Birthing ME

Learning who you are at any age

I was recently reminded that you become a mother the second that you become pregnant and what many of us don't realize is how badly we need to learn to mother ourselves long before we conceive our children. 

Far too many of us experience neglectful childhoods filled with emotional, psychological, physical and sexual abuse as a result of being raised by narcissistic mothers and absent or avoidant fathers. This severely alters our perception of what's normal and how we should be treated which deeply affects how we show up in the world later in life. My childhood was far from perfect, although it was made to look perfect from the outside. We lived in a perfect little house that was always clean and put together. I had a mom and a dad who stayed together and an older brother 5 years my senior. I was only 3 years old when my molestations began, which resulted in my innocence and purity being stolen. The molestations continued throughout my childhood and into my pre-teen years. Because of those experiences, my body never felt like mine. It felt foreign, unsafe and as though it belonged to someone else. This resulted in me becoming extremely envious of other little girls who were free-spirited and fully themselves. I was very jealous of what seemed like their 'freedom' to be themselves and experience joy in their bodies. As I reflect, I have a certain memory that's always highlighted. I was 6 years old and at some type of event with my family where there was a little girl my age twirling, spinning, dancing, laughing and being fully in-joy. I hid behind my mom, feeling too shy to go and join her and being extremely envious and jealous of her. I remember studying her, her movements, expression, outfit and everything about her. She was the first girl of many throughout my life that I copied down to recreate her outfit. I've done this countless times throughout my life to many females: friends, strangers, characters from movies and TV shows. I would study their mannerisms, likes, dislikes, the way they spoke, carried themselves, acted and dressed. I would copy others because I had no idea who I was and didn't feel safe to be myself. I never allowed myself the opportunity to figure out who I was, which really saddens me as a 35 year old. I was very insecure, constantly comparing myself to others. I was shy but also entitled, spoiled and very emotionally charged. I copied others who I saw had already been accepted for being themselves as this is what felt safe for me. Compare and compete became the underlying motto and I held a contradicting belief that I was better than everyone and had a lot of arrogance but also never felt good enough. So I was better than you even though I was pretending to be you and I felt not good enough because I was so insecure not ever letting myself get to know who I actually was. I had a belief that you should get attention wherever you can. I remember being out walking at the age of 13 in a short skirt and a little spaghetti strap tank top and counting how many times I was getting honked at by cars and hollered at by construction workers liking getting that type of attention. Any type of attention. Not realizing just how sick or off it was that I was a young girl getting attention from grown men.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time observing my mother. She was beautiful and always perfectly put together with her hair done, minimal makeup on and always dressed in nice clothing. Our house was perfectly curated with everything always in its place. It truly was the perfect illusion. If everything on the outside looked perfect, would anyone question what's on the inside? A mentality that I later adopted for myself. "That's not very lady-like", was used against my inner rule breaker/rebellion spirit on countless occasions as my mother focused very heavily on what I looked like. She would always compliment me on how pretty I was, and I learned later that this was something she had always wanted to hear from her own mother, which is why she said it to me so often. I always felt an air of jealousy and control from my mother. She would comment about my body, my bust size, what I wore, what I looked like and would even physically pull my top-up if my chevage was showing too much, which lets be honest, it always was, since that's where I got a lot of my self-worth from. She controlled what I wore by only buying me clothes that she liked and approved of and would constantly ask "is that what you're wearing" before I would leave the house or tell me to go change because she wasn't going anywhere with me looking like that. We fought a lot, and it always felt like I was fighting with a big sister who was jealous of me instead of a mother which enraged me as a pre-teen/teenager. She was never able too truly see that I was not only her little girl but a version of ‘her little girl’ her inner child. This first female-female relationship very much impacted my view on myself and my relationships with other females. Jealous, constantly comparing, judgemental. I was always very jealous of other mother-daughter relationships, deeply wishing mine to be different (I know she did too) but never knowing how to make that shift happen. A lot of responsibility was put on my mom, and she had her hands very full where my dad and brother were both physically there but not emotionally or mentally, never really offering much of themselves. It all felt very much like an illusion to me growing up. 

Who is Erica? What version of Erica would you have gotten? Well, that would likely depend on who you were and when or where we met. 

