Stranger In A Strange Land

Are there times when you are not sure what you are feeling? Only that you know there is an incompleteness in you that surfaces from time to time? A sensation that perhaps you missed an important event that everyone else attended and somehow you were left out?

There are many moments when I feel this way. A nagging feeling that there is something amiss. I am going along fine, my day no different that any other and then: I am falling off the edge, my balance disrupted, slipping off the side of an uneven slope. Conversations of colleagues make their way into my line of hearing: how beautifully someone has decorated their house, an upcoming weekend to be spent at an elite spa and resort. It is not that these things are out of my reach for they aren't.It is that inside I feel as though I am an outsider. Hustled in through a side door to a gathering where I don't belong, eager to be a part of it but with nothing of value to offer.


It is terrible to feel this way as you know. At these moments, I want to get up from the table and not even excuse myself, as those that are there are surely grateful for my exit. Who and what am I? I find myself in these circumstances, how ever did I ever end up here with these people who are so much better than me?



A few years ago another therapist told me how very low my self-esteem was. No matter what I accomplish, I never feel worthy of any of the benefits. As a child, no one ever stood up for me. I took what I got because there was no other way. I was all the names I was referred to by my mother and grandmother, and I would never amount to anything, an embarrassment for the family. My brother once told me I would spend my adult years drinking beer from a brown paper bag, my legs spread akimbo on a dirty stoop. It was just one of the many predictions made for me that did not come to pass, as I was stronger than them all.



I have been diagnosed with a number of conditions: panic disorder, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, post traumatic stress disorder to name a few. I am sure there are more. There are other conditions that plague me too: happiness when I can find it, success in my career, security in the love of my husband and daughter, delight in a job well done. When we sit back and take stock, if even for a moment, we realize that we are not those bad things we were told, but women gaining trust in who we are.



Carry on.