Breaking Patterns and Cycles

December was a month of confronting all of my self limiting beliefs. The weeks were full of triggers, arguments, and coping mechanisms I thought I’d released long ago. Like weeds, I've taken each one by the root, and ripped them out and placed them right in front of me, to examine, understand, and release. 

Pattern #1: When someone outside of me views events differently than me, it’s instinctual for me to believe their version of events and throw mine out, denying my reality.

When I was a child, I was psychologically abused over and over again, then told the next day that nothing ever happened. I was too dramatic or too sensitive and I was the problem. My mother would call me names like the 'Absent Minded Professor' or 'Dudley Do Right' and then laugh afterwards, saying it was just a joke. She would scream at me and throw things and shame me because she ‘thought’ I rolled my eyes, and then the next day would ask me if I wanted to go get my nails done like we were best friends. There was never any room for my reality, only my mother’s. I was gaslighted on a daily basis. 

#2: I have a very difficult time expressing when I am angry or frustrated with someone, and an even more difficult time expressing my needs in the moment. I can’t just say “you did this, it made me angry, and I need this.” 

I was not allowed to have needs as a child. My entire life my mother was the victim, the hurting soul, the one who needed nurturing. I learned to make her morning coffee for her by age 9. At 11 years old, she would confide in me every little detail about her romantic relationships, including sexual ones. As a child, I didn’t realize how wrong this was, all I saw was that my mom needed a friend, and I filled that need. As a young teenager, I began cleaning the house for my mother, running errands for her, and even giving my spare money to my mother. My role in her eyes was to fulfill her needs, no matter what they entailed. And so from a young age, I learned that my job was to fill other people’s needs, not my own.

#3: I do not honor my own boundaries. When I say I don’t want to talk or I don’t want to deal with something, I will let the other person’s emotions push me to cross that boundary I drew. Then I blame the other person for making ME cross MY boundary. 

As a child, there was no such things as boundaries. My mother went through my diary on a regular basis. I remember when a family member told me to wrap a strand of hair around the lock of my diary, that way I could tell if my mother had read it or not. 3 weeks later I learned that I didn't need that strand of hair, when I came home and saw my precious pink diary with the ballet slippers on the cover sitting on our kitchen counter for all to see, and my mother tapping her fingers on the surface with a glass of wine in the other hand. I was in the 7th grade, and that was pretty much when I stopped keeping diaries. 

There was no knocking when coming into my room, and no privacy. My mother dressed me until I was a preteen. She did my hair and cut my food for me and completely took away any shred of independence I had. As a teenager, she would take my cell phone every time we’d argue and read all of the messages. She would become IRATE if she found out I told anyone about our fight or what had been said. She would search my dresser drawers and my room while I was at school. If I was upset about something, there was no telling my mother that I didn’t want to talk about it. She would hound me over and over, sometimes following me around the house, until I would admit to her what it was that was upsetting me. Even if my issue had absolutely nothing to do with her, my mother would still get upset. Because I didn’t handle the situation the right way or because I’m ‘pining’ over a boy she doesn’t like or because once again I’m being pathetic and too sensitive. She would shame me and belittle me until I felt even worse than I did before I told her how I felt. In my home, boundaries were non-existent. 

#4: There is a part of me that has learned that it’s okay to hurt myself. 

Going through all of these situations as a highly sensitive child made me experience emotions that more often than not felt impossible to contain. I would look for any sort of relief, anything to make me feel in control of what I was experiencing. In the 6th grade, I began cutting myself.

At first it was on my wrists, right across from left to right like I’d seen in pop culture. One day by our backyard pool, my brother saw a large cut I had made into my left wrist. I played it off and told him I had scraped my wrist walking by a table. He, of course, did not believe me and told my mom. My mom pulled me into our kitchen, sat me across from her at the kitchen counter, and proceeded to tell me how selfish I was to be doing this, how I was making everything about me, how my brother was depressed and he needed all of her time and attention right now and how dare I try to take that away from him.

That was when I began cutting further up on my arms, in places that I could easily conceal. I would also dig my nails into my hands as hard as I could when cutting wasn’t available, leaving half moon sized indents in my palm. I would snap the rubber bands around my wrists repeatedly, until I saw enough of a red mark that satisfied the urge to release what I was feeling. 

