This one may be a heavy read, but know that I am writing from gratitude; for being able to process my life and express it in this way.
TW: I share my experience with domestic violence and suicidal ideation.
✧ Fragment ✧
My earliest memories are not of play and wonder, but of purpose and work. My identity formed in chaotic homes where interpersonal fires had to be put out. As the first born I was given that role to fulfill—and I felt capable in doing so.
Eventually I grew tired of this role within my family and decided to step away, but carried this transferable skill over to other areas of my life, friendships, and other relationships. My high tolerance and non-judgement for people’s own emotional turmoil and confusion around whatever they were experiencing was an asset I was not only proud of, but became known for, further cementing my identity.
Now, in my fourth decade of life, this identity doesn’t feel like one I relate to anymore, however well it served me and the people in my life. Just like a job sustains you and teaches skills, what I learned in this role has given me a lot that will stay with me.
However, before I can forge a new identity, this me has to disappear.
Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment chop wood, carry water.
What triggered this?
It’s not one single incident, but a cascade of events. For years I have tried to build a career in various industries. From the elusive career of filmmaking, to the more grounded business of running a cafe and many related and unrelated jobs in between. Each one lacked providing me with either, or both, the financial stability needed to survive and/or the internal drive needed to keep going. To keep going, most people I know only need financial support from a job and get their internal drive elsewhere. No matter how many ways I tried that wasn’t my reality. Once I felt the drive whither I had to leave because I could no longer perform.
This pattern repeats itself over and over in various areas and relationships in my life. I show up ready to commit and perform my role, something from within takes the wind out of the sail.
So tracing this pattern as far back as I can go, it has become obvious to me that the role I accepted so early in life, could be the subconscious cause of my inability to stay motivated, lose energy, choose certain relationships, jobs, and be unable to keep going in the same ways that I notice others doing the very same things. This isn’t coming from a place of comparison, rather, it’s acknowledging that my erratic rhythms are in part caused by building on top of a false self. Meaning, my foundational motivator for doing anything was misaligned with who I am.
Below I detail the highlight events in my life that brought me to this realization.
The Loop
At 7 years old I remember wanting to end my life. I felt too much pain both physically and emotionally. I witnessed domestic abuse and experienced it. And after the worst was both said and done, I was expected to repair the damages. I was led to believe that if we could just understand the problem we could solve it. Attuned to my caregiver’s emotional world I learned how to, what we now call, hold space. Space for their questions like, why doesn’t she care? why did he do that, why did she say that? What should I do/not do? How can I change? Can they change? I answered these questions on loop in hundreds of different ways to the best of my ability. For some reason I felt called to it, but I also thought if I can answer these riddles and say the right thing one day, then they will stop being so upset and I won’t be their punching bag anymore.
Rage, regret, repeat. I dragged an anchor in my chest that hurt more than the bruises or red cheeks. I had only learned how to comfort them, but the loop continued on. I couldn’t stop their rage, so I fantasized about their death. Sometimes I would imagine being the cause of it, but even with all the hurt inside me I couldn’t carry that out. I thought about leaving home, but being new to the country and having no place to go except the streets, I couldn’t act on that plan either.
Then one day while I was being disciplined, the pain in my chest growing, a thought came to me. Almost as a whisper, from a voice that wasn't my own.
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"You don't have to hurt anymore". And it showed me how. I closed my eyes in midst of the barrage and felt a simple switch inside me. I still remember it clicking into place. The switch that closed my heart.
I didn't consider how to open it, or if I could at all. 8 year old me wasn’t worried about that in the moment. I gained a superpower. It didn’t hurt anymore. My chest would no longer make me crumble from within, and I could take anything. I got better at crying less, which was the usual command after a beating.
Those early years—into my teens, I learned it doesn't matter what you tell someone. We don’t change from an intellectual place, we loop. That wisdom, paired with my superpower, I withdrew from behaving like the family therapist.
For the first time I gave myself space to begin to separate myself from my authority figures—not feel so confined by their power over me, but a different problem quietly took their place. I was unable to feel anything at all. My defence kept me alive, but I couldn't feel alive. I had separated myself from myself. And their power over me became less physical, more psychological. Surveillance and control became their superpower.
I wasn’t aware of their eyes in real time. Anytime they wanted to confront me for anything they may have “suspected”, they would ask open ended questions circling a topic of interest, or even say they had a dream about certain situations to get me to share whatever it was they wanted to protect me from. I later learned that these weren’t premonitions, but would involve monitoring my computer activity and physically following me when possible.
