Therapy

Once again, I have not written for awhile. I've thought about it many times, but my recent thoughts have often been far too intense and convoluted to share in a blog. At the same time, I need to write now, more than ever. I'll do something I rarely have done...and realize I need to do a lot more of...and that is admit that I am struggling. I know everyone has their demons to fight at some point in life. Everyone has a story. I'm not naive or self-centered enough to think I'm at all alone, however much feeling this far down can certainly make one feel very alone.

If you've stumbled across this particular entry, I think I'd ask you to view it as a chapter in an autobiography. It's a little less weird that way. For me, the next several posts will be the beginning of what I hope will eventually result in a lot of healing. I am seeking some professional guidance through this particular struggle, but before I land on someone's couch, I think it will be helpful to get some of my thoughts in order. I did not intend on publishing what follows when I first began to write it, but as I wrote it, I began to see that NOT sharing it is perhaps part and parcel of my seminal problem. I've touched on this fear of total honesty before. So here is the first part of what I'll call Chapter 1, for anyone who's interested. For anyone who knows me well, I'm guessing none of this will be much of a surprise anyway...

Part I : Beyond “Tomboy”

As far as I can tell, the problems began with the freedom my parents gave me to “be myself” when I was a kid. This meant being allowed to wear whatever I wanted, play and play with whatever and whomever I wanted, and cut my hair however I wanted. I was inclined, for whatever reason, to dress, play and style my hair like a boy. Most of my friends growing up were boys, so I was essentially socialized as a little boy. I played sports with the boys and thrived off of competition. I sucked up pain, emotional and physical, and rarely shared feelings with anyone. If I’d shown weakness, I would have been tossed from the club, relegated to loneliness or worse, the world of dolls and pink things. I distinctly remember a couple episodes of demonstrated “toughness” from my early youth. Both occurred in first grade. In one instance, I refused to color in a picture of a flower, declaring to my teacher that I HATED flowers. When Easter rolled around, the class dressed paper bunnies with cut-outs from wallpaper. I battled my teacher over my right to dress mine in shorts instead of a skirt. She refused to allow it. I cringed every time I walked into my classroom, spying my embattled, beskirted bunny hanging on the wall. My resolve only grew stronger from there. My entire sense of self-worth was based off of achievement, and as a kid, this worked out well for me. I was better than my peers at nearly everything I tried and made nearly perfect grades. I scored goals, won swim meets, and was one of only three girls in the county who could shoot a 3-pointer. I was perfectly behaved at school (other than bunny-type incidents). My parents had nothing to complain about, so they didn’t. When I wanted to cut my hair outrageously short in 3^rd grade, they didn’t bat an eye. When I insisted on wearing slacks and a tie to my sports banquets, my dad provided the tie. They were of the “hands-off” school of parenting, as they had both been parented to death as kids. I appreciated this as a kid and understand it now, but I am becoming increasingly aware of the foundation that this helped lay for my current troubles.

I learned early on that something was wrong with me when I constantly got berated for walking into girls’ bathrooms. My sister, 4 years my junior, would be forced to defend me and my presence there. As a kid, I handled this situation by avoiding it as often as possible. I did everything I could to avoid public bathrooms, from developing a habit of going to the bathroom before I walked out the door to holding it for unbelievable amounts of time on long outings. My mother worried for my health when I would refuse to go to the bathroom, but the public humiliation was much worse for me than the physical pain. Anyone who witnessed this situation or heard this story marveled at my “bravery” for “being myself” in the face of such scrutiny and disapproval. While well-intentioned, I hated this form of praise and found it to be blatantly untrue. I was no martyr and I didn’t want to be. I was a coward who couldn’t even walk into a bathroom.

As I got older, I became more and more aware of what an oddball I was. No one cares about an 8-year-old girl running around in Umbros and a T-shirt, but they certainly do care once you’re 18 and in polos and cargo shorts. That was my freshman year of college. I’d spent several miserable years in middle and high school, although I still excelled academically. My middle school years were full of boy bands, weekly visits to the movies to see Titanic, and a still-intense obsession with Dawson’s Creek – facts that people who know me today are surprised to learn. I also co-starred with my newfound best friend on the school’s county championship soccer team. From the outside, I had it all, but in reality, I didn’t really fit anywhere. I was terrified to attend middle school dances – not because of the normal fear of judgment that plagues 12-year-olds, but because I didn’t feel like I would belong. I’d show up in a sweater and khakis, and God knew no boy would dance with me. Soccer and a little bit of theater provided some fun and acceptance, and my blessed favorite 6^th grade teacher managed to find the perfect niche for me as the school’s football statistician.

