This I Choose to Offer: My Life's Work
I’ve been sitting on this post for some time. Contemplating. Meditating. Considering the pros and cons. The topic, which I will reveal through the narrative, is tremendously important to me—it has shaped my life’s work. The process through which I feel most profoundly able to convey this, however, is both painfully against my private nature and breaks form as a psychotherapist: I am sharing my story.
The context: a couple months ago, a friend, who is involved in a national program that engages non-professional speakers to share personal stories, reached out to me to find speakers for the topic of living with mental health issues. Shocker: I found none. However, as I delivered this disappointing news, it occurred to me that I myself fell into that category. I could speak with authority on that topic. While I would almost certainly be channeling the angst of Molly Shannon’s character from Saturday Night Live, Mary Katherine Gallagher, when she nervously crosses her arms across her chest, pushes her hands deep into the recesses of her armpits, withdraws them and sniffs the sweat on her hands, the possibility nonetheless resonated deep within me. It excited me, even: I had something to offer; good could be born of my past pain; I could share of myself without this truly being about me. . .I felt convicted. . .In the brief span of just 8 minutes onstage, I could hopefully serve the greater good.
As life would have it, this opportunity did not ultimately avail itself to me. I was surprisingly disappointed. I had been spared the nerve-wracking experience (as an introvert) of standing before 200 people and being vulnerable. However, in my disappointment, I found that I had wanted to wage war against the pain of stigma, to allow even one person to feel less alone or crazy. Despite repeated attempts to squelch the disappointment, I continued to feel unfulfilled. My conviction to share—to be of service—remained.
My friend had originally suggested that my gift as a speaker would be that I defy the stereotype of someone living with mental health issues. By most accounts, I appear—and am—pretty together: I have 4 amazing children and a husband who, after 15 years of marriage, is still the best man I know and love outside of my father. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree from a top 15 university in the nation, went on to later earn a Master’s degree and then became licensed as a clinical social worker. I own and run my own business as a psychotherapist. I enjoy hiking, design, landscaping, fashion, hanging out with friends, discussing ideas and—oh!—I ran the Boston Marathon in 2014! Not too shabby, eh? This is all true—and this is the Facebook-perfect version of my life
So, you know, of course, that there is more. As a human, I am inherently multi-dimensional, and thus, there is complexity to me and to my story. There is struggle. It is real. I am real. Velveteen-rabbit with the fur worn down and the eye-loved-off real. I, this self-same, accomplished, blessed, well-loved and loving woman, am also the woman who, at age 11, ate a cup of blueberries for breakfast, two slices of Oscar Meyer sliced turkey for lunch, and the smallest portion of my mother’s homemade dinner that I could possibly get away with. I did this surreptitiously for a summer. Without conscious awareness, I felt lonely and out of control—so I controlled what I could. I lost 25% of my body weight and, at my bottom, I was 87lbs. at 5”4’. . .I am the woman who lost her laugh—I physically could not relax my body enough to laugh—due to anxiety starting in middle school lasting through my mid-twenties. . .I am the woman who, at 13, turned my head to the side, taking in all of the varied shades of white on my friend’s walls, bedspread and wicker furniture as I submitted to an unwanted sexual experience with a complete stranger, one that had coincidentally been “made possible” by this friend and her Ouija board. As I hovered somewhere above myself, separate from my body, I gave my precious self away, thinking that, “I made my bed, now I need to lie in it.” In the desperation of my low self esteem, I effectively raped myself rather than risk losing her friendship. . .I am the woman who, at 16, was overtaken by depression but masked it with a vacant smile, academic achievement and ever constant busy-ness in clubs, sports and choir. I am the woman who, at 18, learned that I didn’t have to feel my gut-wrenching, socially paralyzing anxiety or listen to the incessant chatter of my internal critic when I partook in social drinking—to the point of blacking out, of not knowing what had happened, where I had been, with whom I had been, and of whether I had been safe, etc. I am also this woman, and I could go on and on and on. . .
This, too, is my truth. This version of my life isn’t really Facebook-friendly.
Bearing these seemingly mutually exclusive, dichotomous versions of myself left me feeling crazy. Wrong. Bad. Defective. This was especially true as I had been born into privilege: my father was a pediatrician, my mother was a stay-at-home-mom, both were Christians, pillars in the community and loving parents. Shouldn’t I have been better than that? How was it possible that I could have had it so good and that this had become of my life? What did that mean about me?
