Digging Deep

I seem to have this deep-rooted fear of letting others down, of not reaching my full potential, of appearing weak or unreliable or selfish. I’ve always known I am a perfectionist, and I suppose I simply accepted that being fearful of these things was just part of being a perfectionist. I thought this way of thinking, these beliefs, were what fueled my determination, they pushed me to succeed. I guess I didn’t see how such beliefs could be harmful and I never thought to explore the root of them.

My counselor has helped me to realize that while these instilled beliefs may have served me well in the past, they are now holding me back. They have become barriers to happiness and peace. In order to get what I want out of life, I need to shift my perspective. I need to explore where my beliefs come from, who they’re serving and what I’m gaining from them. This sounds like a daunting, messy task. It is also a necessary one. I can’t alter deep rooted beliefs until I am able to understand them.

My dad was always adamant that I follow through on all of my commitments. Being sick or having too much homework was never a reason to miss a soccer or baseball practice; I had made a commitment to my teammates after all. Not showing up would mean letting them down. I had also made a commitment to my education, so staying home sick from school was not an option. I would be letting my teachers, my classmates and myself down. I remember many days feeling terribly sick or worn out and my dad making me go to practice or school anyway. This sense of commitment was instilled in me from a very young age. Even now, I feel guilty when I have to call in sick to work. I could literally be on my deathbed and still feel bad for missing work. In my mind, I am letting my coworkers and patients down by not being there. I find it difficult to get the rest I need to recuperate because the guilt fuels my anxiety and puts me on edge. The inability to rest further exacerbates the anxiety; it’s quite a vicious cycle. However, on the other hand, if I do show up to work sick, I feel guilty because I am exposing my coworkers and patients to my illness. It’s a lose-lose situation. I feel trapped. That can’t be healthy. (One positive thing to come out of the COVID pandemic is that it is now much more acceptable, even encouraged, to stay home if you’re sick. And the threshold for sick is at an all time low. Basically, I now have no choice but to stay home if I’m not feeling well. This hasn’t eliminated the guilt entirely, but it has helped to dull it). A similar cycle takes over when I have to decline an invitation or miss an event because I am just too worn out. Again, I feel that I am letting everyone down by not being there and the guilt makes it so that any rest I do manage to get is fitful.

With my mom, it was more observational. She was always so tough, so resilient. She just kept going. Never took a sick day. Taking a sick day would mean not getting paid. Not getting paid would mean not being able to pay the mortgage or buy groceries or pay for our extracurricular activities. Without fail, she would cook dinner, make our lunches, get us to our scheduled activities and make sure we had everything we needed despite how sick or worn out she got. She even prioritized family game nights, when I’m sure all she wanted to do was get some rest. Because she was stretched so thin, I had to help out. I would feel extremely guilty if I didn’t. She frequently reminded us of all the sacrifices she made for us and how hard she worked to give us a good life. I definitely appreciated all she did for us, but the constant reminders made me feel like a burden. I always felt guilty and tried really hard not to cause her any extra stress or work. I knew I had to do my part, I had to pull my weight. It was the least I could do given everything she did for me. She never sat down, never took a break. It didn’t feel fair that I got to sit down and relax while she kept going. So I just kept going too. I felt that I needed to be constantly productive in order to prove my appreciation.

For as long as I can remember, I have felt this pressure to fit into a mold; to be what everyone wanted me to be, to live up to everyone else’s expectations and reach what they considered to be my “full potential”. As a teenager, I started to question why I was so willing to go along with this; why I was trying so hard to fit into this box. Was I working so hard towards a goal because I actually wanted to achieve it, or was it because they wanted me to achieve it? I became angry that my sense of self-worth was based on the approval of others. No wonder teenage rebellion is so common. I didn’t rebel in the teenage movie kind of way. I didn’t get in trouble with the law, drop out of school or get into drugs; I was still a perfectionist after all. I maintained my place on the honour roll, I stayed on the Student’s Council and other various committees, I continued to play sports and I remained close with all my good friends (who were definitely not considered to be part of a bad crowd). I did, however, decide to stop going back and forth between two homes, get my driver’s license against my dad’s wishes and I chose not to go to college or university. I knew that these decisions would result in disappointing and/or hurting someone. Normally, that would have stopped me from making the decisions all together. The thought of disappointing people was one of my greatest fears; it made me physically ill. But at this point in my life, my anger held more weight than my fear. I knew with absolute certainty that these were the right decisions for me, and I refused to let the fear of disappointment stop me yet again. To this day, I don’t regret any of it.

