seven year old me

You know the old adage, "Fake it till you make it"? Well, this week, I have come to the conclusion that while this can be a motivating and confidence building statement for some, I think it can be a dangerously slippery slope as well. How do you know when you've made it? When do you stop faking it? What if you have done some form of faking it your whole life and are at a point where you can't differentiate the real you from the fake you? What if faking it was a coping mechanism you needed to use in the past to get yourself through difficult circumstances, and now this kind of behaviour no longer serves you? What do you do when you've been faking it for so long, that you end up constantly feeling like you are a fraud? Like you don't truly belong. Like your just not supposed to be or to be doing {insert almost ANYTHING here}.

I feel this sense of unease in my world. Every. Single. Day.

When I go to the pool to swim lengths and choose the "fast" swimming lane, I am on edge waiting for the lifeguard to come over and tell me that I can't be in that lane, that I am not "fast" enough.

I call myself a feminist, a writer, and an advocate for women and children and yet, I live in constant fear that someone is going to call me out and say, "Na-uh, not so fast there chickie." I fear that people are going to see right through me and know that I am a capital F, fraud.

I am extremely sensitive to 'The Rules' and terrified of getting in trouble for breaking them. My daughter and I were at the library the other day, enjoying some quiet time together, choosing books, watching the babies cooing and drooling in their Baby Lap-Time program and playing a few games on the library computer. Two police officers walked in and instead of pointing out to my daughter that the police are helpers and protectors, I said, "Uh-oh, the police are here, what did you do?" Because that is how my brain works. My first thought was that I had actually done something wrong. That my car was illegally parked or I had committed some other imagined transgression that required police intervention. That I did something wrong.

There is a deeply set pathway in my brain that lets me think all of these things and yesterday, talking this out with my therapist, I figured out when this pathway was established and why. I truly can not remember a time in my life when I didn't feel like an outsider and there has never been a time that I have ever felt in with whatever "IN" crowd there is. I have always felt "other", on the fringe, trying to fit in, but never quite getting there.

Yesterday, I was reunited with seven year old me. She's a beautiful kid, but so, so scared. Her life has just been turned upside down. Her parents separated without any warning, she moved from a small town to a big city and she transferred from an even smaller school to one where she was quite literally thrown into a french-immersion program with kids who have already been together for four years. She has a mom who is working nights and a grandmother who expects a lot from her. She has three younger siblings to help take care of and she has no one to talk to about all of this. She's struggling to fit in at school, but kids are mean and they make fun of her for not knowing the language and for crying a lot. She's trying to understand why her family doesn't live with her daddy anymore, but no one is telling her anything other than he just didn't want them anymore. She feels alone, scared, and not sure exactly where she belongs.

MRquote

Yesterday was a day full of sharp pains. I joked with my therapist that she should gauge the level of success of a session based on how many used tissues are in the small garbage can beside her couch. It was empty when I arrived and at least half-full when I left. I cried tears of pain for seven year old me, tears of frustration and brutal self-awareness for 42 year old me and then I simply couldn't turn them off. Years of feeling like I don't belong, like I am faking it and yet, not quite making it (ie, I am not 'enough'), poured out of me. Yesterday, I talked to that little seven year old me and told her she does in fact belong somewhere and that somewhere was with me. That I am here for her, that is is OK to be scared and that she is NEVER alone. I gave her the biggest hug I could imagine and just held her {in my heart} for a long time. Both of us crying, filling up that garbage can with soggy tissues, trying to let go of the 35 years of feeling scared and alone and never belonging that stands between us.

I am still processing a lot of what I discovered about myself -both past and present- yesterday and am what some would call 'fragile' at the moment. I prefer to call it real, undeniably messy, definitely not perfect and very, very REAL. (Warning: do not ask me how I am doing, unless you A-have a lot of tissue on you and B-are a hugger). I can't fake it anymore and more importantly, I don't want to. If I don't "make it" (and I am still not exactly sure what that looks like), I think I am OK with that, as long as I continue to be true to myself, to accept where I have been, and to know that I don't have to keep going back and beating myself up for the past or reverting to damaging ways of thinking that don't serve me in my present life. Further understanding of how the pathways in my brain were created and why helps me to be mindful of how I talk to myself, how I react in various situations and how I see myself in my world. There is a powerful lesson to be learned for being gentle on myself as I picture seven year old me (or my own seven year old) and think about the words that I use in my daily self-talk. Because there is no way, that I would ever, EVER tell any child that he or she is stupid, fat, not good enough, not smart enough, not worthy of love or a total FAKE and yet I have said or thought all of these things about myself.