It took me a very long time to understand the concept “Your home is you”. I would always look for home in everyone and everything else. I guess that might be more common than we’d like to admit, it’s scary to be completely on our own with no safety net. It’s all a matter of perspective I guess. It can terrify you or it can be your solace. I’ve experienced both emotions towards it. I know what it feels like to feel that if I made one wrong move, or messed up just a little, my life would crumble. That I would have no one there I could trust to catch me if I fell. I’d have to always be the one to catch myself. And for a long time that was a very difficult concept for me to accept. I don’t know if it was a lack of confidence, or just having been through something traumatic where I did need help and was made to feel like a burden. It took me awhile to realize that I could do it. That I was safe with myself. I’d always come through. If I could trust no one else in the world I could trust myself. I just had to learn how to stop abandoning myself to please everyone else.
When I was in the hospital for my breakdown the only person I could call was my mom. And I remember her telling me while I was in there I was going to lose my son. That I better get my shit together. Saying things that weren’t helpful. I remember someone I befriended in there noticed and said something along the lines of, “You and your moms relationship is complicated, huh”? It was just normal to me. At that time, I didn’t even realize her behavior wasn’t supportive. As soon as I was released after 12 days, the first phone conversation with my mom consisted of her telling me how hard my stay was for her. She told me that my sister was happy I was locked away in the hospital. This inevitably made me feel worse. I’m sure it didn’t help as I spiraled into the worst depression I’ve ever felt in my life.
Now I never, ever, ever ask for help. Ever. My son is almost 16 and I’ve never asked anyone to babysit without compensation. I’ve never had support or a free ride. I’ve never expected anything to be given to me in this life. I learned to not ask for anything from anyone. My mom has been traveling the world with her husband since I can remember. And that’s ok with me, she deserves it. Go have fun. But when I started work back up and I was on all this medication I couldn’t shake the constant thoughts of killing myself. It was as soon as I woke up until I went to bed. And I had my son 24/7. It was difficult for me to go grocery shopping, it was difficult for me to work. Hell, it was difficult for me to shower. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I had never felt like this before. I knew I needed help. So I texted my mom and I asked her if she could come. And to my surprise she did.
For the first few days it was fine, but I could tell she was getting ancy. She would ask me, “What is really that bad, you just have to start with the little things”. She would talk about all the awful things she had been through in her life. She even invited my friend over when I could barely keep my eyes open. But I was grateful for the company at the time. It was as if I was in physical pain from the mental torment. And as the days passed, she was getting real sick of my shit. Why couldn’t I snap out of it? It was in these moments that I realized how much I always catered to her. And how I just didn’t have it in me anymore. And that she never had it in her to care for me in the way I needed her to.
Towards the end of her stay something happened that kickstarted something in me. I sat on the couch next to her, and I said, “I’m nervous for you to leave. I know you have to go, but I’m nervous. I just feel so awful”. And it was true. At the time I was just scared that when she left I would feel the same way I did before she came. But her response back to me did something to me. It was so unexpected. She said angrily, “Well I guess I just have to leave my husband and come take care of you”. There’s a tone in the way she said this that I can’t explain through text. But its a tone I’ve heard before. And it’s like it jolted me awake, reminded me I was on my own.
From that moment forward, unbeknownst to her our relationship was never the same. I also never went back to being the person I was before she came to “help” me recover from the deepest depression I’ve ever felt. That was over a year ago now. It’s amazing how much progress I’ve made. How little her and I now speak. How free I feel to not worry about what she thinks.
Finally, for the first time in my life my home is me.
The Girl Without A Face 