At the age of three, my Grammy Bear took me for swimming lessons at a YMCA with an indoor pool in Brooklyn. It’s one of my earliest memories. The warm water, the humid air, the paddle boards, my Grammy pacing the wet tile around the pool…holding her breath when I did and watching me find my stride as I went from Guppy to Shark like a natural.
After my family moved to Pennsylvania, we started vacationing on the Outer Banks (OBX) of North Carolina every other year. Twenty or so family and chosen family from one to two weeks, depending on the year, in a huge beachfront house with views that took my breath away. I remember coming out on the top-floor deck early in the mornings to watch pods of dolphins make their way across the waves. Over the years, the ocean became a symbol of peace and power to me.
One vacation, at the age of about 16, and on a particularly rough and choppy day, some of us decided we were going to go in the water even though the lifeguards weren’t out. So, for all intents and purposes, my chosen-family “Aunt” D and three younger cousins waded out, talking and laughing, splashing and playing, not knowing the undertow would pull us far and fast. It was not the smartest thing we’ve ever done and that hubris did not go unpunished. It had put us pretty far out and down from our house, but we seemed to have stabilized and were treading water, rough though it was.
What we hadn’t realized was there was a black flag further down the beach that we didn’t see. Well, not until we were already out in the water. Understanding what had happened, D and I locked eyes and made a plan. I was a strong swimmer and I had youth on my side. I would start by taking my youngest cousin in to shore and D would stay with my other cousins until I came back out for the next one.
By the time I got my second cousin in to shore, I was getting tired. The ocean was a powerful beastie and I was just a girl. But I kept going because what was the alternative?
When I went out to D and one remaining cousin, I expected them both to come in with me, but D wanted me to focus on my cousin and said she’d stay where she was. She was a former member of the Army and had always been a bigger badass than most. I got my last cousin in to shore, caught my breath, and went back out for D. As I was heading out, she saw my final cousin safe on land and had started coming in herself. We met up halfway and came the rest of the way in together.
That night I slept for 18 hours.
See, what I haven’t mentioned yet is that I grew up with a narcissistic parent (nparent). My other parent was their enabler. Parentification, covert incest, financial abuse, emotional manipulation, and neglect. Actual physical issues were rare, though not non-existent. My self-worth depended solely on my nparent’s mood. I grew up walking on eggshells, dreading the slam of the car door, and freezing at the keys jingling in the front door of the house. Nothing I ever did was enough to make me feel worthy in their eyes and so I turned it inward. I ended up with anxiety, depression, body-focused repetitive behaviors, and binge eating disorder, and was ultimately diagnosed with ADHD and cPTSD.
But for one day, something I was inherently good at helped me save people I cared about, and I was proud.
Proud enough to use that miniscule nugget of self-worth as a pinky toe in the door to build myself up over time. Trauma and neurodivergence can sometimes make for a debilitating cocktail, but I found tiny moments of real confidence and used them to do things like move out of my town, get an advanced degree, move across the country to break into tech in Silicon Valley, then back across the country to North Carolina which had become my home, and is where I still am today.
The grief of growth is a funny thing: when you take steps to heal yourself but others don’t, you inevitably end up in different places. It’s been over a decade since I went no contact (NC) with my parents. It’s been a more peaceful existence, but the parental wounds never really go away. Like all grief, you just get better at processing and living life around it.
Fast forward and I am, by all accounts, successful. I am gainfully employed, own my own home and vehicles, have two cats, and am surrounded by friends and family I can rely on. My coping skills are Olympic level – I have more tools in my toolbox than a master craftsman – and I’m a force to be reckoned with. I still have my own struggles, but I want to share what I’ve learned in order to help others lessen their own pain.
We all have worth.
Yes, you too.
My life is an eclectic mosaic of everything I’ve ever seen, heard, felt, and done. And so is yours.
You just need to find the imperceptible places within you that you can be proud of and use them wisely. Use them to build a life worth living. Use them to know yourself better. To know how to work with yourself rather than against yourself.