Raspberry Iced M

The Good. The Bad. The Raspy.

  • Raspberry Undone

    I used to think that growth required additions.

    More peace.
    More discipline.
    More blessings.
    More clarity.
    More friends.
    More love.
    More kindness.

    And sometimes it does.

    But lately, God has been undoing some things.

    Undoing. Not punishment. Not abandonment. But subtraction. Slowly unraveling things in me that were never meant to stay.

    1. The need to be chosen. We’ve talked about this one many times. I confused being selected with being valuable. But as I study His Word and as I pray and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit, the Lord is revealing to me that my worth is not assigned by human approval. In fact, He thought I was so worthy, and so special, and so valuable, that He paid for me with His Son’s life. And it’s as complicated, but uncomplicated, as that.
    2. My dependence on chaos. Intensity used to make me feel alive. I confused drama with meaning, urgency with passion, and uncertainty with excitement. And peace was so unfamiliar. But God is teaching me that steadiness is a gift. And He has directed me to stop mistaking chaos for life.
    3. The need to control everything. The human in me likes outcomes I can predict. Clarity. Plans. Order. But control is not achievable, and it becomes a false source of safety. I believe He is allowing this seasons, where I cannot control anything, to teach me how to trust Him.
    4. Lies with which I once agreed. I believed some things, for so long, that they felt like truth. That I was only lovable if I performed. That I was only valuable if I was wanted. That my mistakes are my identity. But He’s been challenging those mindsets – ones where I replaced truth with accusation.
    5. My habit of escape. I have always been a runner. More distractions. More noise. More people. Anything that numbed what I didn’t want to face. Now, though, God has invited me to stay, so that I heal instead of hide.
    6. My pride. To be fair, I am not proud in a loud way. It’s subtle. It’s in the way I need to be right, in the way I need to be seen correctly, and in the need to defend myself constantly. I once couldn’t stomach the thought of someone questioning my motives or misunderstanding something I’d done. But in a way, taking that step back is a practice of humility.
    7. My timeline. I wanted quick fixes, quick healing, quick answers, quick restoration. Even a couple of months ago, I gave God an ultimatum. Deliver me or take me from this world. But in my situation, because I have asked Him to change my heart, His hand in my life has moved more slowly. And more intentionally. He might know that He can’t band-aid my issues if my prayer is to be answered in full.

    Undoing…subtraction…it doesn’t feel good. It feels like loss, more often than not. I’ve been confused and in a state of grief for almost a year. But maybe that means that something unhealthy is loosening its grip.

    He’s not only building me – He’s freeing me. And sometimes before adding something new, He removes what would sabotage it. Sometimes before He heals outwardly, He dismantles interiorly.

    It’s not always visible to others, but I feel it.

    I feel it when I talk to Him about why I’m angry instead of blowing up at the person who made me angry.
    I feel it when I am crying myself to sleep and there’s no one to listen except Him.
    I feel it when I open my Bible every night and His words jump off of the page, as if they were meant for me…for my story.
    I feel it when I ask Him to bless my enemies and those who hate my guts.
    I feel it when I make a choice not to speak up for myself.

    Old cravings are slowly but surely losing power. Old lies don’t scream anymore – they whisper. And old patterns aren’t instinctive anymore.

    Undoing is messy. I am torn up on the inside.

    But I see now that it is also mercy…

    …because some of the things that are leaving me needed to go a long time ago.

  • Raspberry Avoidance

    I used to stay busy. Not always “productive,” but occupied. Distracted. Entertained. Emotionally entangled.

    Anything that kept me from being alone with my thoughts. And because so much of my distractions had a purpose – work, travel, etc. – I didn’t have to face that the fact that it was avoidance. I just called it “life.”

    It isn’t always obvious. Sometimes avoiding yourself doesn’t look like running away. For me, it looked like needing noise. Needing company. Fixating on something dramatic. Doing a project. Doom scrolling. Even positive things, like tending to others’ needs. Anything that would not expose what was underneath.

    And I think I did it because being alone felt uncomfortable. I didn’t want to sit in loneliness or regret or insecurity or emptiness. I didn’t want to ask questions for which there were no answers. So instead of sitting, I moved around them. Repeatedly.