By my freshman year in high school, sports had slowly begun to elude me for a number of reasons and I instead immersed myself in other pursuits, although I played golf until I graduated. A social life was relatively unimportant to me, and in later years I’ve been shocked to find out about the parties that went on at my acquaintances’ homes in high school. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and might have gone “out” to a movie 3 or 4 times in high school. I didn’t even have a curfew. I had the best friend I’d had in middle school and spent most of my free time hanging out at her house…playing softball or soccer…or attending her select sports competitions. My other best friend in high school was my history teacher. I would arrive at school ridiculously early…as early as 7am…to hang out with him. It was a relationship based on mutual need, from what I can gather now. He had a hard time fitting in with anyone at the school. I also had a hard time fitting in and was excessively intellectually mature for my age. Both of us caught quite a bit of criticism, and fairly so in a school where the high school football coach had been “let go” for having an affair with the student body president. Looking back once again, it’s pretty clear that my parents should have stepped in here as well. I know I would have heard the bells and whistles going off if my child were skipping out of the house an hour before she had to so that she could hang out with a teacher every morning. But I’m also pretty sure my mother was relieved to see me connect with someone so well, and thus allowed the visits to continue.

I was too busy with schoolwork, clubs, sports practices, and other various extracurriculars to pay much attention to the oddities of my social life. Once again, there was little for my parents to complain about, so they didn’t. On the inside, however, I was beginning to feel like I might be missing something. By the time I’d graduated from high school, I still had not come close to having a boyfriend. I hadn’t even come close to being kissed. I danced with my first boy at the end of my 10^th grade year – at his going away party. Despite my lack of socialization, I knew these things probably should have happened. I’d crushed on 3 or 4 boys in high school, two of whom I admired from afar for years and one of whom was my male best friend, Marc, that first dance. But other than Marc traveling up to take me to senior prom after he’d moved away, nothing romantic ever came my way. At the same time, I understood what was going on. Who would ever want to date me? I was mistaken for a boy on a regular basis and could not have possibly been attractive to the opposite sex. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t date me, either. Dating me would require putting up with all the bullshit I put up with on a daily basis. It would require knowing that assumptions were being made about you the second someone laid eyes on you. It would require constantly being on the defensive like I had begun to be. I began to use my unconventional appearance as a tool to test everyone I met. If people could like me despite my appearance, they were worth hanging on to. Why should I change my appearance to make people happy, and how could I ever judge people’s intentions if I did?!

The consequences of my appearance began to take a more and more severe toll on my self-image as I tread into the depths of adolescence. Being a teenager is tough enough on anybody – the expectations, the lack of respect, the awkwardness, the acne – it can be downright miserable if you glaringly don’t fit in. I began to fear meeting people, as doing so inevitably involved an exchange wherein a current friend or family member or I had to explain to the new person that I was indeed a girl. My dad would get especially angry in these circumstances, glaring at whoever the unsuspecting, well-intentioned soul was and hissing, “SHE’S my DAUGHTER.” This led to several awkward conversations in which I asked him to please calm down in such situations. People didn’t mean to insult me – they couldn’t really be blamed, after all. I’d have made the same mistake if I were them. In any case, that wasn’t the best way to make a first impression. I also dreaded fresh substitute teachers, who would always pause and give me a half-confused, half-annoyed look when I answered to “Megan” on the roll call. The situation was especially ridiculous given my reputation as a near-perfect student. A few kids would giggle in class, and someone would usually confirm that I was, in fact, who I said I was. Then there was the bathroom comment at a Burger King on our way to the beach one summer. As per usual, my presence in the girls’ bathroom had been questioned. I assured the interrogator that I was a girl. She shrugged her shoulders: “The boys and the girls – they all look the same these days.” Or the soccer referee incident at a tournament in Winston-Salem. The ref openly questioned my presence on the team, commenting to me as he walked past, “Well, I’ve seen girls on boys’ teams, but never a boy on a girls’ team!” I told my coach and my mom. Both were furious and both had a word with the ref. I played horrendously that day. As it turned out, it would be my last game with the select soccer team that I’d come to love – my only semblance of normal socialization in high school. I seemingly let all of these things roll off my shoulders, but in reality, every instance weighed me down just a little more. I never spoke to anyone about it – I was far too embarrassed and far too emotionally inexpressive to do such a thing. Looking back, that contrived toughness caused far more problems than it solved. When I eventually DID begin to talk about the emotional pain that had been inflicted on me, I realized that most people had just been waiting for me to address the issue. People weren’t stupid – they knew I didn’t just forget the comments that were made to and about me. I should have given my family and true friends a lot more credit a lot sooner.

