Never the Problem

I am a psychotherapist who has spent a lifetime learning to be myself.

Like many of us, I was raised to be who my parents wanted me to be --  quiet, compliant, a good listener and a cheerful rule follower.

But that wasn’t who I was.

I was creative, curious, emotionally sensitive and smart. 

Way too smart for my own good, as my parents frequently told me. 

I think they meant way too smart for their own good, but you would never say that to a kid.

I actually think my parents were a little scared of me.  I know they were confused.

So they did what parents did back in those days. They told me to stop asking so many questions.

They told me no one liked a know-it-all.

They told me I was too sensitive and blamed me for “ruining everything” when I got too excited or too sad.

This is exactly how you raise clinically depressed children.

At 15 I was told I was mentally ill and sent to my first psychiatrist because I refused to go to the cemetery to invite my dead grandmother to my birthday party.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It took me decades of therapy to understand I was never the problem.

It took me decades of therapy to start crawling out from underneath my parents shame and start reclaiming those qualities that make me who I am, but made them scared and insecure.

Shame gets passed down through families until someone gets educated enough to understand what’s happening and is able to stop it.

Let that someone be us.