    But only as I’ve looked back have I realized how expensive it was to avoid myself. It cost me clarity, because not slowing down to examine my life caused me to repeat patterns I didn’t understand. It cost me peace, because distraction can numb discomfort, it can’t create stability. It cost me relationships, because unresolved pain leaks into how we love and how we attach. And it cost me time, because years and years passed while I was busy outrunning something that lived inside me.

    And alongside all of that is the realization that the biggest disadvantages lie in the fact that I do not know myself. Almost four decades of constant movement, and I have no idea who I am.

    I know my preferences. My roles. My routines.

    But not my motives. I didn’t know what drove me, what wounded me, what I feared, what I was trying to prove, or what I was using people to soothe.

    And that kind of ignorance is dangerous.

    So eventually, I do what most almost-40 year old people do. I got tired. Tired of pointlessly trying to fill a void. Tired of running, juggling, crying.

    It was almost an “aha” moment. Distractions lost their power. The patterns became too obvious to ignore. And the consequences became real. And I was left to face the very person I kept postponing – myself.

    That’s a brutal meeting. But it was also a holy one.

    A few weeks ago, after explaining to my therapist how I felt about something, she asked me a very pointed question: “What if you just sat in that feeling for a little while?”

    No dismissal. No reaction. And no running.

    Observation only.

    I couldn’t answer that question, but I noticed a fear welling up inside me. She wanted me to just allow a feeling to exist? That’d be a first for me.

    So I tried it. And I hated it. But I tried it again. And again. And again.

    And these days, facing myself isn’t so noisy or complicated.

    I sit in silence sometimes. I notice my reactions. I tell the truth – to myself and others – about my choices. And I just feel. I feel emotions without immediately escaping them.

    I ask myself questions like, “Why did I do that? What am I seeking? What am I afraid of? What needs healing?” And those questions are uncomfortable, but they’re also freeing.

    Avoiding myself for so long delayed growth more than any outside circumstance ever did. The problem didn’t lie solely in what once “happened” to me. It was how long I refused to meet myself honestly.

    But the only thing more expensive than wasting the last 39 years on searching for an unachievable comfort is the continuation of my search.

    So now, I stay. I sit. I notice. And try to get to know myself truthfully. Because the person from whom I kept running is the only person I need to learn to live with.

  • Raspberry Consequences

    There was a time when I only thought of God working through blessings.

    Open doors.
    Answered prayers.
    Unexpected favor.
    Fresh starts.

    As long as I had buttoned myself up enough to call upon Him. As long as what I was asking for “felt” Christian.

    Those moments are easy to recognize.

    But life has taught me something deeper.

    Sometimes God also works through consequences.

    Let me be clear. Not every painful situation is a consequence. Not every hardship is discipline. Not every struggle means something sinful occurred.

    Sometimes life it just hard. Sometimes people suffer unfairly. And sometimes pain comes when there is no one to blame.

    But there are also times when what we experience is the natural result of choices we made. And even there, God can still work.

    1. Consequences are a fantastic teacher. Some lessons only became clear to me after the cost became real. When trust was broken. When relationships changed. When I had to sit with outcomes I created. What advice wouldn’t teach me, consequences did. They expose patterns. They identified my blind spots. They forced honesty.
    2. Consequences can produce humility. Nothing humbles like seeing the ripple effects of our own decisions. It’s clarifying sometimes and shameful others. But we stop feeling superior. We stop pretending that we’re exempt from cause and effect. We become softer toward others who struggle. Humility grows where denial once lived.
    3. Consequences can redirect us. Sometimes the path we’re on feels sustainable – until it doesn’t. Consequences can become the moment we stop. The wake up call. The turning point. The place where we finally say, “I can’t live like this anymore.” And that moment – even as painful as it is – can become mercy in disguise.

    I back my argument with Scripture.

    David faced consequences after he committed adultery with Bathsheba.
    Jonah was swallowed by a whole sea creature after running from God.
    The prodigal son came to clarity in the famine after reckless living.

    In each story, consequence was not the end of grace. It became part of the path back to grace.

    Grace and consequences can coexist, and that’s been important for me to learn. God can forgive me…and has…and consequences can still remain. Those two things don’t contradict each other.

    Grace doesn’t always erase outcomes. But it can give us the strength to walk through them.

