She said, “I have noticed growth in you. You have grown a lot since we first met. It’s not always communicated, but I think it’s important its acknowledged”. Those few sentences my sister-in-law spoke to me, carried so much weight, more weight than she could have possibly realized.

Several months prior I had told my counselor how frustrating and discouraging it was that no one saw. Through all the hard work, growth, self-awareness, vulnerability, unexpected and unfamiliar crying that came, it felt like no one understood or noticed. No one saw the changes I had made through countless hours of therapy, reflection, and desperate prayers to God for healing. It felt unjust that I continued to be pigeonholed into this snapshot of my old self, a part of my pre-therapy self that I could barely recognize anymore. I was told last summer, that after a change or growth takes place in an individual, it takes another two years for people around that person to begin to notice and see that individual for who they are in the present, not who they were in the past. I guess I should be encouraged considering I have been in therapy for almost 2 years now. People should start seeing this healthier me soon, right?

Let me clarify what this post is not: It is not a cry for sympathy. It is not a hint at those in my life to acknowledge my growth more, although if it’s genuine I would not deny it. It is not a complaint on how overlooked and lonely we can be through our process of growth, although I have found at times for that to be very true.

This post is about the witness and self-acknowledgement that I have, in fact, changed. I have fought hard, through many disappointments, tears, layers of self-protection and preservation, through old wounds, things I had forgotten and things I wish I could forget. My sister in law was one of the last people I would have assumed would notice. I assumed this mostly because we live a state apart, but also because our relationship has not always been easy. I especially was not expecting her to communicate to me that she had noticed. I was completely taken off guard, and I could barely control the tears that welled up behind my eyes as I held my breath listening to her words. I did not cry in front of her, I guess a sign I still need to work on letting myself feel my emotions. I did cry, later. I cried when I was alone. I have cried when I told this story to my husband and when I have told this story to a few close friends. I am crying now typing this. She actually saw me.

Most of my life I have hidden my desire for the approval of others. Although I deeply desire mostly to be seen by those around me, I would never admit that as a need. It felt weak, exposed, and vulnerable to disapproval. What if I wasn’t enough?

I spent a good part of 2019 admitting that I carried deep wounds for not feeling heard or seen by anyone in my life, for as long as I can remember. That may seem like it came from pride, and I will admit a piece of it did, but most of it came from a place of pure self-protection. I was afraid, afraid of being overlooked, misunderstood, taken advantage of, having my expression of a need thrown back as something undesirable. I also had many experiences to reinforce this lie that had planted itself in me from a very young age. I would never give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that I constantly felt alone and insignificant. I got so good at masking my pain to others, at some point I began to mask it to myself.

Thank God for a skilled, but more importantly, patient therapist, who slowly chipped away at all the walls I had built to protect myself. What I have found is that it is true, people do not see the real me, because I have not even allowed myself to see the real me. My true self, has been buried under layers and layers of defense mechanisms that have always served as protection and at the same time kept me from being known by others and honestly even knowing parts of myself. When I told my therapist about the conversation with my sister-in-law and more importantly the deep impact it had, I again cried. Then I told her half joking I was convinced she had broken me with how much I cried now. Apparently sitting on that couch almost every week for the past 2 years was working.

I have spent the past two years unveiling myself, many times it felt like I was unraveling. Healing is hard work. It’s hard to grow and learn new things about yourself, it is a process that is mostly internal and cannot always be communicated to the people around you. It is a process of revealing, peeling through each layer. The process at first is small new discoveries, that are significant to you but hard to explain to those around you. It’s feels a lot like showing someone a piece of your favorite puzzle you have made a dozen times. You know that once it’s assembled with all the other pieces it will create a beautiful picture, but all they can see are the individual pieces that seem disconnected and insignificant.

As I have healed and grown I have also had a growing desire for people to see these parts of me, to see the whole me. So many of these parts explain the undesirable parts of me. Some of these hidden parts soften some of my very sharp edges.

For anyone who has ever spent any time with toddlers I liken it to the very frustrating experience of the years between 1-3 where words are forming and yet many times communication is so unclear. Toddlers are learning at such a rapid rate daily, yet for many toddlers, their brains are learning and beginning to understand more than their mouths can find words for. They have learned that they need to use their voice to advocate for their needs, but many times they do not have the vocabulary developed to express all that their little bodies are experiencing and feeling in the world around them. It is not abnormal for toddlers, in their frustration of their communication barriers, to yell, throw things, and even bite in an effort to be seen, heard, and understood. We, the adults, are at a loss many times to figure out what these little humans are trying to share with us.

When my son was around 18 months old, he began demanding “monchichis.” Any of you who are parents can probably relate to your bewilderment, humor and eventually sheer exhaustion of trying to decipher what in the world a “monchichi” is, or whatever bizarre word your kid has fastened to something. It took us months, and the involvement of several adults, before we could decode what he meant. He would become so frustrated, and at times angry with us, for not understanding what “monchichis” were. How silly of us not to know? Finally, I believe it was my mother who discovered that “monchichis” was Mac N Cheese. Of course!

For the past year I have felt similar frustration to my son. I have so much I want to share, show, make known, and allow others to see, but I have not had all the tools together to do that well. I feel like a toddler without the words, thankfully I haven’t bite anyone! As I have discovered more about myself, I have not always known how to show that part of me. As I have continued to grow I have learned more how to reveal those parts, but it has been a frustrating process, one where many times I am misunderstood. It can be even harder as an adult to live in a healthier place because people tend to interact with you based on past experiences or preconceived ideas of you. This is many times unintentional, it is just human nature. I have told friends I just need a t-shirt made that says, “I am a different person, please excuse me past behavior. Meet the new me.”

My husband has been the most patient person through all this. He has sat through hours of me babbling pieces of my counseling sessions to him, trying to re-explain some deep discovery about myself I have had. He rarely has context and yet courageously listens and attempts to understand this great discovery I have had on my quest to be a healthier version of myself. How do you explain to someone a deep wound you have been carrying around since childhood? How do you explain, in a now fully functioning adult brain, the impact an event had to a 6 year old girl? How do you explain to someone the very thing that you have used as a weapon in a fight is a protector, a means to survival, which you deeply needed for so many years and yet despise, that now, at times, it seems to control you? How do you express emotions when you’re not even sure what you are feeling or why you are feeling that way? How do you let someone see you? How do you know that you are actually healing when you feel it internally and yet it feels like no one seems to notice externally? How do you not fall into hopelessness when your desire is to be seen and heard and yet it feels like no one does, despite all your effort to grow in vulnerability?

I have felt trapped between my old self and new. Trapped between what I knew what true, I had grown, I was healing, and yet continuing to have others interact with me as if I was the version of my old self.

Then suddenly, unexpectedly, in my sister-in-law’s kitchen, I was seen. In the most unsuspecting place on New Year’s day, something I did not even realize I wanted so deeply until that moment was given. She had little idea in that moment the impact that conversation had on me. She had little idea how much this need to be seen and heard was a topic of my therapy. She had no idea that her confirmation of my change may have fueled me to continue this healing through 2020.

If you feel unseen, unheard, unknown you are not alone. If you feel unseen, unheard, unknown don’t stop fighting to be. If you are in the midst of healing, keep going. It is hard and lonely at times, but growth cannot go unnoticed forever and it may come in the most unexpected ways, from the most unexpected people and it’s worth it.

I think my therapist broke me...

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