This went on until 21, when I experienced what can be best described as a humiliation ritual. I had met someone and started to develop a romantic connection. One day I was confronted with a printed transcript of my conversation between me and this person. I was then asked to read it out loud in front of everyone including my siblings. This was a conversation meant to be private between two people growing closer—and to not only be exposed for it, but shamed for, caused a dramatic shift in my relationship with them.
I left home shortly after that incident. For the first time I had hope to create a life on my terms, free from the chaos of my past. Together with the same person I met earlier we moved into a humble basement apartment. We laughed, cried, dreamed, we had both escaped pasts we felt trapped by. Until the past caught up to us and she threatened to kill herself. She felt betrayed because I drew a line when she wanted to control my life. I attracted someone who needed more than I could give. The behaviour surprised me because she knew about my past with control and surveillance.
I had forgot, it doesn’t matter what you tell someone. Patterns run deeper than thought.
✧✧✧
When I was 9, on vacation in Pakistan, I watched a close family relative lock herself in the kitchen and pour cooking oil over herself because she felt trapped in her marriage with an alcoholic abusive husband. She was stopped, but that stayed with me, I could connect with her desire.
It was this moment, and a variety of others that brought me to decide I never want to be the kind of person who is a source of pain for others. So I did what I knew best. I adopted the role of someone who added to the world what I didn't see; understanding, non-judgement, kindness, and willingness to listen to voices that are suppressed.
✧✧✧
So when I was in front of someone who bled because I couldn’t numb her pain, despite doing everything I could to support them, short of losing myself—it became clear to me that I wasn’t out of the loop…
Where to go from here. I thought there was a sense of purpose in this version of me. Useful. Helpful. The change I wanted to see. It took 11 years from that day to really understand how I managed to be involved in the very thing I had hoped to alleviate.
We ended our relationship, and I decided to focus on my career. This is when I changed jobs on average every 6 months, either on my own accord, or being let go. My film career hit a dead end. I didn’t make much of it. I just thought I had to find the “right job” and as ambitious as I was, I knew getting ahead in film is a long game so I wasn’t worried that I was having career turbulence at 25.
I knew I picked a rocky road. I could rationalize any worry away.
It’s in the last 6 years where I started to wake up to the thread that runs through it all. Close people cut me out of their life without explanation or dramatic fall out, both friends and romantic interests. I was lost, confused, and felt disconnected from people I felt were a core part of my life. All this resurfaced suicidal thoughts, just like when I was 7. I thought I had grown out of it.
Rock bottom, 2019. I landed a job at a local cafe, one I had frequented for years and been one of its first customers. I was hired immediately upon asking if they’re looking for someone. It felt like a special moment for me. Moments before I was crying and in the next, I had at a second chance at life from a place I had a personal connection with. I enjoyed the work, the social nature of the environment being friendly and welcoming to customers. I finally found a place where I could put my kindness to use in a way that felt real. 2022, I became the owner of the cafe. My life was building back up. I felt a sense of direction in my life, and purpose in my work.
This cafe practically saved my life, so naturally I felt motivated to continue this work because it provided me with the personal meaning that was missing from the jobs I left in the past. However, a cafe doesn’t operate just on personal meaning. It requires around the clock work and I didn’t know I was running on fumes of my past. So when the day came and I burned out from the cafe, a job I actually wanted to do, I was back to being lost and confused. And like clockwork, the suicidal ideation returned.
I said to myself things like, “Everyone runs into business issues. I should be able to get through them without wanting to die.” “I thought I was over this, why is it back?”
I remembered, it doesn’t matter what you tell someone.
And I had been telling myself a bunch of shit for a long time, and something deeper was running the show that became obvious.
I didn’t know who I was when I’m not helping someone.
⇅I was motivated when it activated my deep rooted identity of helping others.
⇅I had closed off my feelings to survive, so I felt alive by attuning to other’s needs.
⇅Which led to a codependent romantic partner.
⇅My cafe business was a symbol of hope, not grounded in my needs.
⇅When I couldn’t feel my “purpose” being fulfilled through others, I disengaged.
⇅I didn’t know who I was when I’m not helping someone.
I was in a loop entrained in my bones decades ago.
Wanting to die started as a reaction to feeling trapped as a child. As an adult, I wanted to die after building a life I felt trapped in because it was never built on who I was. And I didn’t know who I was because I had shut off my own feelings. So the only time it became apparent to me something was wrong is when I wanted to die.
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So when I give myself
permission to disappear,
it is to the voice that showed me
how to survive. It can finally rest.
So I can meet the 8 year old boy who
learned to hide from the world so
well, even I couldn’t find him.
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