    In this season of my life, I think it’s been very important for me to learn to not waste pain only by resenting it. Sometimes the very thing I wish had never happened is the thing that exposes what needs to change. Not because God delights in our pain, but because He can redeem even painful realities.

    God works through blessings. But He also works through boundaries, losses, wake-up calls, and consequences. Not every consequence is condemnation.

    Sometimes it’s correction.
    Sometimes it’s protection.
    Sometimes it’s the doorway to transformation.

    And sometimes the hardest seasons become holy ones…because they finally tell us the truth.

  • Raspberry Approved

    I didn’t realize how much of my identity was tied to other people’s approval…until very recently.

    It wasn’t obvious. But how I felt about myself used to depend on how I was treated, whether I was chosen, whether I was understood, whether I was wanted.

    And when those things were present, I felt okay. When they weren’t, I didn’t.

    Approval feels like safety. Like I’m doing something right. I’m enough. I belong. And when you’ve spent a long time wanting to feel chosen, approval can feel like confirmation. Like proof that you matter.

    But the problem is that approval is unstable. It changes. People change their minds. They see you differently based on their own experiences. People respond based on their capacity – not your worth. And if your value is tied to something that is unstable, your sense of self will always be fragile.

    So I had to face a hard truth – there are people who will never approve of me. Not because I’m not trying. Not because I’m not growing. But because of what they’ve experienced, what they believe, and what they’re not ready to revisit.

    I cannot control that.

    And that used to undo me. So I’d combat it by explaining more. Doing more. Being “better” – whatever that means. Proving myself. I wanted to earn back something I never truly had in the first place. And in the process, I lost myself.

    So in the last few months I’ve started asking a totally different question. Instead of, “Do they approve of me?” it’s, “Am I living in a way I can stand behind?”

    That question grounded me into something much more stable. It has required deep dives into my own life and my own habits. Not for others to see. But so that I can become someone I can tolerate.

    Worth is not determined by who stays or leaves, who understand or who approves. It exists ahead of all of that. Worth is not something that is assigned by our peers. It is something we carry.

    We have to separate our worth from caring what people think, because the two are mutually exclusive.

    I care what people think about me. I probably always will. I still feel it when I’m misunderstood. I still notice when I’m not chosen.

    But I don’t let it define me anymore. And I certainly don’t chase it or build my identity around it. The gift I get in return is peace. The quiet kind that isn’t dependent on feedback or reassurance. Just a steady grounding in knowing who I am, what I’m working on, and the direction I’m moving.

    And that’s enough.

    The approval of others feels so good. But it wasn’t meant to define us. Because if our worth rises and falls based upon how others see us, we will always be at the mercy of something we cannot control.

    So I am learning to build something steadier than that. Something rooted in truth, not perception. Something that doesn’t disappear when someone else looks away.

    That, Friends, is real stability.

  • Maternal Raspberry

    Love looks different in every season. And there were seasons in my life when love was louder.

    Big emotions.
    Big efforts.
    Big attempts to fix everything.

    But right now, love in my life is quieter. It’s less dramatic and more consistent.

    1. It looks like showing up. Getting up and doing what needs to be done. Earning a paycheck. Keeping things moving. Handling responsibilities. Making sure the bills are paid. Figuring out what to do with ground beef or chicken every night of the week and then getting bored and deciding to order pizza instead.
    2. It looks like caring in ordinary ways. Love isn’t always some sweeping grand gesture. These days, it’s remembering appointments. Making sure people have their wallets and their lunches. Keeping track of details that two boys can’t be bothered to remember. All of that – because invisible things count, too.
    3. It looks like being steady. Love isn’t always intense. Sometimes it’s being dependable. Being present. Being someone my boys can count on. Not perfect. Just consistent.
    4. It looks like wasting money. “Wasting” may not be the right word. But I certainly spend. And spend and spend. Computer upgrades. Three guitars in 8 months. Prescription sunglasses. Nintendo switch games. Cash app transfers. Headphones. And I’m so happy they’re happy, but wow.
    5. It looks like letting go of control. Accepting that I cannot control everyone’s choices, or moods, or timelines, or outcomes. I can care deeply without managing everything.
    6. It looks like restraint. Sometimes love looks like what I don’t do. And I don’t say everything I think. I don’t react to every feeling. I don’t turn every frustration into conflict. Because most times I think peace matters more than my feelings. That’s new. And refreshing.
    7. It looks like making space. My family members are their own persons. They have their own thoughts, their own seasons, and their own ways of processing life. Loving them right now means allowing room for that, without needing everyone to be in exactly the same place I am.
    8. It looks like continuing through uncertainty. Some seasons of family life are clear, while others are more complicated. Right now there are things for which I do not have answers. But I love anyway. Even in uncertainty. Even when relationships feel layered. Even when outcomes are unclear.
    9. It looks like growth. One of the most loving things I can do for my family right now is continue growing myself. To become calmer, healthier, more honest, and more grounded. Sometimes love is less about changing others, and more about changing what I bring to the room.

