If someone else is enough; so must you be.

I am feeling grateful for a bit of a slower pace to life during this time of the Covid-19 pandemic to attend to a few things that have been collecting dust on my lengthy list for quite awhile now. This includes finally getting around to writing an actual blog post. Honestly, as I think about what has been holding me back I recognize that it is not only a lack of time, but even more so my fear of making myself vulnerable by putting my thoughts out into the world for potential judgment and criticism. My writing has always been something I hold private. A secret place for me to process my thoughts, frustrations, and aspirations. My best friend. I don’t claim to know it all, but I feel I perhaps know a thing or two that I am compelled to share. There comes a time when we have to take the risk because not taking the chance is the biggest risk of all. Perhaps this work may one day transpire into a book of sorts. But for now, here goes… a few thoughts on being enough… enjoy and stay well, Jennifer (follow on Instagram @ jliesen.psychotherapy)

If someone else is enough; so must you be. If we expect that others should be treated with respect, dignity, appreciation, and love; so must you be. Why do the rules apply to others, but somehow not to ourselves? We attribute much greater worth and importance elsewhere. Someone could have experienced similar suffering, yet we accept their suffering over our own. They may have been the same age experiencing a trauma, but somehow we are responsible, should have known better. They are excused from the same accountability. We do not equate the same value to our suffering. We validate others with comparable experiences, but somehow negate and minimize our similar pain. Somewhere along the way we learned that our feelings and thoughts don’t matter, aren’t important, are not valued. Our homes were unpredictable, overprotective, absent, conditioned, or punitive. We became accustomed to sacrificing our needs. This is how we survived. This is how we stayed under the radar. This is how we avoided further hurt. We displaced our energies into not drawing attention to ourselves. We became immune to our own needs. We became invisible. 

Maybe our caregivers assumed higher priority. After all, they are human with their own unique upbringings and traumas. Perhaps our caregiver battled with mental health and/or substance use issues. Perhaps their fears prevented healthy independence. Perhaps we had a sibling that had higher needs. Perhaps we had elderly grandparents that diverted attention away from us. Perhaps our caregiver struggled with their own self worth modelling high demands and expectations of themselves and others. Perhaps they never learned how to express love with withdrawn parents of their own. Or perhaps our caregiver “loved” us in inappropriate ways. Perhaps our caregivers too learned to survive. At the same time we sought the natural approval and healthy affection we lacked, but so desperately needed.

We do not wish to be a burden to those we love by asking for our needs and rights to be met. We do not want to cause others more pain and suffering. We absorb our hurt until it erodes into our shame. We assume we are bad, dirty, flawed, weak, unwanted, unworthy of love, we don’t belong, a failure, that it is our fault. We assume that no one cares and no one notices. We are unloveable. 

How did we get noticed? Perhaps we absorbed ourselves in our studies. We needed to be the perfect child, the perfect student. We needed to get the best grades. We needed to be the helpful child. We needed to please. We needed to be, look, talk, walk, dress a certain way. Our love and acceptance was conditioned on how best to serve. Or perhaps we rebelled. If we were unloveable anyway why not live the part fully. Even negative attention serves a purpose to be noticed. We fed fuel to the fire by proving others right. We are bad, will always be bad, always be alone. We created a shell around ourselves. We developed ways to feel some sense of safety and control in our chaotic surroundings. We live a lifetime in our shame and we blame. We blame the mother who didn’t protect us, the system that didn’t see us, the siblings we had to protect. We did not welcome this responsibility. We resent our forced choices. We resent our lost innocence. We are angry. We feel powerless. 

Where do we go from here? We separate the traumatic experience from the individual. The person is not the experience. We are not bad. We do not deserve bad things. We are good. We are good people who experienced bad things. We no longer need to bear the burden of responsibility for things that are not ours to carry in order to survive. A parents, guardians, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, teachers, employers, doctors, partners, or friends inabilities, shortcomings, and histories do not measure our worth. A persons lack of availability to support, comfort, nurture, or attend to us does not define our value. We do the hard work and be gentle with ourselves in the process. We find our voice through sharing our shame with appropriate and available persons. We connect through our vulnerability. We experience acceptance. We set boundaries. We validate our own experiences. We create authenticity in our lives. We dispose of our resentments and anger. We unmask our true identities. We find meaning and purpose. We inspire others to realize their potential. 

We are seen, we are heard, we are known.