Who Do You Think I Am?
I’ve been thinking a lot about me lately. Boy does that sound narcissistic. I have a good friend who asked me what my biggest challenge in life has been. And I said, “my mental health.” I have battled depression and uncertainty my entire life and she had no idea. She was so surprised by my answer and I wanted to say to her “Just who do you think I am?” Which of course made me think, “who am I?” Usually if someone asks you about yourself the response is something like this: Oh I’ve been a nurse for over 40 years and I have four grown boys and my husband and I live in San Rafael. I am originally from Chicago but moved out here to get away from the cold etc. etc. These are facts about myself but don’t really tell the person asking who I am.
I often wonder if anyone really knows who I am (including myself). I think my husband probably knows me the best but does he really know me? I don’t know. I have a Laura that I put out there. It’s not a perfect Laura and my good friends know I can be opinionated and stubborn and they still love me for it but I can’t say that any of them really really know me.
I am quite sincere when I say that I’m not really sure who I am. Thus the constant worry about my mental health. I often feel outside of myself. Like I am watching myself live but am not really living. Sometimes when I talk to people I am saying one thing while a totally different thing is going through my mind. Yet, I’m not lying to the person, I just have two conflicting thoughts at the same time and only offer one of them up.
Sometimes I think really dark things, things I don’t think I could repeat to anyone, not my husband, not my mother, not a therapist. They are so off the wall and so dark that I can’t believe they even came to my mind. When they do come to my mind I chase that nasty thought away not even sure where it came from. Am I the only one who that happens to? I don’t want to ask anyone because they’ll probably ask me to give them an example of one of these dark thoughts and they are so dark that I can’t even imagine repeating them.
I would like to believe that I am kind, stable, compassionate, empathetic, fair, wise, fun, adventuresome. Do these words tell anybody anything about the real me? I don’t think so. But what then would I tell people who really want to know me. Where would I begin when I don’t know if I really know myself.
Should I start with my idyllic childhood or my unhappy high school years? Maybe I should start with my college days when I started becoming the person I really wanted to be. Should I explain the mental traumas I have been through as a nurse or the years I enjoyed as a Mom? Maybe I should explain how lucky I was to find a man who could love me for over 40 years. Maybe I should explain how surprised I am to even have friends and a loving husband as my self esteem has never been super high. Should I explain my relationship with my four sons and how mothering them has changed me for the better? How can I make them understand my mental health challenges, the way my hormones and my family history of depression have always ruled my life, without sounding crazed. If I try to tell them who I think I am, my deepest feelings, my secrets, my passions, my fears, my hopes - will that be enough for them to know who I really am? Will they be surprised and unable to reconcile the me I am describing to the person that they think I am? Will they still like me and want to be with me? Or maybe I am wrong. Maybe everyone knows me better than I thought. Maybe everyone knows me better than I know myself.
Just who does everyone think I really am?