Identity

To my dearest self,

I know you’ve been hiding. I wasn’t taking care of you, nurturing you or even acknowledging your presence when you showed yourself. I don’t blame you. I was simply glad and happy in those moments I felt balanced and whole, when I felt free to crack silly jokes, believe in myself and could let go of insecurities and worry. Those times when I didn’t need the self parenting voice to tell me what to do next, what feelings were acceptable and which were not, and how to behave like a responsible person. You were in change in those moments but I didn’t even notice.

A lot of the time I was in survival mode, as my therapist calls it. A little confused child and a sensible but impartial inner voice or inner parent giving instructions, telling me what to do next. That is why I’ve been so confused when people tell me I’m strong, or fun, or anything adult at all. I didn’t notice that you existed – you are all those things, but I thought people were confusing taking one step after the next and simply carrying on with the necessities of life for strength, resilience and maturity. When they said I was fun to be with, I thought they were just lucky to have gotten one of my good days. They would soon understand that I don’t usually have that kind of energy.

But it was my actual self, you, that they were seeing. My neglected self, who for some reason still hasn’t jumped ship, although she could have given up a long time ago from lack of nourishment and care.

How is it that other people have been better at seeing you than I have – than you have yourself? Why is it that we have been focusing so much on the little confused child, sending her forth to feel all the feelings, to try and love, to try and fight adult fights, to stand up for you? You are much more capable than she is. All she needs is love and safety, and to be left to play.

You’re precious, complete; full of caring, bubbles of fun, deep feelings, empathy and compassion, and capable. You stand your ground, even if doing so is scary. You can be angry too, and short tempered and impatient. You have desires, and you’re quietly stubborn. You spread calm wherever you go, and are an excellent listener, even if you keep interrupting in every conversation you have. Finally I’m able to put the little, separate experiences I have of you together to one thing, one identity, me.

I wish I’d have been able to see you much earlier, to help you grow and find your rightful place. You will certainly be leading the way more and more from now on, and we will make sure nothing gets in your way doing that.

I’m sorry from the bottom of my heart for the long years of neglect. I promise to do my best not to let anything like that happen again.

Just A Normal Day

One long covid patient to take care of: hot water bottles to alleviate the stomach cramps, herbal tea, healthy food, tablets, a bit of movement (but not too much), a bit of singing (because singing is a great way for kids to gain strength without exhausting themselves)

One typical teenager with social anxiety to tread softly around – I managed to upset her by steering a dinner conversation away from two kids stabbing each other over a discussion of whether a comment was racist or not.

One classical piece to analyse for a school performance the next day

One first heartbreak to assist with, initially packaged up as a minor panic attack

One couple evening cancelled at the last moment, that I had really been looking forward to as a break from all this crazy

One UTI to help deal with

Oh yeah, and that full-time job I’ve got of course…

There are some positive outcomes though too. Henceforth, Saturdays are going to be reserved for couple time. The touchy teenager didn’t stay upset but was happily working on the analysis with me later that day. Plus she summoned up the courage to go to school and deliver her performance, even with the UTI bothering her. The long covid patient wants to go back to school tomorrow. The heartbreak looks much more manageable after a good night’s sleep, plus he learned that talking about painful things and having a cry, getting sonebody else’s perspective on problems is a good thing and helps with the pain and sense of feeling overwhelmed.

Therapy

I started looking for a therapist at the beginning of 2021, when depression threw me off my feet and made it very clear that I didn’t want to carry on dragging myself out of those dark holes by myself anymore. In talking to my doctor, I also realised that I have more than enough baggage that might benefit from therapy, so I felt better about it and less of a failure for needing therapy in the first place. Hadn’t the toxic men in my life always angrily suggested that I needed therapy, because there certainly wasn’t anything wrong with their perception of things, and it was clearly me who had a few screws loose and was impossible to get on with? This is one of the things that had kept me from seeking help earlier. I knew I was not the root problem, so I wasn’t going to prove them right after all by heading off to therapy.

Back at the beginning of the year, I found one therapist who could do a session with me, but it ended there.

That first session was helpful though, all the same. He confirmed again that some of my experiences were indeed traumatic and that they could lead to depression like I had. He also told me something very valuable: he said that depression is like any other illness, a flu for example. It comes and goes, but in the end, you do usually recover. Time and your body does its thing, and the weakness etc passes in the end, although it doesn’t feel like it while you’re in the middle of it. This little piece of wisdom allowed me to relax a little and be less afraid of getting caught in an episode again and not managing to get out of it by myself.

I am now with my ‘forever’ therapist, and the therapy sessions have just been approved. I see him for an hour every week. He does analytical psychology, as I want to unravel the causes of my dark phases rather than develop strategies and behaviour to deal with them better. I’m intuitively quite good at the strategies.

