Maybe two or three souls in the universe know this secret about me….I am, in a way, two-faced.
When I go out into the world, people see a poised, always fun-loving, perpetually happy, down-to-earth girl with all her shit together; someone confident and sure of herself and her place. Well, this is not so. In private, in those moments when only the few can witness, I am full of anger, fear, anxiety, and doubt. I am most certainly not that self-assured person the rest of the world gets. I can feel very lost, confused, despondent. Insecure.
Why?
Is it because of my addict mother; and the resulting environment in which I grew up? I really don’t know. But I think and think and think on it, and wonder if….
She is everything that’s wrong with me.
Her promises of “never doing it again” dissolved into falsities every time and she always claimed “I’m not high” or “I wasn’t high then” when she clearly was. Are these the reasons I question the lot of what everyone says or automatically think they are lying to me?
Is she why I’m so shy and introverted, because it was always easier to hide than explain my home life to friends?
It seems impossible for me to simply trust. Is that because childhood was a series of one disappointment after another?
Is that environment the reason I still let my imagination run wild with terrible thoughts, too often jumping to conclusions, because I was never really told about what was going on and had to fill in the blanks for myself?
Parties, gatherings, and being out in public whenever it involved my mother while she was high were certainly strained and uncomfortable. So do I tend to feel socially awkward because it’s become expected that all encounters must be like that?
Is this all why I feel threatened and assume everyone and everything is against me, because it seemed like the whole world was back then?
Is she the reason I have a need to completely control my universe, because I (or anyone else) could never control, sway, or help her?
Is my default position one of nervousness and anxiety because that’s the behavior she modeled?
Am I very reserved because joyousness and being carefree tended to get crushed by harsh realities that no child should have to endure? Perhaps my reticence was the only calm I could muster in my life.
Am I programmed to ignore issues and pretend problems aren’t there because no one ever really addressed hers head on?
Do I find it so hard to change because she never did (never will)?
Can I not admit when I’m wrong because until just recently she hadn’t, and because all my life I watched her not own up to her mistakes?
I could go on and on about my super-fast fuse, my impatience, my emotional volatility, my constant expectation of disappointment, my….patterns that need to break.
I guess I have been conditioned.
Now maybe it seems like I'm just looking for someone to blame, or grasping at straws, but there really does seem to be a correlation in my eyes. And I’m not the only one who has put forth this theory. The fact is -- as I got older, the more in depth I came to talk to my mother about her addiction, the more details I learned, and the longer I had to pretend to be strong and tough; keeping up appearances….the more depressed I became and the worse my own secret existence got.
So, the beans are spilled. I am damaged goods. I learned from destructive and inconsistency, and became them myself. Certain parts of my private life have spiraled out of control to a pretty dark place. I realized the other day, as small a detail as it might seem, that I don’t even sing in the car anymore. I used to do that, a lot. What happened to me?
I’ve had friends tell me I am very brave for my writings on the subject of my mother. Brave? I say scared, and worried about the consequences of putting this all out there where she too can find it. They think I am strong. Strong? No. It’s only because of those friends and their support that I have been able to do this at all. Unstable is probably a better descriptor of me right now. Definitely weak. Certainly wary and always ready for battle; feeling fight-or-flight; claws at the ready.
But no more. Something has got to give. I’m getting too damn old to let it affect me like this anymore. So now I’ve written it down for all the world to read. It’s as real as it’s ever going to get. Change begins today. She is her own version of two-faced; switching from good to wicked, seemingly randomly, at the drop of a hat. But I do not want to be, I can’t be, her!
She brings so much negativity, and I don’t want to write about her anymore. I’m tired of feeling compelled to check my trash and message filters when I don’t even want to hear from her, and then having to consult with others to find out if what she wrote is even true. I don’t want to spend any more time talking about her, and what to do about her, when she isn’t even around or in any condition to participate. I am drained of worrying what she will do in response to me refusing to see her; when she’s left at home alone. I want to be able to encounter other people in the world who have her same issues and not be triggered immediately by them into an adverse mood. I can no longer reward her cyclical behavior by continuing my presence in her life even if only on the goods days – it feels too….inauthentic, like I’m pretending. I need to not feel like I can overcome the guilt only when I am so angry that it’s superseded.
I’m turning the corner. Healing.
I recently made the decision to cut her out of my life at least for the time being; until (if ever) the good parts of her far outweigh the bad and I can forgive her; until the point where she can control herself and respect my needs, too. She needs to be a choice, a desire; not an obligation. Maybe it won’t be the entire solution to all of my misery, but that was step one -- removing a vast unyielding uncertainty. Now, starting at this very moment, I am going to practice being trusting, being confident, being enthusiastic, being more engaged, being even-keeled, being more attentive, being more happy, being more stable….being more alive.
Positivity!
Until I damn well get it right. For me, and for you.
I need you now, world, because I am going to take you for all the strength and support you will afford me, until I truly am what everyone thinks I am, what I want and need to be -- brave, secure, confident, full of self-esteem, and all those other things that I so desperately long for. And it will be hard. And I will screw up along the way.
Small victories – one at a time.
It’s time. My life depends on it. I no longer want to have to put on that second face – I need it to actually be my one face.
End rambling. Reboot.
Robin Donoghue
The sly and trusty Robinator is a square peg –
not fitting easily into any single category, living not just inside and outside of the box,
but all mixed up in a pile of them. She’s a walking contradiction (in the good way) –
having a wide, diverse range of interests, not being defined by any one thing,
and willing to try pretty much anything at least once.
Born and raised in Somerville, this lifelong athlete, foodie who almost always ends up with
pasta sauce on her (especially when it’s white) shirt, mother of two cats, free-spirited hippie at heart whose socks never match, is socially awkward, yet a flirt, too. She enjoys photography, traveling, generally being creative, and practically requires having pockets. When she grows up, she wants to get an RV and be a nomad with her dear husband, or live on a self-sustaining
intentional community with all the best people she knows and loves.
