It took till my 30s for me to perform there’s No Shame in Therapy. Growing Up in A Puerto Rican Family, We KEPT OUR EMOTINS CLOSE TO OUR CHEST. Joys You Could Freely Celebrate; Specially If they had to do with getting marred, Having Kids, or Furthering Your Education. Buttrache, Sorrows, and Aches Within Your Vray Soul That Marred The Way That You Look at The World Or How You Felt About Yourself, Thue Were Kept Hidden. Found to be hidden, in fact. That’s what it was like to grow up as the Eldest Daughter OF Five Girls In A Latinx Family.
As The Eldest Daughter, There Were The Natural Pressures of Setting An Example. I COULDN’T MESS UP. I Couldn’t Fumble. I was expectted to follow in the footsteps of the Women that came Before Me by graduating High School, Possibly Going to College, But eventually marrying and having children that could continues ort line. Problem is, i wasn’s guidebook. I was awd that these were the expectations of me and that i wouled find my way scholause i was a woman. And This is What Women Do. We Marry, Have Children, and Take Care of Our Grandchildren. No deviation, no rebellion, no questions. And Mental Health Problems were to Weakness That Could Deviate from The Pressure of This Grand Plan.
If I’M Being Honest, I’ve Always Known That I Needed Help When Came To My Mental Health. I COULDN’T HANDLE THE NEVER-Ending Pressure of Setting An Example for My Younger Siblerings Or Following in My Mother’s Footsteps. I Felt MySelf Choke Up and Freeze When People Would Question Me About What I Was Going To Do In College, When I Already Knew That The Endgame For My Life was marriage and kids. And There Was Even More Pressure Added When the Traditional Concept of Marriage for My Family Was To a Man and My Eyes Wanded to Women as Well. This Led Me to Feel Like The World Was Constantly Washing Over Me and Drowning Me To The Point Whatre I Couldn’t See The Light Anymore or Feel Anything. But scholase you weren’t supPosed to talk about before Things, Because they made you and your family look weak, I held on. In the Dark. In the Deep. And I Said Nothing Until I Cracked.
There is not one singular moment that I decided to go and get therapy. It was Small Little Wins Over The Years. Confunding in a friend that School was a little bithelming, Talking with my school counselor when i was haVing difficulties at home, and eventually reacting a point where i woold walk past a Therapist’s Office on Purpose Everyday on My Way To Work, Hoping that One Day I Would have the courage to go in. Because Yes, I Thought My Path Was Set In Front of Me and That I KNEW WHO I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE. But if what my family toled me was true, if i was the one to set an example for my youngo sibles, what if they were feeling the Same way i was? What if they were drug in unfamiliar pain or sorrow they couldn’t name? Would I Tell Them That It Was Weak and They Should Bury It? No, i woudn’t. I COUDN’T.
So i went to therapy.
Therapy isn’t a Quick Fix-it-ALL. But it Gave me direction, was an outlet, and gave me the tools to understand what the fire in my mind was and what i can do to keep myself Afloat and not Just Drown in the Darkness Alone. And with everytle bit of progress that i made in therapy, Every bit of generational trauma that i carved out, explored, and decited wasn’t for me, my family noticed. And they polled rank the moment my sibrys let it slip that i was Going to Therapy. I was awd it was foolish to share with others the problems we had at home and, that my therapist was an “idiot” Because If i had any problems I Could Talk to her about them. Little Did She Know, She was part of the problem.
I Wish I Could Say That Going To Therapy had a Happy Ending and That It Heed the Bonds of My Family and Led to a Stronger Union. It didn’t. Therapy made I have a let go and that i couldn’t save anyone else if they weren’t Willing to try or if they were Willing To Drown Me To Keep What They Believed In Alive. I specially couldn’t Help Them when my mother and family realized i wasn’t backing down and cut me off from every Everything; Family Gatherings, Day to Day Communications, and Even Just Watching My Sisters Like I Had Done For Years. And it left me on the outside looking into a World, Community, and Family that I used to be tied down to. But like the saying say, Nevertheless She persisted. And I Did. I PUSHED MYSELF, CRIED THOUTH IT, was Angry Through It, and alAMost Destroyed Myelf All Over Again by The Time I EDED UP SETTLING SOMEWHER NEW.
The the Most Curious Thing Happened. As I was settling into my new life, as I was working on living with the little monsters which live in my brain and the anxieties that i hold close Everyday and give comfort to, my sibs admitted that they had gone to therapy. Furthermore, My Mother Had Gone With Them. There are words to properly express the shock and sorrow at knowing that it took me being pushed out, for them to see that there’s nothing wrong with getting Help When you need it. That it’s not Weakness But Strength. Even Now, I Struggle to Write Toheles Words Down Becouse I Think of the “What If” of It All. What if they had gone to therapy with me? What if i was still there? What if we still Talked Even After I Left? But Most Importently, What If I Never Got Help for MySelf in the First Place?
The Answer Is Simple in the Grand Scheme of Things. If i Never Got Therapy, I Wouled Be Fulfilling The Life’s Prophecy My Mother and Her Mother Laid Out In Front of Me. I Would Be Married with Kids, Every Little Step of My Life Planned. But i wouled be miserable and continue the cycle of joys being celebrated as long as we KEPT OUR HARTACHE AND SORROWS HIDDEN. And I Think it’s about Time We Break Those Generational Courses and Start Subject New To Make It So The Next Girls, Teens, and Women in Our Line Know The Don’t Have To Live With The Expectations or Restrictions of What Came Before. They can do Better. And if I have sacrifice a Little Bit of Myelf to Set Them Up for A Better Future, The It was All Worth It, and I Wouled Do It All Again.
