Bliss Inside Chaos

It wasn’t considered a very big deal to get spanked or hit as a child in the 80’s. I recently shared in my Nest Community Group that my elementary and middle schools in Texas handed out swats in the principal’s office if you got out of line. I had several friends who were hit or spanked regularly by their parents. No one really talked about it. And at the time, it was considered pretty normal.

My father never hit me again. Instead, threatening me when he got angry by reminding me of the time he did and the terror I felt. I certainly never considered myself an abused child by any definition. I grew up safe, fed, clothed, and well taken care of. Privileged. Popular.

And, like a lot of us living inside homes full of secrets and alcoholism, I also had a fucked up childhood. Experiencing ongoing transgressions that I later recognized as fully traumatic and abusive. All the things that feel normal as the child of a someone with undiagnosed mental health issues, narcissism, and addiction. Each one leaving another mark. At the same time, I had a loving and supportive mother who experienced her own challenges with loving my father. I had a brother I loved and who went through a lot of the same things. I also had amazing opportunity, joy, and beauty. I was deeply loved, encouraged, and celebrated. I excelled and did well. And I struggled internally. It was both/and.

It took decades for me to unravel this ongoing fear-fueled activation as trauma that shaped my personality. My coping mechanisms. And most importantly, my nervous system and sense of safety in the world. This imprinting of fear programmed me. And from the first moment on, I was afraid. Of misbehaving. Of doing it wrong. Of being punished. And on a deeper level, developed a fear of men and becoming an object of their anger.

Naturally, I onboarded the belief that I am bad and there’s something wrong with me and that was why this all happened. I determined that if my own father didn’t have the ability to love me, I must be broken.

As a child, you don’t have the capacity to access compassion. Understanding that perhaps your parent in their early 30s might not have the capacity to parent you in a healthy way. You only have brand new self-awareness and the cognitive processing skills of a kid. So these core wounds we receive in childhood create beliefs that make an impact on our entire life trajectories.

Trauma is not a contest to see who had it worse. And, that incident, and the ongoing stress of being a heart sensitive child inside a dysfunctional, alcoholic, codependent family shaped me into a people pleasing, self-sacrificing, overachieving, codependent girl and woman. Desperate for approval and validation, which I got through performance and sedating myself with reckless abandon because it allowed me to escape the wrongness of being me.

By 22, I was a full blown addict and alcoholic party girl hiding inside the soft, fleshy armor of binge eating and diet culture. I didn’t live in my body, but drank and drugged and fucked my way through life. On the outside, 9/11 and the War on Terror raged in the collective. On the inside, I was at war within myself.

No matter where I looked, fear lived there. Nowhere was safe. It never had been. And so I consumed news and social media. I raged against the machine. I became an activist and experimented with my sexuality and shopped and racked up debt and tried harder. Thinking that if I could just fix all these flaws, I’d be happy. If we could stop the government, I’d be happy. Because happiness was available. If I just found a partner. If I just lost weight. If I just stopped drinking. If I just became lovable.