Therapy is an interesting experience. My therapist usually starts the session off with asking me what came up during the week. This irritated me at first, because wasn’t he supposed to be leading me to deeper understanding, and show me how to unravel whatever has got stuck in my mind? Didn’t he know the way through this murky mess? But I’ve got used to it and find something to talk about, and we get going.

Up until now, I’ve told him bits and pieces about myself, usually something associated with something that ‘came up during the week’. I decided I liked working with him after a session or two, because he listens to my thoughts and feelings, and then shows me parallels and patterns to something I said earlier, or even mentioned off hand some sessions earlier. I felt he was working me out quite quickly, and reckoned that would be a good thing for somebody who’s job it was to work me out, then sort me out.

I’ve noticed that there’s a pattern. The sessions aren’t quite as random as I first thought. He closes the session by summarizing what we’ve been talking about, and puts it in a way that makes me continue thinking about it a little bit differently than the week before. So without even noticing, I spend time between sessions mulling things over, remembering things, and seeing them in a different, more distanced and reflected light. Just that by itself opens up a different level of understanding of myself and the way I feel and think about things.

Until now it’s felt very easy, as it happens by itself. Understanding things better actually makes me feel more peaceful. He warned me though that there would be times when it would get tough, and I might want to quit. So I feel I should leave room for that to happen and not feel too optimistic about the whole process just yet.

So far though, it feels like a slow and steady house clean. You open up a drawer, sort out what’s in it, put some of the things in a different place, others you fold and put back, and some get thrown out. Then on to the next drawer, until it’s all neat and clean.

I’m still on the first drawer at the moment, and it’s quite a big one. I wonder how far I’ve got with it already, and how much more I’ll find that’s been hastily stuffed in to keep it out of sight.

Passion

I’ve been sort-of challenged to think about my passion by a dear family member. It got me thinking – what is my passion compared to what it used to be?

I have no trouble telling you what my passion used to be – it was music, classical music in every shape and form. I loved finding the essence of a piece, learning about the composer and trying to find evidence of their life and experiences in their music. I tried to put myself in their shoes, getting as close as possible to how their music was intended. In doing so, I quite often learned things about myself, exploring different ways of feeling emotions, and connecting previously unconscious thought patterns to patterns I found in the music.

I’m sure I could rekindle that passion again if I chose to, and found enough time to dedicate to music again. The same goes for cellular biology. I loved mucking about in the lab, reading up on the latest scientific discoveries in the area, and pouring over the results of experiements. I still get quite excited when I get to explain something to the kids. I’ve had loads of fun explaining rna vaccines to people who were sceptical of the whole idea, and showing them how elegant and beautiful the whole thing is. But again, I’m not making the time to read the latest papers, and I can only dream of one day getting back into it and studying for a phd in the field – a dream I put to rest in favour of moving the family to France to start our home education journey. And earning enough money to support the entire family of course.

My passions have become a lot more subtle and abstract over the years. I love being a helpful presence to others. I burst with pride each time one of my children comes to me for help, whether that’s help to understand something, or help with sorting their feelings out, or help overcoming their fears and doubts. I truly enjoy helping an overwhelmed friend calm down and see what positive side there is to see. I get a kick out of people on teams that I serve as a manager letting me know that they are happy being on my team. I dance a happy dance when I see people I’ve been nudging forward take big steps and grow. I’m ultimately proud when they refer back to me as the main reason they felt ready to take the next step. At work I can get quite passionate about building good software solutions too (my actual job as a product manager) – but in the end, it’s all about helping users and making their lives easier. On the other hand, I’m very bad at feeling interested in the financial success of the software – I really couldn’t care less about that part of my job…

I would love to do some proper, serious helping. Like foster parenting, or volunteering at a childrens home, or helping underprivileged kids with their education, or help overwhelmed single mums find their feet, or help grieving parents find their way, etc. Everytime I am close to writing an email though, I stop. I hardly have time and energy to get all my stuff done. I really can’t take on anything else at the moment without giving up on sleep, friends, the little music I do, running or work.

So for now, I’ll be content with the opportunities life offers without seeking new ones. And who knows, maybe one day I will go and get myself a phd.

Keeping Depression at Bay

Christmas last year was break down time for me. It started with a small trigger, which sent me into a spiral of mess. Heavy thoughts persistently roared through my head, shutting me down on the outside. All I could do was sit on the floor and fit the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together – it kept my fingers and my mind busy so that I wouldn’t listen to the accusations and blame flying around in my head too much, while I waited for the storm to pass.