My senior year of high school I confided in my friend that I was cutting myself, the first time I had openly admitted to self harm since that conversation with my mother at 13. I showed her the proof, and she repeated the same sentiments my mother had years before. True to the form I had adopted of denying my own reality, I believed them. I believed that I was just selfish and needy and annoying and just seeking attention. That didn’t stop me from cutting, but I never volunteered how I hurt myself to someone ever again. And I began working harder to hide the cuts.

I would cut myself on my abdomen, my hips, or my upper thighs. Places where I know no one would ever actually sneak a peak. Then I began dating my now husband shortly after my senior year of high school. More than once we were intimate, and more than once he saw the scars I refused to acknowledge.

He would begged me to stop, and it took many conversations, but eventually I stopped. I never cut myself again. But that didn’t mean I stopped hurting myself.

Becoming an adult with no healthy coping mechanisms, the same urges lived in my body, threatening to come to the surface when those unbearable feelings were provoked. I would express that it would be easier if I took my own life. I would trap myself in my bathroom, pull my hair until my scalp hurt, repeatedly hit my forehead with the base of my palm. I continued to snap rubber bands. I continued to dig my nails into my skin. And more often than not, I numbed all of those feelings I pushed away with alcohol.

I gave up alcohol, partying, and a lot of my obvious toxic behaviors in 2016. I went no contact with my mother 2 years later. It’s been 5 years of letting the pain in that I hid from; sitting with it, accepting it, grieving all of the abusive years I had to endure, learning to love myself, releasing codependency, and learning how to have healthy relationships. I am so much further in my healing journey than I ever thought possible, confident and stronger than I ever believed. I’ve opened Pandora’s box, there isn’t a single part of myself I’m willing to hide from anymore. Which is what lead to these deep realizations.

When you are a victim of abuse, one of the hardest parts of the journey is acknowledging where you have been hurting yourself, where you have been holding yourself back. Accepting all of the times your abusive parent handed you the axe to hack at yourself with, and you took it from them without a second thought. And understanding that by turning away from all the pieces of you that you’ve been scared to confront, you have been subconsciously hurting everyone around you.

If I’m not honoring my own boundaries, that means I’m not honoring anyone else’s.

If I can’t accept that my reality is just as valid even if it’s different from someone else’s, I can’t validate that it’s okay that their reality is different either. 

If I’m not comfortable expressing my own anger, that means I’m INCREDIBLY uncomfortable anytime anyone expresses their anger towards me. 

And every time I continue to be okay with hurting myself, I allow each of these cycles to continue.

It all starts with you. You didn’t deserve to be abused. You didn’t ask for it. And it is most certainly not your fault.

But it is your responsibility to break the cycle. To look at the toxic parts of you that were molded in that abusive time and let them go. To accept the hand that you’ve played in your own misery, so that you can stop living in the horrid place you’re desperate to escape.

I didn’t do this work on my own. I had people around me who unconditionally loved me. Therapists who deeply understood me and did their best to help me. And for 5 years I have been on a constant pursuit of knowledge. Following endless Instagram accounts talking about narcissism and mental health, reading book after book where each one offers a different morsel that applies to my own healing journey. It’s been 5 years of going through my own house and cleaning every nook and cranny, no dusty corner left unattended and no doors left closed for the fear of the mess and big job laying inside. I’m throwing the curtains open, letting the light shine through, and seeing all of the parts of my home that don’t belong anymore. 

This process doesn’t happen over night. You won’t fix your pattern as soon as you see it, and you won’t wake up tomorrow feeling differently just because you’ve had the realization. You’ve been living your entire life this way, decisions you make that go against the way you would have previously done things will feel uncomfortable because you are going against all you've ever known. To change the way you’ve been living requires patience, repetition, forgiveness, compassion, and self love. 

Instead of feeling defeated that I’ve recognized that these patterns live inside of me, I feel empowered. I SEE THEM, for the first time, so clearly. Which means I’ll never be blindly led by them again. 

A photo of my daughter and I after taking
our yearly Christmas photos. I break these 
cycles so that I can be the best me for you,
it's all for you little one.