No More Apologies

From an outsider’s perspective, there would be no reason for me to be depressed. Growing up, my family was never especially well off, but we always had enough that I never had to worry about having a roof over my head or food on the table. I was always able to participate in all the extracurricular activities that I wanted, we went on family vacations and got spoiled at Christmas. Even though my parents divorced when I was in the second grade, and then my dad and my stepmom divorced when I was eighteen, I was always surrounded by love. I had great friends, did well at school and was a pretty good athlete.

Once I was out on my own, I worked hard and accomplished everything that I set out to accomplish. I still had amazing friends and had good relationships with all three of my parents. My social life was great, I had fun and I genuinely enjoyed life.

Fast forward to my late twenties/early thirties, I was even more fortunate to have a great career and the most incredible husband. I loved where I lived, I was healthy and in good shape. I still had those amazing friends and maintained good relationships with my family. Yet somehow, I didn’t feel happy. My logical mind was telling me that I had no reason not to be happy; my life was awesome! Being unhappy made me feel guilty and ungrateful. So I hid it. I felt ashamed of feeling unhappy. Compared to the trauma, abuse and loss others have experienced, my problems seemed futile, insignificant. It was like I couldn’t justify being angry or hurt. Like I didn’t have the right. What I didn’t understand at the time was that depression is not always circumstantial. It is a chemical imbalance, an illness, fueled by past experiences that I not only had never dealt with, I didn’t even remember that they had happened. I couldn’t control it and the shame just made it worse.

Accepting that depression is an illness wasn’t easy. The idea that I wasn’t in complete control was terrifying. I have always strived for control, for independence, for perfection. I had to completely fall apart to finally admit that I needed help. My vast arsenal of band-aid solutions was no longer enough. It was as if I had developed too much of a tolerance to my coping strategies; they didn’t have the effect they once had. I needed more. Seeking help was a huge step, but it was only the beginning of a massive undertaking. When it comes to mental health, there is no quick fix. Investing the time and effort required to really work on myself seemed daunting and selfish. But it was time. Something had to change. Just allowing myself to put myself first and stop apologizing for needing what I needed was a process in of itself. I expect that I will likely always have to actively remind myself that it’s ok to feel the way I feel. I’m done being ashamed of not being ok, and I’m done apologizing for it. Loving myself and acknowledging what I need doesn’t make me selfish.

Through counseling and self care, I also learned that the old cliche of childhood trauma is a real thing. Growing up, I always hated that people would use childhood experiences, (like parents’ divorce), as an excuse to be a shitty person. I was always determined not to let my parents' divorce, or any of the drama that followed, be an excuse for anything. I told myself I was better than that; there was no reason to let those experiences shape who I would become. Unfortunately, to allow myself to rise above it, I suppressed it. For a very long time. In my early adulthood I was always so busy, so focused on working towards a goal that I didn’t have the brain capacity or the energy to let any of those suppressed experiences or emotions rise to the surface. I was living in a naive bliss of sorts. It was only when I finally achieved my goals and started to settle into the life I had worked so hard for, that all of the hurt and anger I had buried for all of those years started to present itself. Followed by shame and guilt.

What I have come to realize is that trauma experienced in childhood doesn’t have to be explosive or shocking to have a lasting impact. Nothing terrible or horrifying ever happened to me. I wasn’t physically assaulted or abandoned. I wasn’t bullied. I didn’t lose a parent or a sibling in a horrible accident. I didn’t have to be hospitalized or watch someone I love suffer from an awful disease. I did, however, endure many years of listening to my mom refer to my dad as a prick, my dad constantly wanting more from me no matter how I much I accomplished, my parents arguing over every little detail and always putting my brother and me in the middle of it, my mom choosing her absolute jerk of a boyfriend over me and kicking me out of the house, my dad acting like the innocent victim and shaming me in front of my teammates more times that I can count, my parents blaming me for my brother’s shortcomings at school and the constant pressure of knowing that no matter what decision I made, I would be letting someone down. Of course, all these memories were locked away tight and have only recently been set free.