So I got to 18 and my freshman year in college. Things were going pretty well by outside standards – I was at Duke on a full scholarship. But it was then that it began to become clear how socially stunted I really was. I had no desire to drink and in fact mounted a personal crusade against it in my mind for reasons I don’t really understand. Neither of my parents influenced me in that direction, and in fact, I think they probably would have preferred me to be a little more of a loose cannon. In any case, I went off to Duke knowing all of one person – a calculated move since I’d been so miserable in high school. I was determined for things to be different in college. Since I didn’t drink, I rarely went out in those first few months. I was still quite content to stay in on a Friday night, even if the rest of the dorm was out partying. I made friends with pretty like-minded people and judged everyone else. Now that I look back, I’m wondering if part of the crusade against drinking had to do with a fear of the social scene that accompanied it. I knew I wouldn’t fit in with the Greek element and I certainly was not prepared to go out dancing at clubs. I didn’t look the part, so I wouldn’t even attempt it.

Then came the summer of 2003. I lived with 6 other BN scholars in 2 apartments in Columbia, SC. I worked at an internship for a non-profit called Family Connection, which served the needs of parents of disabled kids. Here was a field where I’d excelled in middle school – working with disabled kids. They don’t tend to judge you like everyone else does, and I think I found some respite myself in the time I spent with them. In any case, the internship itself was miserable except for a family with whom I conducted regular home visits. The summer came to a head when I was sent to spend a week shadowing in the various departments of a local hospital. I spent the first day in the children’s cancer ward, trying to grasp the terror their parents must have been facing. Day 2 was to be spent in the surgery waiting room – until I was actually sent in to watch a spinal fusion surgery. Day 3 was to be spent on an ER shift – until I received a call a few hours before informing me that the hospital would rather I not return. This resulted in long talks with the director of Family Connection, a woman named Pat Head (haha) and my scholarship advisor about why I was not invited to complete my shadowing. This further resulted in Pat Head berating me for the way I looked. “You look like a 12-year-old boy,” she told me. That scar still bleeds today. It made the most pacifistic kid in our apartment so angry that he swore and then threatened to beat Pat Head if he ever saw her. The crux of the matter was this – the hospital had been uncomfortable with my appearance. Girls who look like boys are not accepted in Columbia, SC. In her tirade, Pat Head succeeded in making me feel like the outcast who made all the other outcasts feel better about themselves. In a roundabout way, though, she did me a favor. Her grossly inappropriate behavior caused me to bleed – and in doing so, began to allow me to release the 10 years of pent-up anger, confusion and frustration that had begun to severely weigh me down. I talked about everything with friends for the first time, in conversations that lasted into the wee wee hours of the morning. I no longer cared whether or not I was awake for work in the morning. But those conversations were life savers. As I alluded to before, I was shocked to find out that my friends were wholly unshocked to hear all I had to say. They reassured me that I was fine in their eyes and that Pat Head could go to hell. At the same time, they gently nudged me into transforming my appearance – for my own sake. The thought of being able to walk into a bathroom free of criticism finally trumped my desire to test people with my looks. I’d have to find another medium for that, and as it turned out, I certainly would. I began to grow out my hair, with no promise of changing anything else. After all, I could always cut that hair off again.