    Nothing I’m doing right now is flashy. It’s not dramatic.

    But it’s daily.

    It’s in the meals, the laundry, the patience, the restraint, the showing up, and the trying again.

    And maybe that is what mature love often becomes – less performance and more presence.

  • Raspberry Character

    I want to write today about something that has been racking my brain for the last several months.

    There is a belief that many people hold that is basically generalized as follows:

    If someone repeats the same mistake often enough, that mistake becomes their character.

    I can understand why people think that. Patterns matter. Repeated behavior creates damage. It affects trust. It shapes how others experience us.

    So I am not arguing that repeated mistakes are harmless. They aren’t.

    But I will challenge the idea that repetition automatically equals permanent identity.

    I am that girl. The one that has repeated the same mistakes, over and over again. They say the definition of insanity is to try the same thing over and over again, hoping eventually for a different outcome.

    It is very possible that I was not the most “sane” when messing up.

    The same cycle…over and over again…for 20 years or more.

    I experienced an emotion. Overwhelm. Anger. Loneliness. Boredom. Intense sadness/depression.
    I sought immediate relief. And I always found it – in the most temporary of places.
    I realized the relief was temporary, and did some of the most dishonest, disingenuous things to hold onto that relief just a little bit longer.
    That dishonesty and disingenuousness was discovered, exposed, and defined.
    The relief I once had disappeared, as did those who were hurt by my dishonesty and disingenuousness.
    I bed-rotted and grieved the loss of those people and that feeling of relief. I pitied myself.
    Enter shame. I kept my thumb over top of myself to ensure that I would never again make those mistakes.
    I avoided people. Mirrors. And ultimately accountability.

    When we repeat the same mistake over and over, it usually reveals something real.

    A wound that hasn’t healed.
    A need we don’t know how to meet in a healthy way.
    Lack of discipline.
    A coping mechanism.
    Emotional immaturity.
    Unaddressed pain.
    Selfishness.
    Sometimes, all of the above.

    Patterns shouldn’t be ignored. But they should be understood accurately.

    So the one or two mistakes it usually takes for other people to learn their lesson, for me, it was the opposite. I compartmentalized each mistake in a way that made the pattern disappear, in a sense. If I could rationalize, in my own mind, why each mistake was made, I could shirk responsibility, and redirect each bad decision toward a circumstance.

    But in the last 9 months or so, I’ve started to realize how futile that was.

    Of course I am responsible. I’m the one who made those choices.
    Of course it’s a pattern. I ran from each hard situation in search of relief.
    And of course I hurt people. I was dishonest about myself, about my circumstances, about what I really needed.

    The last mistake that falls into the cycle of this pattern lasted about 3 years, off and on. And when the mistake was corrected, I instinctively developed tunnel vision. My brain didn’t have the capacity necessary to grieve and take accountability.

    So over the last 9 months or so, I have had to adjust my own thought processes. I realized that’s it’s not enough, anymore, to grieve and compartmentalize. Real change requires internal labor. And recognizing my patterns was the first step in the work I am still doing. In fact, I will probably never be “done” working.

    There is a difference between saying, “This person has a destructive pattern,” and saying, “This is who she is, forever.”

    One statement turns repeated struggle into a life sentence. the other leaves room for accountability and growth.

    I had to stop globally defining myself and fundamentally defective. I didn’t repeat those painful mistakes because I enjoyed destruction. I repeated them because the behavior served something.

    Validation.
    Escape.
    Control.
    Being chosen.
    Avoiding discomfort.