I still remember the look on my teacher’s, my family’s, and even my friends’ parents’ faces, when I told them I wasn’t going to college or university after high school graduation. That image of shock, confusion and disappointment is forever ingrained in my mind. Of course, I can’t read minds, but I was certain they were all thinking “what a waste”. It was widely accepted that after high school, you go to post-secondary school. That’s what's expected. That’s what I was supposed to do. So, throughout my final year of high school I tried desperately to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. There was so much pressure to have a plan. At eighteen, I barely knew who I was, let alone what I wanted out of life. I had heard all about how demanding and expensive college and university could be and I decided that I didn’t want to waste time, energy and money going to school if I didn’t know what I wanted to study or what I hoped to gain from it. I was never particularly fond of school to begin with. I was good at it and I enjoyed learning but I despised homework and exams. I was very willing to endure these necessary evils if it meant I could learn about something I was passionate about, if it was going to lead me somewhere. I knew I wanted a career and I figured my path would lead me to post-secondary education at some point. I was alright with that. But I found absolutely no appeal in taking classes just for the sake of taking classes. At the time, it felt like I was being shamed into doing just that and it made me angry. As expected, in the end, my need to be productive and my strong desire for success lead me to post-secondary school. I ended up enrolling in classes after only taking one semester off. But at that point, it felt much more like my decision. I wasn’t doing it to appease anyone else, I was doing it for myself. I tried a couple of different paths before finding my true passion and then worked hard for several years to earn my degree and registration.

I felt the same resistance in my late twenties and early thirties. When I was younger, I always thought I would have children. I sort of figured it was a give-in. But as I approached the age when having kids became more of an actual possibility as opposed to the elusive concept it had once been, I started feeling uneasy. I didn’t feel any desire to be a mother, no natural instinct urging me to procreate. I didn’t enjoy being around children, I wasn’t drawn to babies. At first, I kept these thoughts to myself. Being a broke, single student, I was in absolutely no position to have kids anyway. I figured something inside of me would shift once I found the right partner and when I was more financially stable. Most of my friends seemed to always know, with the utmost confidence, that they would be mothers some day. There were some women in my life that were unsure initially, but eventually that motherly instinct pulled them in too. A bunch of these women described it to me like a switch going off; like all of the sudden they knew they were meant to have kids. For some of them, there was an obvious trigger, like meeting the right person, getting married, settling into their first home, finishing university, turning a certain age or watching their best friends become mothers. I kept waiting for my switch to go off, but as time went on, I found the idea of motherhood to be less and less appealing. Now in my mid-thirties, even after marrying the man who I am certain is my right person and watching my best friends become mothers, I still have no desire to be a mother. We are all conditioned to believe that life can never be full or complete if we don't have kids. But to me, the thought of eventually becoming a mother felt like a burden, like an obligation I wish I didn’t have. I didn’t share these thoughts with many people because I feared being judged. I didn’t want to appear defective and I didn’t want to be the outsider. When I did start telling people that I was thinking of not having children, the initial responses I received were always questions; “Oh, how come?” or “Oh really, why”? When others announce that they are thinking of starting a family, the initial responses are most often along the lines of “That’s so exciting!” or “Good for you!”. No questions. For a while, I was so disheartened by these questions that I mostly just tried to avoid the topic. I’m sure the questions were innocent enough in their intention, but they made me feel attacked. Like I had to defend my choice. Like there must be something wrong with me. Their reactions made me second guess myself. It took a long time for me to be comfortable fielding these questions and to be confident that I was making the right decision for me. Eventually, I found myself being proud of my decision. When the topic of children comes up now, I have no shame in sharing that I will not be having kids.

Seeing all of this on paper, it makes sense that I would continue to carry the weight of my childhood beliefs. In theory, they are benefiting my family, my friends, my coworkers and my patients. I have no idea how much truth there is to this in reality. I suppose it’s possible that I’m not letting anyone down by taking time for myself or putting myself first, but it always feels like I am. Maybe by not doing it all, I’m not actually hurting anyone. Even so, I feel like I’m letting myself down if I don’t accomplish everything, if I can’t keep up. I want better from myself, I expect better. There must be a way to take care of myself while also coming through for others. There must be a middle ground between perfection and failure. I’m not sure exactly how to find it, but I suspect self-compassion is likely the key. This is a tricky concept for me. How do we put ourselves first without being selfish? How do we love ourselves without being narcissistic? I seem to struggle with finding middle ground in all aspects of life. It is like there are two conflicting messages constantly swirling around in my head. How am I supposed to live in the moment when I am constantly in pursuit of the next accomplishment? How am I supposed to be happy with what I have when I have been conditioned to always strive for more? How do I hold myself in high regard if I’m not achieving anything? Is it possible to be satisfied with where I am in life while not becoming complacent? Is it acceptable for my “goal” to simply be to enjoy the life I have created for myself, the one that I have worked so hard to build? Can that be enough? It might just be that, for me, the pursuit of happiness is synonymous with the pursuit of balance.