There are 1000s of kids dealing with this same scenario today and every day. That does not make my story any less valid. We are all valid. This is my personal experience. This is me shedding light on the reality of many peoples lives in our society today.
I watched my dad go to work and not come home. Spent nights riding around in my moms mini-van looking for him at every bar in town, when I should have been home in my bed dreaming about taking my pet turtle to show and tell the next morning. It was weekends and lonely nights spent hearing and seeing things a kid should never have to hear or see. As my sister and I grew older and more defiant from lack of parenting, we became a burden. We got pushed away and left off by parents at unsafe spaces for entire weekends. Bad houses with men much older than us. Handing us drugs and taking advantage of our youth and vulnerability. Weeks high on anything that was handed to me, waking up not knowing whether I was in Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio. We quickly learned that it was an easy way to be numb and not feel the pain. I was sent to "juvenile detention" at age 15 for possession of drugs, truancy, battery charges, and theft. I was angry. I had learned that in order to survive I had to become a chameleon, because no one understood. I learned very early on that I was on my own. Had to fight my battles alone...just like that night in the car when I had to pee. These situations confirm that over and over again until they build up. They grow into our lens of the world around us. I was the bad kid, the delinquent. Many people look at kids like the kid I was at age 15, 16, 17, and they have the view that some people are just bad seeds, or evil inside, and we want to wreak havoc on the world around us. What they don't see is a hurting, scared, alone and angry child. A rawness, a need for love, approval, guidance and affection. If you sat down and that kid opened up to you I can guarantee that you would hear a much different story. You'd hear about parents not being there. Drugs, alcohol, sexual, physical, mental and/or verbal abuse. Medical and dental neglect. Before judging the bad kid, we should try reaching out a hand. Mentoring, supporting and counseling these kids. They are humans just like us, and they didn't become monsters over night. It isn't always a conscious choice, it's a way of survival.
One of the truest quotes I have ever read was this ..."Hurt people, Hurt people."...I was hurting, and so I built a wall around myself. I ended up hurting many of the people around me.
One of the truest quotes I have ever read was this ..."Hurt people, Hurt people."...I was hurting, and so I built a wall around myself. I ended up hurting many of the people around me.
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| Art by Christine Suggs |
We get to a point when, to continue on with any power we must go back to that place in time and build ourselves back up. At a time when it seems far beyond expired. It's much like opening a book and trying to rewrite it from the middle. We must inject a new chapter where one had been missing.
I am there at the precipice of this moment. Digging deep. Wading through days and months of depression, dissociation, identity crisis, shame, guilt, and a broken heart, searching for the shard within me that still exists, and lies hidden beneath all the trauma. One must rip it out and shine light upon it. Hold it up at dusk to the orange glowing sun and scream straight through it...I LOVE YOU...I LOVE YOU...I LOVE YOU. Until you can believe it again.
I am there at the precipice of this moment. Digging deep. Wading through days and months of depression, dissociation, identity crisis, shame, guilt, and a broken heart, searching for the shard within me that still exists, and lies hidden beneath all the trauma. One must rip it out and shine light upon it. Hold it up at dusk to the orange glowing sun and scream straight through it...I LOVE YOU...I LOVE YOU...I LOVE YOU. Until you can believe it again.
I am digging and struggling to find my shard. It's so deep I can feel it aching in my womb...And I must venture out there in order feel myself again, remember who I AM.
Since I was very young, during those really hard times when it was all too much to bear, I've gotten this primal urge to run away and paw at the dirt. I'd dig until I hollowed myself a den in the slick muddy clay of a mossy riverbank. I'd lie down next to foxes and fauna. There I could feel okay. There I may be able to shut off my mind and just "be"...be wild, and alone somewhere forever. Then all within the same breath the mere thought of it makes my heart skip a beat. I have monstrous dreams. Extravagant plans to save the world, through art and food and mentoring, but that seed of doubt sprouts up again and again. Because it's fundamentally been planted. That weed must be plucked, ripped from my soils.
Being out here alone in the mountains sometimes feels like my cage. One I need...one I've put myself inside of. The cage... it's a barrier from all that is out there. The cage is my mind. A wall from all that is just out of reach. It's my "comfort zone". I think very often comfort zones aren't comfortable at all. That they limit us, and hold us back. I think it's easy to get caught in that safe space where we can nest ourselves in and never face new challenges, in order to just be ok. In hopes to avoid more hurt and pain. It's a way of coping. It's human nature.
Being alone with ourselves so often exposes all that we've buried too. It shows us our darkest parts that need light shone down upon them. When we sit alone with no noise but the mountain birds, and streams...we hear it all. For seven years I've been staring at what I had buried. Looking it right in the eyes. Feeling every last bit of it fully, and I am stuck. I stripped all the habits away. No more cigarettes to use for my anxiety. No more drinking myself to sleep every night so I could forget the past. I tried covering it back up with food. I failed. But it's all still there when you wake up the next morning. So you look for something stronger, harsher, heavier to take it away again.