    The choices were wrong. But the root of those choices travel deeper than “bad character.”

    Character is not what someone does repeatedly in one season, or what someone does when met with a specific feeling.

    Character is what I do when I wake up. What I have chosen since I’ve become aware. It’s the fact that I have taken responsibility. That I’ve accepted consequences. That I finally know better. And that I’m putting in the work necessary to pivot from what I know.

    Character includes response to failure. Not just failure itself.

    There is danger in assigning permanent labels. When we reduce people to their worst repeated mistake, two things happen. One, we feel morally superior. Two, we stop believing change is possible. Those things might feel satisfying, but it’s not the truth. And the irony is that I am able to look at those who have permanently labeled me and written me off and define their own destructive patterns. Gossiping. Avoiding. Judging. Remaining too immature to hold space for change.

    Some people stay in patterns. Some people don’t. I’m determined to leave this world having broken my own.

    Accountability still matters. I don’t get a free pass. Those repeated mistakes have cost me relationships. They’ve destroyed trust. They’ve had lasting consequences. Of course, other people are allowed to protect themselves. They’re allowed to remember what happened.

    But accountability and hopeless labeling are not synonymous.

    I am not how I once behaved. Public opinion does not tell the truth. Time and consistency tell the truth, even if other people believe it is “too late.” I spent 20 or more years in a destructive cycle, attempting to meet a need I wasn’t even interested in understanding until about a year ago. And with that understanding comes implementation of new patterns – healthy ones that are uncomfortable but necessary to achieve the integrous life I want to live.

    I don’t have to resolve to the fact that I am forever broken just because other people believe that. I don’t have to continue this repetitive destructive cycle just because it’s what I’ve done for a long time. I don’t have to cling to my mistakes just because I spent a long time making them. And I don’t have to embrace being branded as a failure forever just because this particular pattern has revealed brokenness in one area of my life.

    I am more complicated than my worst loop. And my strongest character was not formed before the pattern…but in the process of breaking it.


  • Stuck Raspberry

    There are parts of my story I can change.

    The way I live now.
    The choices I make today.
    The direction I’m headed.

    Those things are still in motion.

    But there are other parts that are fixed. Already written. Already lived. And no amount of wishing, regretting, explaining, or replaying can make them different.

    1. My past decisions cannot be undone. Words I said. Choices I made. Ways I hurt people. Ways I hurt myself. I can learn from them and take responsibility for them, but I can’t go back into those moments and choose differently. That door only opens one way.
    2. I can’t change how other people remember me. I can’t rewrite the version of me they experienced. If I was careless, they remember carelessness. If I was dishonest, they remember my lies. If I hurt them, they remember pain. And even if I’ve changed since then, their memories are valid. They belong to them.
    3. I can’t alter the consequences that remain. Some consequences don’t disappear just because growth begins. Some relationships stay distant. Some trust never fully returns. Some opportunities are gone for good. And that used to feel unbearably unfair, but I understand it differently now. Consequences are not always punishment. Sometimes they’re simply reality continuing forward.
    4. I can’t change time that has passed. There are seasons I spent asleep to myself. Years I could have been wiser. Kinder. More honest. I can’t reclaim those years. I can’t retroactively become the person I should’ve been then. All I can do is become her now.
    5. I cannot control the choices other people make. There are people I love whose choices have hurt me. But I can’t change it. Their boundaries. Their distance. Their healing process. Their willingness to reconnect. I grieve those things. But I can’t control them.
    6. I can’t change what acceptance isn’t. It’s not approval. It’s not saying the painful parts were good. It’s not pretending that loss doesn’t hurt. Acceptance is simply refusing to spend the rest of my life arguing with what already happened.

    But I can change how I carry the story now.

    Whether I use it as an excuse or a lesson.
    Whether I let regret define me or refine me.
    Whether pain makes me bitter or wiser.

    I can change what the next chapter looks like…even if that chapter is one written in solitude.

    There is a strange peace in admitting that some things will never be different, because once I stop trying to move immovable parts, I have more energy to build what is still possible.

    There are real, painful, permanent parts of my story I cannot change. But those parts are not the only parts of my story. And while I can’t edit old chapters, I can still rewrite ones that remain.

