Who am I?

Who am I? Difficult question. Telling my story is why I need this blog. Let’s start at the beginning, I guess. I was born at Edwards Air Force Base but I don’t remember living there. I am not from anywhere. We moved every couple of years or so. My parents live in their home town in California where they both grew up. I remember visiting grandparents there, but I never lived there, and don’t know the place well enough to find my way around without help (electronic or otherwise). When I was eleven years old we moved overseas, then a couple more places in the U.S. I always wanted to belong somewhere, but I was only one of those Air Force brats, and that was how I thought of myself. I didn’t think that anybody really knew that I was there. I might not have been entirely right about that, but that feeling of invisibility is a major theme throughout my life.

I was the quiet kid in the corner, not usually bothering anybody. I always knew that I didn’t belong. Sometimes I was bullied. A lot of the time I just withdrew and went away somewhere in my own head. I had a few friends, but I knew that it would never last. I had a best friend once, or I thought that I did. She made me feel safe from the bullies. I still remember when her birthday is. Then we moved again when I was nine years old, and I stopped trying. I was scared, and I was sad. If I met someone they could be a bully, or they could not care about me at all, or they could be someone that I would have to leave after starting to connect with them, and maybe that was what I feared the most, because that really hurt.

Did anybody notice? Maybe they did, but I didn’t really trust them, and I also didn’t know how to tell my story. I cried sometimes. Mostly, I shut down. I remember writing a letter to the best friend that I left behind when I was nine, telling her that all the color had gone out of my world. I think that she replied that time, but she was nine too, and I don’t think she knew what to do. I lost track of her when we moved again.

I remember having aunts and uncles and grandparents. I was the oldest of six children. My parents were each the oldest of five. When I was eleven and we moved to Spain, most of my cousins were not born yet. I remember some of them as little kids, and most of my family must remember me the same way. I don’t belong to my own family. They don’t know who I became, and there is not room for me in their lives, or maybe I don’t know how to ask if there is a place for me in their lives.

My parents were never ready for me to grow up or for me to “become.” Childhood is all about “becoming.” I wanted to. It was never convenient, or it was just too hard. I really wanted to have a birthday party when I turned eight, but dad was stationed overseas and mom really had her hands full with almost five kids by then, and not living close enough to family for them to help. In the spirit of fairness, since I didn’t get a birthday party that year or any other year, none of my siblings ever got one either. Not the kind where you could invite your friends. We didn’t know how to have a party. My parents didn’t have time for driving to activities and things, and there wasn’t money for music lessons or clubs or activities anyway, but even if the resources had been there for developing individual interests and attachments, we were only in any place temporarily, and it just wasn’t worth it to get started only to get uprooted again.

This was the story that I told myself. Looking back now, there were a few exceptions, but somehow it didn’t ever “count.” I did have a few friends at school or friends at church, and I did get attached to people, but I always knew that it was temporary, while hoping that it would last, and I never believed that I meant anything to them, especially since we were all just there as long as our families were stationed there. It wasn’t real life, just temporary stations because we were mostly all from military families and we weren’t allowed to sit anyplace long enough to grow roots. All of my childhood was lived that way. No roots allowed.

When I was thirteen we moved back to the U.S. Between sixth grade and eighth grade I went to four different schools in two different countries and two different U.S. states. And I had learned that life in any given place was only temporary and we didn’t ever belong and we could be leaving again at any time. But my parents bought a house for the first time in Austin, Texas, and we lived off base, among people who had lived there for their whole lives. I wanted to belong. We ended up staying there until I graduated from high school, even though the whole time, especially through my senior year, we were expecting a transfer at any time. I begged to be allowed to stay in Texas to finish my senior year but was told that if we got transferred, no matter when it was, I would be going along to wherever was next. That shadow and insecurity were salient even during the time of the most stability I had ever had. I had no ability to plan for any future because I had internalized that I had no choice or control and life was unpredictable. By graduation, we knew that we were moving again. Someone at school asked me for a permanent address so that they could find me for future reunions, and I couldn’t even understand the question.

Once I get started telling my life story, I get sucked in by all the memories and especially the emotions that I didn’t know how to make sense of back then. I want to keep going, but if I do, I will be here for hours or days, and it will probably be more than what you want to read all at once, so I am going to try to leave it here for now and write more soon.

Let’s refocus here on why I am writing this blog. I want to tell my story. I still have this leftover need to be seen and heard and understood. I always thought that I was essentially invisible. I felt that I didn’t matter. And not being understood, not even understanding myself for most of my life, has had a significant impact on my life. For one thing, since I didn’t even really know myself, how could anyone else actually know or understand me? I understand myself better now than I used to, but still have the need for connection and belonging. One thing that I hope for in writing this is for my family to be able to know who I am, especially my children, because I was invisible when they were growing up too, and that has affected them too.

And I have also realized that my story is not only my story. There are other people who are like me, who feel invisible. And when you feel invisible, it is very hard to get your needs met. If you don’t think that anyone cares, and you think that your prime directive is to never bother anybody, how can you ever belong to a community or family, or connect, or ask for what you need?

As a society, we tend to focus on the kids who are acting out, getting into trouble, and causing problems. Not the quiet one in the corner. And we need to notice that quiet kid in the corner. We need to see that child, and we need to reach out and listen and not assume that they are okay or that someone else will take care of them. Be present. Be interested. Be available. Make a connection. That is what all kids need. We all needed to matter, and we needed to know that we mattered. We still do.

And I want to share resources here. I want to help others to heal. I plan to tell you about some of the books that I have read and the ideas that have helped me to figure some of this out for myself that might help you too.

Where I am now in life, I am a licensed mental health therapist. That was a long road too, and I plan to share the story of how I got here. Connecting with my clients and being able to help them with the stuff that keeps them from being able to live their best lives has become one of the most meaningful things in my life. I am not the right therapist for everyone, and this blog is not intended to take the place of professional treatment for any mental or physical health concern. But I think that this may help me to be able to reach more people and make a difference and make the world a better place.

I plan to write about a variety of topics here, and not everyone is going to agree with me or even want to hear all of what I have to say, and that is fine. I will try to use tags so that you can choose what you want to read and what you don’t. If you leave comments, I am okay with discussing things with you even if you disagree, but I will ask you to be kind to me and to others. This writing is going to touch on things that are very sensitive to me. Connection can’t happen without some vulnerability, and I have already shared some of my vulnerability. There will be more vulnerability. Let’s keep this positive and supportive. Vulnerability is a strength too. Courage is not an absence of fear, but rather the willingness to face what you fear even when you are scared.