"Comfort" is often a blanket that shields us from the unknown, while we let fear be in control of our destiny. Fear that whatever is out there may break us wide open, that it may morph us into exactly what we want to become. Fear that we may not have the strength to seek out the light instead of darkness again. Fear of being alone. Exposed with nothing to numb the pain, no buffer to ease the truths we must face...This cage protects me from the past, the drugs, the empty sex, the numbing in all of its forms. The "comfort" or self soothing we use to survive.
I've discovered that one will find a way to self destruct even after they've cut themselves away from it all. That somehow we find ways to keep holding ourselves back. Even when we have what others could only ever hope and dream of. We tell ourselves these stories over and over again about who we are. We remind ourselves of all the things we could have, should have, would have done...EVER...The weight of it all presses down on us like bricks and mortar.
Why do we put up with such self-hatred, bad talking, self-degrading blabber? There's a part of me that wants to keep telling my stories about why I can't do it all and how no one understands me. How I've got no one close. But how can one get close if another does not let them in? All of these stories we repeat until there is no time left to begin a new one. All the glorious precious time we had been given has somehow melted away like a burning candle and we are left wondering what went wrong. I won't let my flame go out.
Will we never set ourselves free? Will we never allow ourselves to be forgiven? Never choose redemption over freedom. Are we not all worthy of this?
...Of having true freedom from our shadows. Do we ever consider that all those things we did in the past were meant to be, and in some way divine timing? That they helped keep us alive. They served a purpose. They came to us as teachers, with lessons to be learned. Why then do we hang onto to them so tightly? Grasping...Clenching...White knuckling at them to stay around a while longer. To "please don't leave me" even though we no longer need them. Even when it's all spent and no longer serves us. These are things others can't remember, have long forgotten. Have since forgiven you for. Memories, guilt, and shame that keep us from the now, like fragments of glass they shatter each new moment as it arises, locking us into the past. Forgiving ourselves is one of the most crucial pieces in the process of unbecoming who We thought we were and stepping into our divine truth.
Being alone with ourselves so often exposes all that we've buried too. It shows us our darkest parts that need light shone down upon them. When we sit alone with no noise but the mountain birds, and streams...we hear it all. For seven years I've been staring at what I had buried. Looking it right in the eyes. Feeling every last bit of it fully, and I am stuck. I stripped all the habits away. No more cigarettes to use for my anxiety. No more drinking myself to sleep every night so I could forget the past. I tried covering it back up with food. I failed. But it's all still there when you wake up the next morning. So you look for something stronger, harsher, heavier to take it away again.
"Comfort" is often a blanket that shields us from the unknown, while we let fear be in control of our destiny. Fear that whatever is out there may break us wide open, that it may morph us into exactly what we want to become. Fear that we may not have the strength to seek out the light instead of darkness again. Fear of being alone. Exposed with nothing to numb the pain, no buffer to ease the truths we must face...This cage protects me from the past, the drugs, the empty sex, the numbing in all of its forms. The "comfort" or self soothing we use to survive.
I've discovered that one will find a way to self destruct even after they've cut themselves away from it all. That somehow we find ways to keep holding ourselves back. Even when we have what others could only ever hope and dream of. We tell ourselves these stories over and over again about who we are. We remind ourselves of all the things we could have, should have, would have done...EVER...The weight of it all presses down on us like bricks and mortar.
Why do we put up with such self-hatred, bad talking, self-degrading blabber? There's a part of me that wants to keep telling my stories about why I can't do it all and how no one understands me. How I've got no one close. But how can one get close if another does not let them in? All of these stories we repeat until there is no time left to begin a new one. All the glorious precious time we had been given has somehow melted away like a burning candle and we are left wondering what went wrong. I won't let my flame go out.
Will we never set ourselves free? Will we never allow ourselves to be forgiven? Never choose redemption over freedom. Are we not all worthy of this?
...Of having true freedom from our shadows. Do we ever consider that all those things we did in the past were meant to be, and in some way divine timing? That they helped keep us alive. They served a purpose. They came to us as teachers, with lessons to be learned. Why then do we hang onto to them so tightly? Grasping...Clenching...White knuckling at them to stay around a while longer. To "please don't leave me" even though we no longer need them. Even when it's all spent and no longer serves us. These are things others can't remember, have long forgotten. Have since forgiven you for. Memories, guilt, and shame that keep us from the now, like fragments of glass they shatter each new moment as it arises, locking us into the past. Forgiving ourselves is one of the most crucial pieces in the process of unbecoming who We thought we were and stepping into our divine truth.
For so many of us, this way of coping with our environment is all we know. For some, it may have begun at birth. Did you cry as a baby and no one came for you? This grows into a big feeling. One of being unsafe in the world...un-heard...un-seen. It puts you into a sort of shock that never subsides. As the result of too much pain. As a result of being broken down until all that is left is bones and blood and a barely beating heart. A tender needy soul that only wanted to be nurtured and held.
