Deconstructing Sally...

What happens when we are taught very young to adjust and modify our world for those around us? From the very time we are capable of understanding, we are conditioned. If you are hit often enough, you learn to stop crying. If you have an ill and violent parent, you might hide in the closet and create imaginary friends, learning that your own needs are to be suppressed. When you can do nothing correctly, you learn to walk on eggshells, barely breathing... no ripples in the water, creating no disturbances. You learn that who you are, want and will become doesn't matter... all that matters is keeping the peace, going with the flow...

This is the most destructive thing I believe a child can learn. It is the very foundation for why I lead at minimum two lives on a regular basis. My day to day life, a successful professional one, wherein I am the sole breadwinner and a logical problem solver in a majorly male dominated industry, and other(s) made up of all the fragments of myself that I can't express. I am not mentally ill; I have sought counseling and treatment, and while I suffer from diagnosed chronic depression and PTSD, do not have a mental disorder. These are not "multiple personalities" in any medical sense, but instead carefully constructed "other selves", where specific desires, wants and pieces of me are revealed.

Now there are times where this is necessary as an adult for survival... take as example a "work" persona and a "personal" persona. In a perfect world, it wouldn't matter what my husband does for a living, or if I believe in God, or 100 other things... but in the Bible belt, in tight communities, it may mean business success or failure. So in some small way, this is not only accepted but expected.

But what kind of damage has to be done to someone to feel so uncomfortable in their own skin that they can't look themselves in the mirror? Can't make eye contact with someone who says they love them utterly and truly and express the simplest needs?