Since then, I’ve got myself therapy, and I’ve learned to see depression like any other passing illness, like a cold. It comes, it feels horrible, but as a rule, you recover at some point. You may feel weak for a bit afterwards, but everything will be back to normal given time and patience for recovery – even if it takes weeks, months, or even years.

It raised its ugly head again this year. The combination of work being heavy and feeling done with the never-ending fights I have to have there, together with the days getting short and dark makes a small trigger a lot stronger than it would usually be.

On top of that, Y had been cancelling plans often, which robbed me of a wall of stability. By the time I brought it up because it was bothering me so much I couldn’t ignore it any longer, I had been collecting my injured feelings in a safe, locked place. When they came out, they were already a raging storm, and came as an attack out of the blue.

It’s a good thing I had a therapy session just after that. He helped me separate my inner reactions from the facts, and I’m beginning to understand myself better, and why some little things hurt me more than they should.

I feel like I saw the dark pit, and came right to the edge to look down – but I managed to stay out of it. I made some important decisions, I’m making an effort to make more connections with people and I’m taking part in real life instead of living in my head. Facebook and Instagram has disappeared off my phone. I am letting go of feeling every one of Y’s decisions as a reflection on how he might be feeling about me, about us. I know it’s not, so why let my very own patterns of feeling injured in certain situations make me form the worst possible assumptions?

I’m feeling quite proud of myself for staying out of it this time, although I was emotionally exhausted, and there was a trigger that could have sent me over the edge.

I’m still exhausted, but stable exhausted.

New Job, New Me

Literally. I’m being a different person than I was in my old job.

In my old job, my work was very much appreciated, but I had a defined play field. I was also never considered a leader figure, although I led quite a bit. But I lead gently… I’m not noisy about it.

With my new job, I’m entering the company as a leader. I’m expected to visibly lead, not the gentle, quite coaxing type of leading I’m used to. ‘We’re looking for your guidance here’, or ‘Please change whatever you like ; meetings, processes, structures – anything’ or the scariest of all – ‘your experience will really help us with this’

I don’t feel experienced, nor ready to guide a product I know very little about, built by a team I hardly know the names of. I’m seeing things that could be improved, but I don’t feel comfortable changing things without understanding why things are the way they are.

So I’m making an effort to be bold, believe in myself, and overcome my habit of moving slowly to begin with, observing more than I contribute, desperately trying to work out how things work in this new environment.

This is the most adult I’ve had to be in my whole life, I think…

Good Stuff

I’ve been offered a fantastic new job, in a new company. The conditions are the stuff of dreams, and they really want me on board. I feel they are a wonderful fit for me, and they seem to think that too.

At the beginning of the week I told my direct manager about it. The conversation was an awkward breakup conversation, and ended with him saying that he would see what he could do to convince me to stay.

I haven’t got the final contract yet, but I should have it in a few days. I told my manager that I hadn’t signed yet, but that my mind was pretty much made up, because the offer is far too good to walk away from.

Today was the day he was going to get back to me with a “retention” offer. He had also got his manager involved, who knows the space the new company operates in, to give an honest opinion of what I was getting myself into.

I trust these two guys. They are honest people who sometimes hide their intentions in the interest of their professional role, but they both have a good soul. So I was getting really nervous. What if he knew about something I hadn’t spotted? What if he had insider knowledge that showed that the new company want all it seemed? I would have to go back to the drawing board, and decide whether I was still going to leave under the assumption of a definite risk.

However, he was sad to report that he had only heard good things about the new company. The retention offer was nothing really, just a personal promise that if I stayed, I would have their support to be promoted to product director at some point in the next few years.

So now, my mind is set. After 9 years, I’ll be starting a new job, and I’ll start it as a senior member of the new company. No more little me. It’s Miss Bigboots now. Miss Bigboots will feel every mistake she makes, but she’ll also feel everything she does right. Miss Bigboots is going to be able to stretch her wings and fly, in a role that she’s already proven to be good at.

I’ve already started work wrapping up. When I’m gone, I want things to have my name on them – in a good way. Not like the tech director I like to cite as am example of how not to do things, because he was an incompetent prick with a way of not only not getting things right, but making decisions so bad that 4 years later, they can still be felt. I want to leave the opposite of that behind, and to do that, I have to tie up a lot of loose ends mighty quick.

I’m really excited about the change. It feels a little like moving into my first own home. Now, I’ll be on control of things. I’ll be able to develop my very own style and grow up. The kids are sharing my excitement, because they understand that this is a big step – even if they don’t quite get the details. Y is proud to burst – he makes me feel very special, especially when he dives into my excitement with me. He makes every accomplishment feel more valuable, just by sharing the happiness I’m feeling and getting genuinely excited on my behalf.

I truly feel blessed all around.

