Enough

She came into the hospital with her dad in the middle of the night. On the tender side of teenaged, and way too young for the darkness that had already gripped her brain. Her dad had brought her in because she had run off, and he was worried that she was going to harm herself. She had multiple well-healed scars on her body from cutting, which I have seen before; however, the ones that really got me were the thin red lines in her groin. Inflicted over and over with a razor blade, in such a sensitive spot, and so close to the core. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her she would get through all of this, that it was going to be okay…that she was beautiful and valuable and deserving, and a human being with people who loved her.

I was never violently self-destructive like that, and my brain did not go dark quite that young. However, the situation felt like a sort of echo of my teenage female self, and my own time spent in the hospital on one very bad Christmas night many years ago due to poor decision making, and a darkness in my brain that I did not know how to deal with. Time moved forward for me after that night 26 years ago, and I grew up and learned how to work with that darkness: to minimize it, recognize it, and be happy. It is manageable, and I know how to manage it. However…occasionally it leaks out and leaves me scrambling for solid ground.

Once upon a time in 2019, I was the bravest I have ever been. I changed everything and drove to Tennessee by myself in the interest of living my life. It was hard, and wonderful, and beautiful, and I learned a lot. There were times where it was quite an intimidating endeavor, but I faced it all head-on because I believed in myself. I felt wildly vulnerable and completely unstoppable all at the same time. I had so much confidence; I LOVED that version of me.

Fast forward to last spring, when I woke up in a night shift haze and realized that I had lost that person. Sometime those past few months amongst grief, gray skies, weird sleep schedules, rejection, and a lifelong tendency to slide over to the dark side, I had lost her. I loved that girl, and I wanted her back. But…where to begin?

I compare myself to others, endlessly and with a vengeance. I know I’m not the only one; this is a common problem in our society today, and it can be very hard to quit. Not accomplished enough-not skinny enough-not motivated enough-not creative enough-not athletic enough-not smart enough-not fun enough-not a good enough friend/partner/sister/daughter/co-worker/nurse/kayaker etc etc etc etc….it can be never ending, if you let it. We identify ourselves by our accomplishments; if we take them away, who do we become? What or whom gives us permission to take up space in the world and get our needs met? And to do that with joy, and confidence, and faith in ourselves?

The Columbia River Gorge is a sporty place, to put it mildly. People do a variety of outdoor sports here and many people are very, very good at them. It feels hard at times not to attach your worth as a human being to how you stack up to everyone else who is doing that activity as well. I had a challenging day on the river this past year doing a stretch that I had wanted to paddle for a long time; as I clung to a rock in the middle of the river watching my paddle wash over a wave and downstream to God-knows-where, I said to myself, “Well, I’m never going to see THAT again.” I have been kayaking for about 11 years, and I have always struggled with the mental aspect of it; multiple times, I have gone through periods where I am paddling well, and then will make a stupid mistake, swim out of my boat, and mentally spiral from there. Getting ahold of my “anxious whitewater brain” has never been something that I have fully been able to achieve, and I HATE that. I know what I am capable of, but yet I am unable to consistently quiet my mental state enough to achieve it. When I see multiple people around me running things that I would perhaps like to run, and have both the physical ability and skills to do, but not the psychological strength, I compare myself to them, and I doubt myself further. Perhaps we should not tie our own worth so much to our achievements, be they athletic, professional, creative, etc.? However, if you are not the things you achieve, then who are you? What makes you, you? What makes me, me?

A friend of mine, who is beautiful, amazing, and talented, used to love to go to these certain dancing events. She, like many people, gained weight during 2020. I recall one of the last times I saw her, she was saying that a friend had invited her to go dancing, but she felt too self-conscious to go as a result of the weight that she had gained. She LOVED dancing and had gotten super into it, but couldn’t bring herself to go, because she felt like she wasn’t thin enough to dance in front of other people. This made me so sad because, in my eyes, she was worthy of taking up space and moving in the world in the way she chose to...but, after years of dieting and living in a society where thin reigns supreme, she couldn’t see it that way.

