The Girl Who Learned to Survive

For a long time, I thought the panic attack had something to do with the relationship I was in.

And honestly, that seemed pretty logical.

The relationship had been taking quite a toll on me emotionally.

So at first, I looked there.

Then for a while, I looked at myself, of course.

Maybe I wasn't communicating well enough.

Maybe I expected too much.

Maybe I needed to be more flexible.

more patient, more understanding.

Here's the interesting thing about becoming curious about yourself.

Once you start asking yourself better questions, you start getting different answers.

And there was one question that kept coming back to me over and over again.

Why does this feel so familiar? And I didn't just mean that relationship.

I meant relationships, plural, different people, different personalities, different circumstances, different decades even.

And yet there was something strangely familiar about the role I kept playing.

I was usually the one trying to understand, trying to explain, trying to make things better, trying to make things work, trying to hold everything together.

And eventually, I had to wonder, why am I always the one trying to earn love? Before we go any further, I want to be really clear about something.

This isn't about a big blame game.

I did have a difficult childhood.

We are going to hear all about it.

But the people in my life made their own choices, some wonderful ones, some deeply painful ones.

They are responsible for those choices, just as I'm responsible for mine.

Understanding my childhood didn't remove anyone else's accountability.

What it did was help me understand me.

Why I stayed in certain situations longer than I should have.