So here I am. All that may be broken within, and has yet to be mended. I will let nature hold me, cradle me until I'm awake.
So here I am. All that may be broken within, and has yet to be mended. I will let nature hold me, cradle me until I'm awake.
7 years ago I was planning my suicide every single night and waiting for the right moment to follow through. I moved back home with mom right next door to Grandma and Grandpa. Back where it all started. My Grandpa lent me his viewing scope and I made bonfires every night. I went out to the back yard alone. I'd lay down on the grass, and stare up at the sky. I followed the moon as it swam through the stars and then I would focus the lens until I could see every crater as if I could touch it.
It was a kind of magic I could not explain. It gave me a new perspective. It made me feel small, and I discovered that there was an immense universe. That I was a part of it, and it was within me. One night I remembered a psychic I had visited years before. She told me I would go west. I started having dreams of moss, mountains, of vast open spaces, and dramatic landscapes. That is when I found Karl. It was an instant knowing. That these were my soul people, and I had found "home." Everyone said I was crazy. Grandma told me I could end up dead in a ditch. My sister cried and begged me not to go. My mom just thought it was another one of my crazy and stupid ideas, and that I would end up crawling back to her begging for help.
Even with all of the doubt, and no support in my decision, I knew I must go. It was the deepest gut instinct I had ever experienced, and I feared what may become of me if I chose to ignore it. I sold all of my belongings, but my art supplies, clothes, and my antique elephant collection. I quit my job and packed my car. Elu and I left just 2 weeks after meeting Karl and we drove away into the sun, never looking back. That drive was the most exhilarating experience of my life thus far.
This view took my breath away, and in that moment I knew it was confirmation that this was right. It was the right-est thing I had ever done.
Once again I will set out on a journey...ALONE. Getting lost, to find myself. To push past my "comfort"zone. I've been in this rut for many years. It's been necessary and I know I will always have a HOME to come back to. I know that I have a best friend for life, and I am always welcome and fully supported in whatever ways I need to get better. I am so thankful and fortunate to have found a place where I am truly understood.
I've learned a lot from being out here in these hills, and I will never stop fighting for my life. I am coming out of my cage and not letting fear stop me anymore, and this safe space is no longer serving me. I need to change my perspective. For me the best way to do that is to change my scenery for a bit.
It was a kind of magic I could not explain. It gave me a new perspective. It made me feel small, and I discovered that there was an immense universe. That I was a part of it, and it was within me. One night I remembered a psychic I had visited years before. She told me I would go west. I started having dreams of moss, mountains, of vast open spaces, and dramatic landscapes. That is when I found Karl. It was an instant knowing. That these were my soul people, and I had found "home." Everyone said I was crazy. Grandma told me I could end up dead in a ditch. My sister cried and begged me not to go. My mom just thought it was another one of my crazy and stupid ideas, and that I would end up crawling back to her begging for help.
Even with all of the doubt, and no support in my decision, I knew I must go. It was the deepest gut instinct I had ever experienced, and I feared what may become of me if I chose to ignore it. I sold all of my belongings, but my art supplies, clothes, and my antique elephant collection. I quit my job and packed my car. Elu and I left just 2 weeks after meeting Karl and we drove away into the sun, never looking back. That drive was the most exhilarating experience of my life thus far.
Elu (Eluvium) is my soul partner and travel buddy for life. Without her I don't think I would have made it this far.
I was 22 and had never really left. Not for some place better anyway. I had pulled over on the highway after weeping at the sight of mountains. My tears were accompanied by laughter and joy. I was staring out across the land and I had never seen anything so spectacular in my life!
This view took my breath away, and in that moment I knew it was confirmation that this was right. It was the right-est thing I had ever done.
Once again I will set out on a journey...ALONE. Getting lost, to find myself. To push past my "comfort"zone. I've been in this rut for many years. It's been necessary and I know I will always have a HOME to come back to. I know that I have a best friend for life, and I am always welcome and fully supported in whatever ways I need to get better. I am so thankful and fortunate to have found a place where I am truly understood.
I've learned a lot from being out here in these hills, and I will never stop fighting for my life. I am coming out of my cage and not letting fear stop me anymore, and this safe space is no longer serving me. I need to change my perspective. For me the best way to do that is to change my scenery for a bit.
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| Olympic peninsula |
This mini-trek will be the beginning of many solo adventures, soul, and vision quests I plan to take. I will also be doing a series of posts about the different ways in which I plan to 'find' myself. I hope that by sharing my experiences people with similar circumstances will feel supported, heard, or seen. I hope that others may find a better understanding of mental illness, adverse experiences, and how we can overcome them. What an exciting and hopeful journey!
If you want to further this conversation or you can relate to this in any way, please reach out. I would love to connect with you let's support and love each other.
