Moving fast to cope, the dehumanization of it all.
As I was sitting and thinking about why I am the way I am these thoughts came to mind……….
One thing that my life experiences, trauma, and childhood have taught me is to move fast and be efficient in all the things that I do and to do them without the help of others. This sounds great but has also been very problematic for me looking back. I eat fast, thanks to working as CNA, who is undervalued and barely has time to take lunch because facilities are always understaffed. I walk fast, drive fast, work fast, think fast, talk fast and demand that everyone around me keep up because I can’t slow down.
Living in poverty and not having my wants fulfilled, made me pick up the pace. I didn’t want there to be times where what I saw right in front of me could vanish before I got to it. This also led me to not being excited about anything because I never knew if it would happen or not. Consequently, those feelings led me to not celebrating anything because I was chasing the next thing, I was scared I’d lose momentum if I slowed down to bask in my accomplishments.
To employers, and people I work with, my skills learned out of trauma and poverty are perfect. I am efficient, fast-paced, very organized, goal-oriented, always on time, you get the picture. For me, however, when I am put into these situations the trauma gets worse. In all actuality a few years ago the thought came to my mind about me being a machine and not human. I was pretty void of feelings, excitement, and a lot of other human emotions. I was alive; however, I was not living and definitely not thriving. The myth of the strong black woman was something that would play in my head. That was a badge of honor back then to me because I bought into the myth.
On the upside, I’ve used these “skills” to plan parties, events, vacations, and all sorts of things that made me the center of it all, and during those times made me feel good. Also, the other part of that is I never fully experienced what was going on, I worked every event and every vacation, mentally and physically. For a while, I thought that I didn’t like to travel, mainly because I did the same job in different places. I mentally prepared the things that needed to be scheduled and planned, I cooked a lot of the meals there. For many years I had no downtime, and, at the moment, I thought that it was the best thing ever. Looking back, I also had no time to think about what was wrong, I was so enveloped by wearing all these different hats and solving all these problems that I was too exhausted to deal with my own shit. I set the bar so high that I needed to move faster and more efficiently to keep up with the demand.
These days I have relieved myself from so many duties that I previously had. This place is strange to me, but I also have plenty of time to stop and learn to celebrate, I can slow down and try to enjoy what is happening. I am figuring out who I am, and what I love to do and what fulfills me on a healthy level. I still move at a speed that could walk circles around a lot of people, but I am working on it. I am giving myself grace and trying to teach the children that have come from me that it’s ok to not be like me. I am still working on it, and I have a new understanding that a lot of things take time. I don’t believe that I can do everything by myself any longer, I am allowing others to help me and I am expecting assistance in my relationships. This is a part of my sustainability plan.
Thanks for reading!!!!
