I have found times in life when you have to start walking through the past to be able to better your future. Whether it be trauma, Life events, or even after a rough day, reflection can sometimes help with growth and realization. I myself have had to do it a few times over the past few years, because I believe the past can teach us moments so we can grow to be better people. I wish on some of those walks I had paid more attention, I feel like I would have learned to be better long before those moments came back to bite me.
Typically, am a person that tends to be called “Too Much”. Feeling too much and to deeply, can be observed as being overly sensitive or fragile. Overreacting can be perceived as argumentative. Seeming to talk too much because I feel like I have to over explain myself to make sure that I’m not misunderstood. Though these “Too Much” topics tend to come from trauma, I also never understood why they were perceived as being a bad thing. Sure I talk a lot, but at least anyone can understand what I am saying and fully where I am coming from. I wear my heart on my sleeve and am not afraid to show that I feel emotions more thoroughly then others, but at least people know that I am feeling anything at all. I may be reactive and tend to come across as argumentative, but at least I am asking questions or expressing different opinions instead of going with the crowd and agreeing for the sake of doing so.
Not everyone sees aspects from that point of view and I can respect that. But all together those feelings can tend to become a problem if they aren’t kept in check. Especially if you are constantly doing them to the same people over and over again. It can become suffocating and almost intolerable. I wanted to know why I was like that. Why I felt those feelings, reacted in those ways, and the best way that I could do that, was taking a trip through the past. Taking some self reflection. And needless to say, there were ways I could have learned if I had paid attention more on my last few walks. I’m not saying that I haven’t learned from those walks before, because I have. But I was typically seemed to pay attention to what I wanted to learn, not what I needed to learn.
One of the moments that had popped up in more recent times, was how I could be overly doting and would coddle. Toward my child is one thing, she’s a baby and there is nothing wrong with being overly loving and motherly, given how young she is it makes sense. But it can be a problem when I am doing it to full-grown adults. They don’t need to be mothered like that, they had that growing up and don’t need it into adulthood. It wasn’t all the time either, specifically when certain conversations or topics applied. Tough conversations that most people find uncomfortable and tend to need to go through to grow. But instead of sitting and having a tough conversation, I would get overly upset and turn to extreme care. Practically to the point of suffocating because of being the easier way out, plus, that was what my brain told me to do. But why?
I decided to take one of those walks down memory lane, to go back to my childhood. There I found memories that were normal, happy, and good. I found care and support. Until I got to my teenage years. Don’t get me wrong, my parents were great parents. They still are, and are even better grandparents. But I discovered something hidden in the past that I never fully focused on before. I was what would be called a “Good Kid”. The statement was expressed often by my parents and by other adults. I did my school work, helped when asked and more often then not even when I wasn’t. Likewise, I did the tasks that normal teenagers did as well, but with an older brother that loved to test boundaries and lash out, and an infant younger brother, my parents constantly had their hands full. I kept my head down, did what I was instructed or what I thought was needed of me, and skated through the years. But that led to my own downfall for a while.
Because I was so good, and considered “The One that didn’t have to be worried about”, I felt like it would be harder to speak up when I did have a problem. When I was hurting and needed to be worried about. I didn’t want to break my parents’ perception of me, because in my head it would mean that I was becoming a burden. I didn’t want to be one more thing that they had to worry about when they already had so much on their plates. I realize now, that way of thinking isn’t good for anyone. It denied me help that I needed, and denied my parents from knowing what was actually going through their daughters head. I had ups and downs in high school, heart break, ending friendships, feeling like I wasn’t good enough, while also feeling jealous because of the new baby. My parents did give each one of us their attention, but I felt like I had gotten lost in the crowd. Over time of dealing with those thoughts and other typical teenager aspects, I ended up getting depressed, but didn’t want to talk about it at risk of being another thing that my parents had to worry about. In turn, I resorted to the worst possible thing. Self harm, and even worse, hiding it.
I got good at the hiding it part. I was an active teen that loved to be out in nature. Constantly took walks in the woods by my house, helped in our expansive garden, ran around and rough housed with friends. On top of that I was also a natural klutz. Always had bruises from walking into corners, smacking or scraping limbs on furniture or slipping while trying to trim plants. When I would self harm, I would do it while out of the house, that way when I got back home, it became easier to lie about how it had happened. No witnesses so who was to say I was lying. Plus I would do it in ways that resembled wounds from being a klutz. “I slipped off the dirt path and fell in brambles”, “I was trimming the rose bushes and some thorns must have caught me”. Being “the good kid that didn’t have to be worried about” my parents never questioned me. Never thought that I would lie right to their faces. Because of that, they didn’t look past the surface. I don’t blame them, never have. I was the one that didn’t want to hurt them or add on to their worries. But in doing so, I also didn’t get the attention and care that I needed.
Walking through those memories, I realized something. By lying and hiding, I denied myself what I needed most in those times. Love and understanding. Fast-forward to being an adult, it clicked, why when people would talk about being low or not in the right headspace, I would coddle them or smother them with affection. I was giving them what I had wanted back then, because I felt like that’s also what they wanted, not paying attention to what each individual person actually needed. Not everyone needs extreme affection when they talk about their low times. Sometimes people need someone to sit with them in the dark and talk with them. Let them get thoughts off their chest instead of being instantly smothered without being able to express anything. And I had overlooked it. Despite what happened to me when I was younger, I went to the opposite extreme and still ended up doing the same thing, ignoring others needs. People stopped talking to me about those topics, and in turn ended up hurting themselves because they didn’t want to hurt me. Which wasn’t fair to them at all. By over reacting, by over feeling, by being “Too Much”, I ended up making those people feel like they were a burden and made them feel like they couldn’t express themselves. Different start to what I went through, but still had the same result.
If I had paid attention on my past walks down memory lane, I might have realized this sooner. It took someone close telling me that they couldn’t talk to me anymore about sensitive or emotional topics, because of the “Too Much” aspect, to realize what I had missed. I had been hurting them for a long time by overlooking what they needed and forcing on them what I thought they wanted, in turn becoming the burden I never wanted to be. This made situations unfair for both sides, which was never my intention. I want to be better, to help my loved ones, so I can actually have the hard discussions. To be someone that people can come to with their problems and know that they are being listened to. That being stated, I will keep having these walks through the past. To understand myself better, to be a better listener, and in turn to be a better person as a whole.
A Day in the Life 