Raising Real Set Me Free
How raising my children to be authentic allowed me to find my own liberation and break through generational trauma
In a therapy session, one of my clients used a butterfly metaphor that represented their crossroads; they had to choose between emerging from the cocoon and being seen as who they truly are, or staying in the cocoon, avoiding rejection, and turning into caterpillar soup. Today, I am choosing to leave my cocoon and to fly.
But this choice really started three years ago because of my amazing daughter (who I am holding in the picture above taken near the beginning of my healing journey). In 2018, my child revealed that they were trans. When I came out with her to my family and the world, it was very scary, but it was a no-brainer to reject society (and any other asshat who thought they knew her better than she knew herself) to support my child. We supported and celebrated every part of her. And she absolutely thrived.
Although our family life was improving in so many ways, over the next few years, my body, mind, and spirit felt torn apart.
When Willow came out, I was at the peak of my illusion of success and happiness. I worked so hard and sacrificed so many things for my entire life; and I felt like I had finally found the elusive formula to have it ALL. A supportive and loving spouse, a happy family, many amazing friends, a beautiful house, a successful career as a full and tenured Professor, a counseling private practice, a side job as a Yoga Instructor, and a healthy body at a “healthy” weight. I had made it.
The fear and anxiety, as well as the urge to hide our differences, was palpable.
About 6 months after Willow came out, we went viral for supporting our trans daughter and received death threats and hate mail. My autoimmune disorder flared up uncontrollably; I was sick with repeated bouts of bronchitis, followed by mono, and then in 2020, COVID. After COVID, I had daily migraines for almost a full year, and eventually was diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome as a result of COVID. And just like that, I lost my health, my “healthy” weight, my “productivity” in my career, I had to temporarily close my counseling practice, withdraw from multiple projects and positions, and had to take medical leave from my University for 6 months.
As my body broke down, it also felt like my mind was breaking apart. Being a supportive mother to my trans child made me aware of the continued toxicity in our society, as well as generational trauma still coursing in my veins. The fear and anxiety, as well as the urge to hide our differences, was palpable.
At the same time, I started to see myself reflected in my own daughter — watching this amazing, beautiful, intense, empathic, queer, wild, gender expansive, and loving child move through the world, refusing to conform, unapologetically being herself, and influencing others with how she saw and experienced the world.
I felt such gratitude to be able to witness her as she celebrated herself, built her voice and her confidence, and just thrived in all ways! And as proud as I was of her, my own inner child was screaming and sobbing. She got an empathic, loving, and supportive family and community who ALWAYS encouraged her to be herself without censoring or masking. I longed for that experience — as a child AND as an adult. I started to see through the cracks in my perfect, happy world.
I had always been caterpillar soup.
PTSD emerged as I paused to look closer at my life, bringing with it all of the attachment trauma from my childhood. As I stepped forward into my own darkness, the shadow work began to reveal how much I forgot, excused, accepted, and ignored. How much I had contorted myself to be a being worthy of love. As I started doing this inner child and shadow work, my beloved father — who was my protector and biggest cheerleader — died. As my health failed and my mind was plunged into shadow, the next year was the hardest year of my life. It was one spent unpacking, healing, and realizing the most difficult truth: Through everything, I had always been caterpillar soup.
I never had a chance to be a butterfly. The day I was born, society told me what feelings I was entitled to, how my body was not my own, to be of service, to internalize anger, and to make myself what others needed or found attractive, simply because I was born with a vagina.
My brain — that made me think, feel, and move differently — was only partially accepted by society; my good student was celebrated — while my hot mess — which is part of that same brain — was not. I was too sensitive, too loud, too much. I was also absolutely not enough. I learned to mask the hot mess, as keeping others from feeling uncomfortable became more important than being honest about what I was experiencing.
Religion taught me that feeling and pleasure were off limits; and my queerness and gender expansiveness were immoral and sick. My body was only acceptable and attractive to society when thin and frail. I also needed to groom and present myself — including removing all body hair— to look like a prepubescent adolescent. I had to fit my ethnicity into a category, using a white-supremacist framework to differentiate my ancestors, when all my ancestors — from this continent and from Europe — had been colonized. My need to live differently with an autoimmune condition is a deficit in a society where your ability to consistently produce is your only worth. I had learned to ignore all physical sensations of limit and illness in order to produce. My experiences of trauma fractured me even further, but at the same time asking for help was shameful.
My own perceptions became lost in the sea of others’ traumatized opinions.
