Superwomyn took off her cape and fell out of the sky.
I am back in therapy again. As a black womyn this is something I feel I need to share yet something I feel I should not. There has been great shame in the community about asking for help, seeking help, acknowledging that one needs help. Just recently I felt I was running on empty, feeling stressed to the max. When I finally found the courage to ask a close family member for help she responded by accusing me of always complaining and being selfish. Wow! So, you can see why I have a fear of asking for help. Asking for help is not something I do lightly. I have been deeply, personally invested in portraying an image of the womyn who has it all together, has all the answers, the superwomyn, the go to girl, the girl who seems to have it all....
Yet, in my lonely hours when i was by myself and had to look at myself in the mirror, I found it harder to look myself in the eye. The things and people that were supposed to be making me happy didn't anymore. The friends that I used to love to be around now felt as if I had outgrown them, or did they outgrow me? My family now got on my nerves even more than before and even my guilty pleasures of my favourite comfort foods didn't quite hit the spot. And the womyn, " Ms "trey anthony" " whom I had so skillfully constructed, had become someone I didn't like very much either. I knew then it was time to go back to therapy. Its been a four year absence from therapy. But I'm happy to be back!!
I am reinventing myself again. Apparently this reinvention is beyond my control. My deep spiritual friends have shared with me that based on my birthdate, numerology states that apparently I am in a year 5. A year 5 predicts that one goes through major changes in their life. One usually moves , ends a relationship, changes careers, meets new friends and gets rid of old ones. A year 5 is full of many changes. I have no doubt that I am in a year 5!
So back to therapy? In therapy, I'm learning a lot about this new "trey", the new me who I would like to be… and of course this means truly examining the old trey. I realize i suffer from a complex that i will call, " The no one will love me or show up, if I ask for help or really ask for what I truly want." I'm sure some of you suffer from it too :) A simple request as asking my friends to help me move reduced me to a crying bowl of jello in my therapist's office and had her calmly question why I felt I couldn't ask my friends to help me. I explained to her that i have a fear of people not showing up for me. A fear that my friends won't support me. A fear that if i ask for help it is a sign of weakness. A fear that if I ask….No one will come!
My therapist encouraged me to ask and to carefully note my friend's responses and take stock of what it meant to me. Take stock of what I was feeling. So I took a breath and with baited breath wrote an email asking for help. I gave my "friends" four options on dates and times that they could come and help me. I sent it out to five friends. One immediately responded and congratulated me on asking for help and acknowledged that she knew this must have been hard for me. And she promised to "help" me with my move. I was very happy that she acknowledged this but was very disappointed when the actual moving days came and she never showed up! Two of my other friends wrote back with dates that they were available and showed up for the move. Another one proclaimed she was busy on all four dates! And the last one I haven't heard from..... Yet there were some people in my life who I didn't even think about asking for help who upon hearing about my move, came by and offered their services and chastised me for not asking them for help! This really made me feel love thank you. And my wonderful little sis I owe you big time!
So overall my request for help was bittersweet. It showed me that I have people that I can truly count on, and some that I can't. In that I also felt it was necessary for me to look at my own actions. Do I have "friends" in my life who are really acquaintances? Also, what sort of friend am I? Would I be the friend who others would think to call if they needed help? And to be honest, I couldn't really be sure. To some of my friends I know I'm a really great friend and to some not so much but I'm really working on being a better friend.
Yet I also realized that there was a need for me to do some spring cleaning. My "move" was a physical and emotional one. I needed to move around things and people in my life that no longer were serving me or me serving them. I was holding on to some "friends" as I would a pair of favourite jeans that used to fit me in high school but I knew now as a grown womyn I had no business trying to squeeze myself into!
And it was much more than just getting rid of my friends because they didn't help me move, it was about really taking a stock of what I now want. What types of friends do I want to be around? Who do I want to count on? Who do I want to count on me? What fits new trey. And it doesn't mean that my old friends were bad or mean people, not at all. I just want something different. I now have a New Priority list and some people made it on and some people didn't. Some things got shuffled around and some things got crossed off. It's my list , I would suggest you create your own.
Before it was a priority for me to have hundreds of people around me and calling each one of them my "friend." Before it was important for me to have a centre and a huge downtown space. Before it was important for me to gain the approval of my family, friends, partner, people on the bus, strangers, the taxi driver. Before I loved crowds and being the centre of attention. Before my health wasn't important. Before I wanted to be so "busy" that it stopped me from feeling, thinking, and dealing with my emotions.
Now I am busy slowing down. Taking stock. Going to therapy so I can remember what it feels like to feel again. Now I'm reading more. Trying to eat healthy. Going to the doctor regularly. Calling my closest five friends regularly. Visiting my friend's new baby. Going to a play with my BFF. Driving to Niagara on the lake. Eating breakfast in bed. Listening to my grandmother tell stories. Feeling so much that I cry regularly for no reason. Crying? Me? Yes, everyday! I like to think that my tears represent a new birth, new life, water, tears, water, tears. And somewhere from deep in the water a new me will emerge.....
4 comments:
i like this! yes trey i do read your blog in the wee wee wee hours of the nite when i should be sleeping. i luv you long time.
thank debs for the words....luv you too.
BRAVO, trey!!! Thank you for sharing this. I really appreciate your honesty. Yes, we are learning, growing, changing. The key is clarity, openness, being emotionally available ...and detached from the outcome.
I so understand your feelings about not being able to ask for help, and when you do, finding out who is really there and who isn't. It is bittersweet, to say the least...I too am trying to figure out why I am friends with some of my old friends and what kind of friend I am to others. Is this because we're in our 30's and taking stock?
Regarding your next post: I battle the 'big nose' issue, and have since in grade 3 several boys started taunting me and calling me 'witch'. It didn't help that my mother, who had a nose job herself when she was 16, told me my nose was 'beautiful'. I actually ended up not getting one and now I'm grateful, because I don't want my children to experience the same hypocrisy when they grow up. I want to teach them how to get past it, and not by changing themselves, but learning to deal with (maybe love?) what they've been given.
Jessica Tucker
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