Sometime in the spring/summer of 2019, I got into the best shape of my life. It happened sort of on accident, and was mostly because I was very physically active doing multiple things that I enjoy, in the setting of a bit of a life renaissance. I recall going into an urgent care clinic to get a vaccine booster that I needed for work, and the person giving me the vaccine seemed a bit taken aback, as the vaccine was supposed to be administered in the subcutaneous tissue of the back of your upper arm (ie the fatty part). “You don’t HAVE any subQ tissue”, she said. I realized later on that, during that time, I had attached a large portion of my own self worth to how very skinny I was. It wasn’t intentional; it just happened. And, as pretty much any American woman can tell you, you can almost never be too thin. It’s never enough. So, when a couple of years later I was at a bar drinking with several friends, and a friend of mine said, while tipsy, “Have you gained weight?” and poked me in the stomach in front of several people that I know (most of them men), I felt like the floor had dropped out from underneath me. I was freaking MORTIFIED. Yes, I had gained weight…a few pounds, likely not more than ten. No sane, reasonable person would suggest that I was anything approaching overweight at that time. And when I tell people now that I have gained weight on night shift (and usually do), I generally get something approximating an eyeroll. I know that it is silly and shallow to be so attached to this. But there it is.

Being a nurse can be kind of scary sometimes. I started a new job this past summer, and suffered the worst case of imposter-syndrome-fueled anxiety that I have ever experienced. Historically, I have not been a super anxious person (kayaking aside :) ), and this felt crippling. I found myself suddenly questioning everything I knew as a nurse, and wondering if I could continue to do this job. I have started over multiple ways in multiple places over the past few years, and thought I had gotten pretty good at it; but this time, for whatever reason, my adaptability and comfort with change failed me. In a high acuity environment like the emergency room, you need to be confident and in control. I spent about 5 weeks feeling neither of those ways, and feeling guilty for that…and afraid of myself. My heart would not stop racing, and I couldn’t freaking FUNCTION. Vicious cycle: wash, rinse, repeat. It was awful.

Thankfully, I managed to get it together with the help of a few loved ones…and went back to therapy for a while. The experience taught me a whole lotta empathy for sufferers of chronic anxiety, and reminded me how to put my arms around myself, hold steady, and stop getting in my own way.

“Erin, you are so worthy of love”, he said to me as we were breaking up. (It only belatedly occurred to me that I could have yelled, “Prove it!” Instead, I ugly cried on his living room floor. Mmmm-hmmm. Yup. That happened.) Emotional unavailability is a theme that I have continued to run into this past year, and every time someone tells me by either their words or their actions that they are emotionally unavailable, I hear, “You are not worth the investment of my time and effort”. Now, rationally, I know that no one is ACTUALLY saying that, and it is unfair to make assumptions and project my crap onto other people. However, it’s hard for me to not go there. Ultimately, though, I am beginning to understand that the time and effort that another person is willing to invest in me does not, in itself, determine my actual worth and value as a human being. It’s a process…I’m working on it.

So….I think that guy was right. I have questioned my self worth SO many times and in SO many ways this past year, and although I am probably not done doing that, I have come to the conclusion that I will, indeed, suffice. :) I was driving down the highway the other day when it suddenly occurred to me that I could just forgive myself for not being perfect. Original? No. Real? Yes. And it gave me such a moment of hope and peace.

The nurse who took care of me in the hospital on that shitty night all those years ago? His name was Joel, and he was my original inspiration for wanting to be a nurse. Since then, I have taken care of many people in similar circumstances. I sometimes see a glimpse of my teenage self in those situations, and I want to say, “You will get through this. You will be okay. You will figure this out.” I cannot say any of those things, as they may or may not be true. But…we can move though one day at a time. We can recognize our own intrinsic value as a living, breathing, whole human being… accomplishments, achievements, and how we stack up to others aside . We can reach out when we struggle, and really listen when the people we love and trust tell us that we are, indeed, enough. Not perfect…not done…but enough. It’s a good place to start from, right here and right now, wherever and whenever that is.