How many of us hate the thought of disappointing someone that we care about? I've been meeting fairly regularly with a psychologist - it began as a way for me to figure out how to get back to work with at least the illusion of sanity, and it's becoming more and more like an archeological dig - each session digs away and we find another layer, another plateau, and another look at the reasons for my choices... made either consciously or unconsciously.
At the end of today's session, the psychologist asked me to think about something - and she said, "if you don't think you can, if you feel like it's not right, don't hesitate to tell me. You won't disappoint me. You don't have to do this to please me." Thud. I felt it like a lead weight dropped from my head to my gut. Don't worry about disappointing someone else? About not pleasing them?
Beyond that she wouldn't judge me, lies this place where it would be okay for someone to be disappointed in me. I built myself into this unsustainable place of trying so very hard to never disappoint. Only to find myself failing, and crashing and careening around in these vain attempts to be this perfect version of myself. And, the joys in life can get ruined by the shoulds that come before or after. I SHOULD have planned something better. Been kinder. Be thinner. I SHOULD find a way to be a better mother. A better wife. A better role model for my children. My house SHOULD be cleaner. My car SHOULDN'T be filled with doggy foot prints and unwashed saddle pads. My bathrooms SHOULD be painted by now. I SHOULD be able to get my butt into work every day like a normal person.
How I wish I could be this 'should' girl. This girl who doesn't run into this wall of fatigue. Who can get everything that she wants to get done, done. Can do all the right things. And, still carve out space for herself.
And, who doesn't have to get angry to stand up for herself. Who doesn't have to be pushed past her limits and turn into "the bitch" just to advocate for herself.
I have a sneaky suspicion that I am far from alone. A big part of this 2.0 version has been to actually believe something that a dear friend spent a year trying to get me to hear, much less believe. Over and over he would say "it's a problem, but it's not your problem'. And, over and over I would nod and pretend to listen, all the while trying to figure out how I should help, what I should do, what I should not do, figure out whose fault it all was. After all, if I wasn't helpful, who was I?
Leaving that behind has been frustratingly difficult. It's like the christmas lights that you just threw in the box and they are all tangled up. And, so you need to carefully tease it all apart. Just when you think you have one strand free, another knot appears. Mine are called Responsibility. Fear of Disappointing. Guilt. Anger.
If you need me, I'll be curled up in a corner praying for patience as I untangle 50 years of crossed lines.