The Show Is Over

How Are You Performing For Connection?

I come from a long line of porch sitters. My paternal Grandma would sit on the porch for hours and I always admired her ability to not be rushed. I came to believe that as a Hoosier (Indiana born and raised) that’s just something we did. Grab a glass of tea and sit out on the porch. So…for now….can we be on that front porch? I want to talk about ordinary requests. I want to do that while we are being quite ordinary. I just want to be Kerry. Curled up in gray sweats and a messy t-shirt. I’ll be drinking a Diet Coke and probably munching on some popcorn….and of course my dogs will be there too. Make sure to grab your favorite snack.

I’m having this awareness……that I’ve been auditioning for my parents love my whole life. Please know me. Please like me. Please find me funny. It’s how I earned connection. If I couldn’t get it by performing personality, I would perform by problem solving for my Mom or rescuing her from her own pain in some way. Those parts became really well rehearsed. They really just wanted to be known by my caregivers. Desperately might I add….they have spent 53 years trying to be known by both my Mom and my Dad. Performing. The show must go on to receive the connection I so deeply wanted.

Raising Them, Healing You is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribed

When the feeling of known never came…..my therapist part came in as an adult. She began to believe that she has the tools to help both of them. They just haven’t SEEN me yet because of their own childhood. No problem….I’ve got tools for that. So I began ten years of weekly phone conversations to help my Mom get there. I had no awareness that it was a part of me working for pay. The pay would be the deep connection I had always craved.

If I help you see you…..maybe you will finally see me.

I had many parts that have helped me to understand my parents, to have compassion for them and to accept what they are working with. I know they didn’t get what they needed so how could they give me what I need. Knowing this has complicated so many things. This knowledge has kept me from attending to the Grieving Daughter. What I KNOW has separated me from what I FEEL.

Some of you on this porch with me are my current or past clients….so take a second to have a short laugh here. Yes, yes…..I know this is the work I do with you. I know I have explained this difference to you. I know….okay?! ;) My therapist part that works with ME thought she knew better. She thought she might be able to circumvent this piece. She was wrong.

For decades I have been providing footnotes to my parents so that I could be understood and found.

I have been finding one million ways to better explain so that the Grieving Daughter could finally feel connection. In the end, only to discover they had limited capability to even receive me, let alone know me or see me. All this time and the culmination is…..they can’t. They simply can not.

The show is over.

Maybe the relationship isn’t over….maybe just the trying to be known and trying to be seen is over.

The trying is over.

Finally the Grieving Daughter is invited in. Finally she is seen and I’m working on knowing her. She’s not performing, she’s not helping, she’s not understanding them.

She’s just being…..and grieving. There is much to grieve here. I am realizing.

The show is over and I’m not sure where we go from here…..I just know I’m tired of performing and I’m ending the show. I don’t have to end the relationships to end the show. At least not yet….and that feels right. That feels, dare I say relieving?

The. Show. Is. Over.

The performers are tired and they deserve rest.

The Grieving Daughter is ready to grieve so she can be held by another part of me….The Big Energy Storyteller. She finds humor in all the best places. She tells stories in a way that is relatable while not dismissing the pain. She walks alongside the pain….she let’s her cry and she let’s her wail if she needs to. And I think she needs to….just for a bit.

I’m getting to know myself at a whole new level (love those spiral dynamics). I like her. I see her. She isn’t performing….she’s just sitting on a porch with her people, having a Diet Coke and some corn.

Footnotes: You know I couldn’t resist……some things to think about in discovering how you perform for connection. The ways I performed are just some of the many ways we perform as humans…..sometimes we may get smaller so they can feel bigger. We may create needs so they can attend. We may pretend we don’t know….when we really do. Adaptations to earn connection….which is a fundamental need for humans, especially from our parents. A very ordinary need actually.

All along…..my needs were just ordinary and I felt they must be extraordinary because they were so hard to fill. But no, just everyday run of the mill needs for human connection. Who knew?!