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Lisa Andradez's avatar

Oh my goodness, I absolutely feel this too!! I have been mulling these thoughts over myself (and in therapy) and wondering why it is I just let myself become someone else, and I am still discovering more things about myself I never even realised, such a journey. So glad that you are figuring it all out too, let's both hope that the dreaded ME doesn't hold us back any more and we can become the fierce and fabulous women we both are!! :)

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Society expects so much of us, expects us to become someone else, markets it so well we think that’s what we need to do, but it’s not true. And I understand we grow all the time, but it really did feel like I was going backwards.

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Lisa Andradez's avatar

Oh absolutely!! I also had the disadvantage of growing up in the church and that definitely had a lot to do with me changing my perception of self, leaving it behind too has brought up a lot more, it's a never ending circle of discovery for me so far!

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

And round and round we go, where we stop nobody knows - but we will be dizzy

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Janey Thompson's avatar

Oh me too with the church thing 🙄

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Kathryn Anna Marshall's avatar

Hard agree here - the sensation of trampling on our teenage selves to fit the mould of adult is overwhelming.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Blooming adulting, it has a lot to answer for

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Laura J. Wellner's avatar

I completely know this and have gone through it. For me, it's been a lifelong struggle to maintain who "I am." I always feared the loss of self and who I wanted to become in spite of the pressure from others from childhood, teenager, and young adult to "get married and have kids" as if that was the only thing that mattered, but I had other ideas, and my ideas were not popular. I was labeled "selfish" for wanting more out of life. I did the expected things as life happens: falling in love, getting married, and "oops," having an unexpected passenger wanting to be born. I fit into all the nooks and crannies of my spare time to write, draw, paint, and read. There were dry spells in my creative efforts. Chronic pain issues and struggling with my being "different" and not fitting in because of undiagnosed neurodiversity, chronic stress, and anxiety whittling away at my well-being right up to the moment I retired. I would suffer from explosive meltdowns during moments of feeling overwhelmed by life duties, mom, wife, work, and creative life. It was an alarming cycle. Retiring from the day job set me free at last, and I have spent the last three years becoming reacquainted with who I have always wanted to be: an artist and a writer. I love my family, my Fred, our son, and me. We're a very close-knit little trio, and we allow one another our space to become who we have wanted to be; we may never be famous or make a lot of money, but we are happy, and we touch the lives of others. I just wish it didn't take so long to get here, but it is what it is, and I'm okay with it.

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

I am so pleased for you, we get there eventually.

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Janey Thompson's avatar

Yep, gabrielle treanor wrote about this spiral too, just a day or two back.

Encouraging to note though that the spiral of awareness is going UPWARDS...each time we come back around, we do so with more knowledge, understanding, compassion (70 in a month, yeah - where DID the years go!)

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Tamsin 🍂's avatar

Not saying that there aren’t steps back along the way, but so far the general progress does appear to be upward. Will go lookout Gabrielle’s post.

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Lisa Bolin 🌸's avatar

Never.

Ending.

Process.

🌀

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