As a young child, I learned quickly that even though people said that it was wrong to lie, no one actually told the truth. Their feelings were pushed down, memories ignored, secrets held. They were ill and dying from the trauma and pain in their bodies, as well as the illusions in their minds. The generational trauma passed to my parents was passed onto me. Cycles of narcissism and codependence, colonized religious beliefs, and self-hate filled my world. My own perceptions became lost in the sea of others’ traumatized opinions.
I eventually disconnected completely from my own body, ignored my own painful memories, held my truth in a brain space guarded away from my conscious self, and thought I was being my most authentic self in every setting. And that was true — that was the most authentic version of myself that I knew.
I was slowly peeling the layers off of masks I had been forced to wear my whole life in order to survive.
But now, as my body and illusions in my mind broke down, I reconnected to my body and began treating her with respect. I began to process trauma, and found myself connected with goddesses, nature, plant and animal teachers, my anger and my pleasure, and the sense of knowing from my youth. I saw healing in my children and in my spouse — I felt more connected to them than ever. And I noticed that I was changing.
It was like I was slowly peeling the layers off of masks I had been forced to wear my whole life in order to survive: My “good girl” — who can’t move, talk, have needs or get angry, my excellent student, my have-it-together clinician, my published and productive professor. They all fell, one by one.
As my body and mind broke apart, these masks also began to fall, I lost relationships that were unable to hold space for boundaries, and a bigger and more authentic version of me. As I stumbled through honoring anger and boundaries, I also struggled to communicate and be clear in my requests. I found myself oscillating between a doormat and an unhinged Cruella. To be clear, Cruella is way more fun, but more than one person was on the receiving end of a sudden angry clapback without warning. Some days I thought I was going crazy, some days I could barely move, and some days I was convinced that I would die alone in a cabin in the forest, having scared away everyone with my true face.
As I greeted all of these parts of me I had condemned to shadow, I also learned to hold each piece with understanding, then love, then celebration.
Despite my fears, I kept pushing forward. Instead of finding isolation, I’ve found that I attracted like-minded folx, deepened my connection with new and old friends, found new communities and a new inner confidence, and enforced boundaries to only allow people in my life (family, friends, medical providers, hair salons, everything) who respect and love ALL OF ME.
Slowly, as I greeted all of these parts of me I had condemned to shadow, I also learned to hold each piece with understanding, then love, then celebration.
For the first time ever in my life, I can honestly say I love all of me.
I love my neurodivergent brain — they are capable of sponging up knowledge, teaching, engaging, writing, and moving others to change. This brain crossed the finish line on 6 university degrees, including a doctorate from Yale, as the first college graduate in my ancestral line. My long term memory and my ability to encode new information is amazing, and my greatest joy is being able to learn and share knowledge with others.
I love my wild woman whose same brain likes to laugh at routines, scoff at deadlines and checklists, can’t ever seem to find my phone, forgets laundry in the washing machine for days, and can’t be responsible for bills. She’s always in the moment, feeling, and knowing. And she always needs to be interdependent with someone who can bring order that allows her dancing chaos to stay safe.
I love my empath who feels every emotion and energy in my body through sensation. She gives me limitless knowledge and an ability to help others open to feeling their own truth again.
I love that I have a beautiful body with curves and swerves.
I love that I hold deep mother energy that makes people feel warm and cared for when they are around me.
I love that I also hold Lilith and Durga archetypal energy that intimidates those who try to control and manipulate.
I love that I am queer as fuck with a gender that flows in any direction it wishes.
I love that I am a SURVIVOR. I survived attachment trauma, religious trauma, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. And I didn’t just survive. I thrived and devoted myself to fight the people and the systems that harm and oppress.
I love that I am now capable of communicating clearly and asking for what I need, of being dominant, and of being playful as I influence and cocreate change in my relationships.
I love that my intensity, my honesty, my knowledge, my demographics, and my ability to see and know can make others deeply uncomfortable. I love that some see a mirror that exposes a piece of themselves where they continue to hold shame. As I play with and challenge their rigidity, it plants a seed of awareness, growth, and healing.
I love that my daughter’s courage and my ability to listen made space for me to not only support her in being herself, it allowed me to find myself.
Finally, I love that I now hold my own inner child with the same love that I hold for my daughter. I was not born to conform; and I was not born to be caterpillar soup. I was born to be seen, to be heard, and to fly as the butterfly I always was meant to be. And I choose now to be unapologetically me — until the day I die.
This publication, Raising Real, is the birth that occurred from my healing journey. Raising Real will be devoted to telling stories and sharing lessons learned about parenting for authenticity. It will be a place to explore liberation in parenting, as well as to celebrate the healing as we decolonize our bodies, our minds, and our parenting practices.