Today, with the benefit of therapy, recovery, courage, perseverance, and loving support, I have integrated these disparate parts and embrace the whole of me. Today, I get how these two realities co-existed. To explain, I need to introduce you to me circa age 5. In my kindergarten, I was instructed to sequentially write out numbers from one to a hundred. The pages were arranged such that patterns could emerge: the ten’s number would change for each line (10-20-30-40, etc.) while the one’s number would remain the same for each column (-1, -2, -3, -4, etc.). That was easy. That made sense to me. I loved math and I loved finding patterns; hence, I excelled. For each page of 100 that was turned in, I was called to recite the numbers aloud to my teacher. When both tasks were completed, I was awarded a glorious, green-felted badge with gorgeous, puffy-painted, glittery numbers representing my accomplishment. As these amassed, they were stapled together and hung from the wall. Ultimately, I had 18 felted badges to my long, beautiful banner. I was quite proud. . .This same year in Sunday School, I was introduced to a Bible verse that was intended to be positive. It was intended to be assuring. It was intended to offer hope via Jesus’s merciful grace: He would forgive each person 70x7 times. Well, I knew that 70 was less than 100, and I knew that I could count higher than that number since I could count beyond 7 100s (also known as 700). In my five year old reasoning, I knew, sadly, that this meant there wouldn’t be enough forgiveness for me. At age five, I had somehow judged myself to be bad.
I wish that I could explain just how heartbreaking and unfounded this childhood conception of myself was. I wish that I had the means to prove how intensely wrong it was that the bright, kind, energetic, gifted little me had decided that I was effectively both shameful and unlovable. No doubt that I was stubborn. No doubt that I sometimes didn’t follow directions. No doubt that I sometimes told lies. There is no doubt that despite all of this, I was an innocent, lovable child. At age 5, though, I understood the world concretely—something was either black or it was white—and I didn’t know the distinction between having bad behavior and being a bad person. That belief that I was bad (and whatever precipitated it)—that “little t” trauma—became part of the fabric of my being, fueling my anxiety, my low self-esteem, my depression, my acting out, my addiction, etc. It became a veil that was so ever-present and so utterly close to my eyes that I didn’t even realize its existence, much less know that it impacted my vision and experience of the world. With that belief came a negative feedback cycle: I made a bad choice/didn’t find myself worthy enough to go for a good choice/interpreted things as rejection that were not, etc., then consequent unfortunate outcomes ensued, further reinforcing my negative self-beliefs. As I aged, “I am bad,” expanded into variations like, “If you really knew me you wouldn’t like me," “I’m not good enough," “I am not worthy," etc. Wreckage begot wreckage. It snowballed. This is how insidious and relentlessly damaging the impact of trauma was in my life. I was a good person. I was a gifted, talented, intelligent, kind person. This never ceased to be true. The trauma, however, crippled me. The trauma distorted my thinking, which then impacted my beliefs, my feelings and my behaviors. The trauma mangled my life and fractured my being. It wreaked havoc on my sense of self. It ravaged me. I was nearly thirty before I knew what “it” was or that “it” was even there. Its manifestation as anxiety and contribution to my depression made determining my diagnosis of PTSD difficult. The talk therapy in which I had been engaged kept me alive—but just surviving. It wasn’t until I found trauma therapy that the shackles were released and I began to thrive.
To close this story, I have health today—and I live with mental health issues. I continue to do the things that have proven to work for me: to take my antidepressant, to see my psychiatrist, to engage in my program of recovery, to seek balance, to exercise moderately, to eat a colorful plate and to indulge my cravings within reason. I continue to engage in psychotherapy as a client because I feel better in my own skin and like the person that I am—that I want to be for myself and for my loved ones—better when I do. I get supervision to have clarity and guidance in working with my clients. I prioritize my relationships. I make lists and leave space on them to write, “Eat popsicles.” I add onto my lists the things that I do manage to do in my day. I know my value. I know my value has nothing to do with my performance. I am aware of the voice of my looming inner critic and distinguish it from the voice of my authentic self. I let go of “shoulds.” I live my life on life’s terms. I feel my feelings and I observe my thoughts. I ask for support when I need it. I take life one day at a time and I seek to be mindfully grateful. I (try to) give myself the kindness and compassion that I so readily give to those I love. I give myself mulligans. I know what matters to me and try to live into those values. I see myself as a part of creation and as a work in progress. These simple—but not necessarily easy—practices and mantras work for me. This way of being affords me not only balance and equanimity but also fullness and joy via a sense of meaning, belonging, connection, and purpose.
As I push “publish,” I am proud. I am grateful. I am a multi-faceted human being—which means that I inherently have strengths and I have flaws. I am both-and. I have depth. I am real. I have mental health issues—and today I have so much to offer because I claim them, embrace them, and work through them. I truly can offer *hope.*