What I want

I want a developing partnership, one that develops organically, but moves towards “more” – whatever that next “more” is. As long as things don’t come to a standstill, I’m happy. It’s a bit like constantly developing and growing personally, but in tandem, as a couple.

But that’s not what I’ve got, not consistently anyway. I’ve got a person who is focusing on the present moment only, and who doesn’t want to even talk about potential direction, any plans that are further away than a week or so, and definitely without consistent wishes for “more”. He’s totally happy with what it is, whether it’s slightly more than the weeks before, or standing still.

We’re actually not that different. I distrust promises of commitment, or fixed plans that span multiple years. I want and enjoy a life that invites the unexpected.

The huge difference is, that when things come to a temporary standstill, I start pacing and questioning and getting nervous. I read disaster into tiny things, and a single word can convince me that he’s just simply not interested anymore, and that I’ve found this wonderful man, but he won’t really want to be with me any more than the 2/3x a week thing we are doing right now. I see this going on, me in hope of growth, him holding back, until suddenly he realises that to have a family (s distant and hazy wish of his), he has to be with a lady of reproductive age, which I may no longer be. And there I’ll be, on my own, and by then, truly all alone.

There are some very practical – yet wishful – reasons why I want him to be more invested too, though. I want some respite from having to make every tiny decision by myself. From being the sole driver and adult who can fix things. From having to provide heathy meals every day. From being the only one able to help with homework. From carrying all the responsibility for 4 people all by myself.

I’ve been doing this for 10 years now. In those 10 years I’ve fought every war there is to fight, while recovering from losing a baby, balancing work with homeschooling, and setting up and defending my boundaries with t. I’m exhausted. If I could, I’d like a year off everything. And being with somebody who is safe, who understands, and who cares makes it feel as if the dream of resting a little is just at my fingertips – and yet, unreachable.

Of course it is unrealistic and unfair to expect anybody to come into a family and “save” me from the weariness of the past 10 years. I don’t want to do that, not if I put it that way and give it proper thought.

I’m just finding it very hard to silence that craving for peace and rest, and when hormones etc run high, it occasionally turns into expectations that make no sense whatsoever, and I turn into a teary, illogical and broken mess. Because on those days, I feel the need for rest so heavily, and at the same time it’s crystal clear to me that those expectations won’t ever be fulfilled. Not even by the most wonderful person on earth.

There, I feel a bit better now, and my thoughts have calmed down a little more than they were before.

Parenting Together

I’ve never experienced parenting as a team. The only thing that used to happen was finding compromises, after long and tiring discussions between two very antagonistic positions – one of which was always wildly unrealistic, inexperienced and disconnected, if you ask me. Still is.

Now, I’m on my own when it comes to parenting, but only in theory.

In reality, Y is right there by my side. Obviously he doesn’t make decisions or interact with the kids as a parent. But whenever I hit a stumbling block, he’s there to listen, help me reflect, offer different perspectives and explore ideas with me. Most importantly, he gives me space to feel everything I am feeling without judging, although he does mirror back to me and help me decide whether my feelings are helpful for solving the issue at hand or not.

This is the first time I feel I’m not on my own in my role as a parent, and it’s liberating. It’s liberating to know there’s another caring mind reflecting on my decisions and helping me find a productive way forward when emotions are running high. If I make mistakes, he’ll be there to help me see those mistakes. He is somebody who I can turn to when I’m in the thick of it and feel confused or failing as a parent. Somebody who knows my kids (a bit), respects and cares about them as my family, knows me like nobody else, and who’s mind works in a similar way to mine. And lastly, he listens, cares, and always keeps an open mind.

Being the amazing person he is wasn’t written on his forehead when we met 2+ years ago. I simply felt safe and free of expectations then, and I valued his relentless honesty. Plus, there were no strings attached, he’s a fun younger guy, sex was (is!) amazing, and I really enjoyed the regular breaks from normal life I got with him. Now, I rely on him as a partner, a safe place and all the important relationship things and everything I enjoyed in the early stages, and most recently, he’s got himself this new role as parenting sparring partner. The fact that he has no children of his own (yet) doesn’t matter at all.

Parenting as a team is amazing. If you have that, don’t ever let go of it.

Troubled Mind

My favourite mind is troubled with nightmares, almost every night. Not me – I usually work through things in broad daylight. But I’m experiencing them, or hearing about them regularly.

I have an inkling of what’s going on, after reading a bit about dreams and the meaning of certain themes, and connecting the dots. It’s all connected to change, changing relationships and letting go.

I’d love to offer support, but I guess I might be the wrong person, as I might well be the one triggering the earthquakes in this sensitive soul.

So all I do is reach over and try to be a reassuring human presence in the middle of the invisible nightmare, and being an anchor of calm in the passing storm.

I hope they stop soon.