I began writing as a teenager, as a way of sorting through my feelings and getting them out. It was like a form of therapy for me. My writing was always for my eyes only and I never spoke about the things I wrote. I recently came across something that I had written when I was eighteen:

I understand divorce isn’t easy. I understand all of that bull about “Just because we don’t love each other anymore, doesn’t mean we don’t still love you”. I even understand why it’s hard to be friends with each other now. What I don’t get is why you two have to act like you’re five years old. I can’t even begin to explain how sick I am of hearing sentence after sentence starting with the words, “well your father…” or “I just don’t see why your mother…” I don’t know how much more I can deal with. You’ve been divorced for ten years. Don’t you think it’s time to quit whining and move the hell on?

Dad, you’ve been remarried for five years. Maybe you should concentrate more on your relationship with your new wife instead of your hatred for your ex. And Mom, you always talk about how good it feels to not have to answer to “my father”. So why can’t you focus on your freedom instead of searching for ways to make Dad look like a jerk? You go behind each others’ backs all the time trying to manipulate my brother and me. I’m so sick of it. I’m sick of being caught in the middle all of the time. I’m sick of getting shit from one of you for trying to please the other. I’m sick of having the weight on my shoulders, knowing that every decision I make ends up hurting one or the other. I’m so tired of hearing my mom being referred to as an irresponsible bitch. I’m fed up with hearing my dad being called an inconsiderate prick. Whether you like it or not, I possess qualities of both of you and so does my brother. So by insulting each other, you’re really hurting us.

Mom, I’m so tired of listening to your “40 more months and I’m out of here” speech, or your “never have kids” lecture. I’m sorry my 3.9 GPA, my thriving extra-curricular life, my Student’s Council work, my acceptance into the RCMP Youth Academy, my Valedictorian nomination and my responsible outlook on life aren’t enough for you. Quit trying to make me feel guilty for being born. I’m sorry I ruined your life, but you chose to have me. Sometimes you make me wish you never did. I shouldn’t feel guilty that you have to give up your personal life to raise me. That’s what mothers should do. Of course I’m grateful for all you do for me and I really appreciate all of it. But having it shoved down my throat all the time makes me want you to give up on me so I won’t have to listen to your guilt trip anymore.

Dad, I know I hurt you when I moved in with Mom. I’ve explained over and over again that it has nothing to do with you, it has to do with location. It was going to happen eventually. I’m 18 years old. Did you think I would live with you forever? Don’t you think I hate the fact that you’re more my coach than my father? Do you think I like never seeing you? Do you think it makes me happy knowing that I’ve made you so sad? I know it’s hard to let go, but stop blaming me. Maybe if you had stayed in the same city like you said you would, things would be different. But you left so deal with it. I don’t think I can put up with your cheap shots you always throw at me at practice in front of the whole team. You’re trying to play the sympathy card, trying to make everyone believe I’m the evil, selfish daughter and you’re the heartbroken father who did nothing wrong. You tell me I should be more mature. How can you expect maturity from me when my own father acts like a child? Oh, and I love how you think a softball tournament in Tacoma is more important than my Graduation ceremony. Thanks Dad. Way to be the bigger person, Coach.

Then there’s the issue of my brother. No wonder he’s failing school. Instead of putting your effort into helping him succeed, you’re both spending all of your time blaming me and each other for his laziness. I think it’s about time you both just grow up. Quit being five years old and start acting like parents! If you didn’t want to be parents, you should have used protection. You both need to take responsibility and shut the hell up!

Reading this brought back a flood of memories; feelings and events that I had completely forgotten about. Or more accurately, that I had buried. When I read this, the images that came rushing into my mind were vivid, but I felt disconnected from them. it was as if I were watching a movie of someone else’s life. It was eye opening and it sent me into a bit of a whirlwind of self discovery.

In my pre-teen and teenaged years, I wasn’t angry at my parents for getting a divorce. Even back then, I truly believed that they had made the right decision. I understood that it must have been an extremely challenging situation and a difficult decision. I was grateful that they were brave enough to make it. Many great things in my life were made possible by the (first) divorce: I was allowed to have pets at my dad’s place (my mom never wanted pets), my mom took me to get my driver’s license the day I turned sixteen (my dad did not approve of me getting my license), I always had a second home if I needed to get away and, best of all, my stepmom came into my life. By the time I was twelve, I had three incredible parents who loved me. Perhaps I focused too much on the advantages of having divorced parents, or maybe it was just that I was too wrapped up in my own self-centered world (as teenagers tend to be). Regardless of the reasons, I never really acknowledged, let alone dealt with, the trauma of having my whole world turned upside down at such a young age. Or all the drama that ensued for several years after that. Reading my old notebook tells me that I must have been really angry at some point. But I guess I chose to bury all the hurt and anger instead of deal with it.