As I've observed others for most of my life, I can see that I'm not the only one who has done this/ does this. This is a pandemic in itself; women copying other women and stealing from each other. The copy cat or copy and paste. Who's most accepted, liked, admired, successful? Let's be her. Let's dress like her, talk like her, act like her..be her. She's safe. We are so focused on being accepted by society that we follow trends and all end up dressing, acting and speaking the same because it doesn't feel safe to be expressive, different, unique, loud or make waves. As little girls we are taught to be seen, not heard, be "lady like", cross our legs, not get dirty, don't be loud, difficult or have too much of an opinion. As we grow up we are called bitches or abusive for sharing our real emotions or for standing up for ourselves. Our bodies have been commented on, ridiculed, stolen from us, and we are made to feel as though there was something wrong with us. I believed that was not good enough to receive love and was unable to be uniquely myself, so I cut off big pieces of myself to be accepted by others and to fit into society. We make ourselves small to fit in these little boxes which turn into cages throughout our lives. How does this make us feel? Why are we in cages and boxes? Who or what put us there, and how do we get ourselves out? Why do we believe certain things about ourselves or act in certain ways? Through my work as a personal stylist, I've worked with women of all ages, and it would break your heart to hear the way women speak about themselves and their bodies. It was very seldom that I had an experience with a woman where she didn't make at least one negative comment about her body or appearance or share a belief about what she should or shouldn't wear. A lot of us have a very skewed perception of ourselves and our bodies and lack individuality and awareness of our self-identity.

Reflecting back on my life experiences and beliefs around myself and my body, I can't help but question: how many little boys and girls have experienced sexual abuse, trauma and/or molestation? Often keeping their abuse a secret their whole lives at the detriment to themselves and experiencing deep shame around the topic or perhaps deleting the memory all together to be able to cope with the pain or confusion around the trauma. Especially if abuse is coming from inside their home, and they have nowhere to go but to dissociate in order to keep themselves alive. For me, this resulted in a high level of dissociation and disconnection from myself and my body and, at 15 years old, I began to drink alcohol, which then fueled my dissociation and resulted in countless nights where I would 'blackout' and wake up the next morning with limited or no memories of the night before. This binge-drinking led to me doing some of the worst things in my life that I would never have done sober, like cheating, one-night stands, sleeping with my friends' ex's, going after other peoples' boyfriends, sleeping with my best friends boyfriend while she was passed out in the next room and sleeping with multiple people after being drugged and blacking out. After having these types of experiences, I would self convince myself the next day that they didn't happen: the cancel, alt, delete. I let this habit lead my life for many years until I stopped drinking at the age of 28. I know alcohol is a big problem for me and even knowing this I would still go against my morals and beliefs and have a glass of wine or drink depending on where I was or who I was with. This wouldn’t happen often but still would from time to time once I started dating Rivers father. Even though this was rare I would still do it. Again the sever, disconnect and make excuses. For the past several years I've been in memory recovery mode and I can't say it's been easy to finally see myself, but it has been very healing to finally make sense of myself and my experiences.

Now, as a 35-year-old mother, I'm still trying to figure myself out and unravel myself from other people's personalities that I've taken on over the years. So many of us create different versions of ourselves for different people and situations to be accepted but end up losing massive pieces of ourselves along the way. Some of us will be able to feel that it's off and others will be so numbed out to the experience of not understanding why they are quiet around one person and loud around another. I understand now that we are all versions of each other and to be jealous of someone else is pointless as they are just showing us what is possible in ourselves. Instead of being jealous, envious or seething, let them motivate us to become the best versions of ourselves! Not to copy them but be inspired by them and authentically become the best version of ourselves, which is something that I'm currently working on. It's not easy to look at yourself and see how the actions that you've chosen to take throughout your life have affected others. To humble yourself and take responsibility for the mess you've created is a noble mission of rebalancing. I'm here to heal my jealous little girl and give back to all the women that I've taken from and to heal that part of myself. 

So many of us have gone through molestations, sexual abuse and sexual assault, which steals big pieces of us and makes us feel unsafe in our bodies and our environment. This changes us until we are willing to look at and heal that part of ourselves.