"YOU killed my grandson."

The first of many choice things your grandmother had to say to me after finding your note and your body.

We were together for three years and I loved you as much as my body and soul could. I poured every bit of who I am into out relationship because it was the best damn thing that I had. I had plans to spend my life with you.

You left me a note specifically for me and me alone. So you can only imagine what kind of things your family had to say about me.

We just recently moved past this, but I don't think your grandmother will ever understand how much that affected me.

Because for the longest time, I truly believed that it was my fault.

Eyebrows.

When I was 13, my mom took me to the department store to buy makeup for the very first time. I was excited and nervous. 

The lady at the counter offered to test some out on me before we purchased anything. She did a whole makeover and I felt good!

But right as she was wrapping up, she turned to my mom and told her that she might want to start tweezing or waxing my eyebrows and the hair between them.

That's what that stuck with me.

15 years later, I'm still insecure about my eyebrows and the small amount of blonde hair that sometimes grows between them.

Anything that a boy can do...

I am the only girl of four siblings. When I was a child, I participated in all of the activities that my brothers would. 

What stuck with me the most was the adults in my life telling me that I couldn't do many of these activities because I am a girl.

This did a terrible number on my self confidence as a child.

Today I can recognize that this was not a measure of my abilities, but rather a measure of the ignorance and lack of education regarding gender equality from the adults in my life. This seemed as unjust as a child as it does to me now. 

I am happy to report there is a rainbow after the storm. I can now recognize that my determination to be treated equally, even as a child, was set ablaze to do anything that a boy can do, just much better. ;)

"Too much fat."

As a kid, and even now, I was always thin. Especially before puberty, I was tall, lanky, and naturally skinny.

I remember being about twelve, and I had put on a little bit of baby fat, as lots of girls do around that age as they reach puberty. I remember being in my grandmother's kitchen and going to pour myself a glass of whole milk before she snatched it away from me and poured me skim, patting my nearly flat stomach and telling me in broken English, "No, too much fat, [granddaughter], watch it!"

It was the first time I had felt shame about my body and that my worth was directly tied to my appearance.

It lead to years of being ashamed to eat anything fattening in front of people.

"Thank you."

When I was in second grade, I wrote a ton of songs. There was one in particular that I was really proud of. I decided to share it with my music teacher after class one day. He listened as I sang, and then he said "thank you."

As a second grader, I wanted to be praised and told it was a great song, so his simple "thank you," which may have been sufficient in his mind, was the biggest rejection I had ever felt. 

I kept writing songs well into my teens, but I never again shared them with anyone.

"You're hurting ME and MY family."

Said by my biological dad, after I told my therapist about a fight my family had that caused me to have a panic attack. 

I have been diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, anxiety, body dysmorphic disorder, and major depressive disorder.

Through years of family and individual therapy, my therapists and psychiatrists have concluded that my eating disorder, anxiety and depression were partly caused by my family dynamic. Fighting, lashing out, aggressiveness, hostility, hatred and anger filled my house throughout my childhood. Or this is how I perceived it.

In 2014 my dad lashed out at me, saying that I was hurting HIS, not OUR, family, by making up these stories about how painful it was for him to live through this. According to him, I've overdramatized my family's problems for attention, and I lie to my therapists and psychiatrists. I was making HIS family seem like monsters, and ME as the poor little victim.

I haven't felt part of the family since he said those things. I've been the outcast. The insane one. The crazy one. My parents love me, our family dynamic is better now, but because of that comment I've truly come to the realization that my parents' support through my recovery is all an illusion.

They are ashamed of me and wish I were different.

Expectation.

My husband left me when I was in my first year of graduate school.

I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder years before that, and I was so heartbroken that I knew I was going to break the f*** down, I knew I couldn't make it as an academic, that a PhD program was no place for my broken ass.

I tried to tell my adviser that I was going to drop out. He just looked at me confusedly and said "No you won't. You can take time off to rest and heal some if you need, and everything will be right here when you're feeling well again."

WHEN you are feeling well again. Not IF. 

With a mental illness/disability label attached to your identity, the expectation is that you will suffer and be less capable as others of both enjoying life and thriving in it. This expectation may be realistic and may be supported by diagnostic criteria or your own past experience.

But when the world has low expectations for you, you can end up with low expectations for yourself, and therefore meet those expectations.

He expected me to surmount what I was facing, and I will never forget the strength that gave me.

Challenge the holes your identity categories have pigeoned you into.

I had just started a new job a few days before and was trying to find a parking space in the employee deck. I noticed a couple of cars lined up but not running, and I didn't know what they were doing. A car was pulling out of a spot in front of the line of cars so I drove around them and parked.

After I got out a woman in one of the cars I had gone around (I hadn't even been able to tell someone was in there) rolled down her window and started yelling at me for being so rude to just pass the line of people waiting for spots like that.

It turns out the lot can get so overcrowded that people can wait for over twenty minutes for a spot, so they will turn off the car completely. I immediately said that I was sorry and that I hadn't realized that was what they were waiting for. I said that I would move my car and she could have the spot. As I turned to go back to my car I said that I was sorry again. The woman replied, "You should be." 

I have always been shy, self-conscious, and had very low self-esteem. After she said that, I felt terrible and guilty. My confidence was shot. Even worse, I couldn't get it out of my head. Almost every time I parked in that deck the memory would get triggered and I would feel bad.

It was over a year later when I had an epiphany. Something had caused me to think about that incident when a switch flipped in my head and I suddenly thought, "Wait a minute. Screw her." It hit me that I had made an honest mistake and as soon as I found out, I fixed it. I had no intent to be rude and she certainly didn't suffer any. If an extra ten seconds waiting for me to move my car ruined her day she had some serious issues. There was absolutely no reason for me to feel bad and she had no reason to say I should.

Professional Draw-er

In first grade, I loved drawing. In my heart, I truly thought I had a shot as a "professional draw-er."

But on my report card, my first grade teacher wrote (to paraphrase): "[NAME] loves to draw. She wants to draw for the rest of her life. I don't think she has what it takes to do that... but I know that she's going to be something big, somewhere big, and I'm gonna read about her in the news one day." 

This completely broke my spirit and discouraged me from pursuing this dream.

"Well, she can see you."

Between kindergarden and first grade, I started to put on some weight and developed into a quite chubby kid. My mom was very proactive when I started gaining weight, and enrolled us in many family "get healthy" programs. I was aware that this was an issue, but for me at the time, it was an internal one. 

After one of my parent-teacher conferences in first grade, my mother came home and reported that I got glowing reviews from all of my teachers. She also said that one of my teachers, a beautiful and very thin woman, mentioned to her that she was overweight as a child as well and that she eventually grew out of it. I asked my mom how my teacher knew that I was overweight, and my mom responded, "Well, she can see you". 

I have never forgotten this moment. It was an innocent comment by my mother, one that would be obvious to any adult. However, as a young child that was the first time I realized that others were seeing and discussing my weight gain. That was the beginning of many years of self-consciousness and self-hating regarding my weight and looks.

It is only in the past several years that I have come to accept and like myself and how I look.

I don't think my mom remembers this comment, or has any idea how it affected me.