My brother and I have had some conversations as adults about our individual perceptions of our childhood experiences and how they have impacted us. We are the only people in each other’s lives that really understand what the other went through. We discovered that while we both experienced events slightly differently and we both developed different coping strategies, we have both been profoundly impacted. We both felt as though we were constantly trapped between two worlds, like we didn’t really have any control over how things were at home; neither of us felt settled. I coped by trying to achieve perfection as a way of controlling the other aspects of my life. My brother coped by tuning things out and by learning how to tell people what they want to hear instead of the truth. These coping strategies have become constant themes in our adult lives.

As an adult, once I moved away and began a new life in a new city; when I was thrown into my new “adulthood”, the old theme of feeling like I wasn’t good enough, like I was constantly letting one, or all, of my parents down resurfaced. The guilt trips became a regular occurrence. My stepmom would tell me that she felt slighted when I had to keep our visits short because I had committed to a million other activities on my trips home. She didn’t like being crammed into my schedule. She saw it as me saying she wasn’t important enough for me to spend some “real time” with. Because I was always stretched so thin during my trips home and wasn’t able to dedicate large periods of time to her (or to anyone), I eventually stopped reaching out when I was coming into town. When I actually stayed in my new city for a long stretch of time, if I called my dad, I would have to call my mom and vice versa so they didn’t think I was choosing one over the other. If I didn’t call for a couple of weeks, which was usually because I was so worn out that I literally didn’t have anything left at the end of workday/week, when I did call the first thing I would hear would be something along the lines of “oh you are still alive”. Any energy I had stored up prior to the call would drain immediately and I would regret calling. I would feel defensive and angry. I would shut down.

I have always felt very lucky to have the parents I have. I honestly believe they did the best they could and that my brother and my best interest was at the forefront of every decision they made. I have never questioned their love for me or my brother. I know that they never intended to hurt either of us. Their worlds revolved around us and I was, and am, grateful. So, when all the hurt and anger started bubbling up, I couldn’t make sense of it. I didn’t understand the root of it and I was at a loss as to where to direct it. The thought of blaming my parents invoked such an intense feeling of guilt that I couldn’t allow myself to explore it. It took me a long time, countless deep dives into my suppressed memories and a great deal of uncomfortable conversations with counselors to finally understand that just because I don’t blame my parents, doesn’t mean I can’t acknowledge how their actions in my childhood have impacted me as an adult. I also realize that perception plays a significant role. My experience of the events may vary immensely from my parents’ experience. But that still doesn’t change the fact that there have been lasting impacts. Someone said something to me recently that has really stuck with me and opened my eyes; “good intentions are not an excuse”. I am not a bad person for being negatively impacted by my parents’ good intentions.

I have hesitated to speak out about my perceptions of my parent’s actions out of fear that they would feel attacked. My mom in particular has made it quite clear that she questions her aptitude for parenting. It's like she is holding on to a great deal of guilt stemming from her perceived shortcomings as a mother. I have always been very cautious not to add any weight to this guilt. I believe my mom was, and still is, an incredible mother. Just as I believe my dad was, and still is, an incredible father and my stepmom was, and still is, an incredible stepmother. My intention is not to discredit this, but simply to better understand my demons and work through them.

As I continued to bring up and explore my scars, I began feeling weak and pathetic. That old familiar instinctive response to rise above (i.e. suppress) all of the negativity was creeping in. The idea of cramming it all back into that dark space and locking it back up brought me a sense of comfort. Like being wrapped up in a warm blanket of puerility. I see now that it was fear that was holding me back. Fear that if I continued to dig I might get buried alive. That if I continued down the proverbial path, I would never find my way back. It was then that my mind began to shift. It wasn’t bravery and strength that pushed me to rise above it all, it was fear. Diving deep and trudging through it didn’t make me weak, it made me strong. There is a big difference between dwelling on something and working through it. Just as feeling sorry for yourself and acknowledging hurt are two very different things. Basically, I’ve learned that I don’t have to suppress it to rise above it. I can take it head on and come out on top. It’s messy, it’s painful and it’s exhausting but it’s also restorative and exhilarating.