  • Sitting Raspberry

    I want to try to explain something that I have only recently understood. Something I had to learn the hard way.

    What most people think they know about trauma, about abandonment, about narcissism, about people pleasing? It’s usually not correct.

    And I know that because I’ve worn every one of those badges – not because I was a bad person (despite the attempts of many to convince me otherwise), but because something inside of me didn’t feel safe.

    When we are children, we start gathering information about ourselves, and drawing conclusions based on that information.

    When we’re young, and before our brains are even fully developed, we experiment with different qualities – inside the expectations of our superiors – to try to see what fits. What feels right. What makes us most comfortable. What earns us the most acceptance.

    And based on a lack of acceptance and lack of comfortability in certain situations, I learned that something was wrong with me. I learned that I wasn’t like everyone else. So I tried it all. I developed strategies to deal with the wounds that lack of acceptance and discomfort created.

    Very early, I developed the skill of observation. I read every room. I was obnoxious and outgoing around some. Reserved and a profound thinker around others. I learned what was appropriate based on the situation and based on the needs of others. And I attempted to master every performance in various social settings.

    And eventually it all landed in a dishonest place. Not because I intended to be wholly dishonest, but because the approval of others mattered more – in isolated moments – than being completely truthful.

    That’s where it started. And I figured out that masking my genuine self – before I even learned who I really was – earned me more friends, more recognition, and more support.

    It was relief, even if only temporary.

    And as my dishonesty was exposed and that relief turned into something internally chaotic…as I lost those friends and that acceptance and that comfort, shame snatched me by my head.

    And that’s the way it’s been ever since. That cycle. Because the strategy I developed long ago to acquire approval didn’t go away as I matured. It followed me. And it began showing up across my adult relationships.

    First the need for acceptance. Dishonesty and masking and performance to earn that acceptance. Relief. Then exposure. Chaos. Shame, and the desire to escape it…which perpetuated my need for more acceptance…thus prompting more dishonesty and masking and performance.

    For the better part of two decades, as that cycle has repeated itself, it’s always been somewhere between the “steps” of exposure and shame that I decide I am going to submit to truth and commit to interrupting that cycle.

    Fake the smile. Swallow your own needs. Straighten up.

    That need for acceptance didn’t disappear. In fact, it still exists.

    But in order to combat that need, I stopped expressing myself outwardly. Instead, I learned how to shrink. I became very self-conscious. I learned to hide and protect myself because I didn’t want to feel even more like I didn’t fit in. I learned to ignore my own boundaries, my own values, and my own worth just to hold onto people that never intended to stay in the first place.

    If being outgoing won’t get me there, maybe becoming a doormat will.

    I abandoned myself. It’s just that simple.

    I was so focused on not being left that I left myself.

    And what I’ve come to terms with is that all of this served a purpose at certain points in my life. As a child, those patterns and that cycle protected me. They helped me cope. They helped me navigate situations where I didn’t feel seen or loved. And as an adult, I felt like I only belonged if I was needed.

    None of this meant something was wrong with me. It only meant that something inside of me adapted so that I could access acceptance.

    But I’m not a child anymore. I’m not young anymore. I’m self-aware. Finally. And what once protected me eventually became a huge problem for me and the people around me, because as I continued to repeat that cycle, and as people were negatively affected by it, the subsequent result was destruction.

    Narcissism. People-pleasing. Those aren’t personality traits. They’re just disregulated nervous systems without containment.

    Something feels unsafe, so your system reacts.

    But the reaction isn’t always truth. It’s an alarm.

    And here’s the shift…

    I was not the alarm. I was the one hearing it go off. I’m not the voices in my head trying to negotiate my worth. I am the person receiving those voices.

    I have spent most of my life in fear. Fear of rejection.

    But fear isn’t real danger. Fear cannot hurt me.

    So I stopped trying to fix the wound. And instead, I started observing the pattern. And what I’ve seen so far isn’t rejection. I’ve seen reality.

    Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. People. Roles. Rules. Scenery. Circumstances. Even the stars, which look like they’re fixed in the sky, move. And since everything evolves, so do other people. Including people we love.

    For the better part of a year, I have forced myself to sit in the discomfort I used to try to unhealthily and dishonestly escape. I’ve resisted the habitual urge to fix relationships. I’ve let go of any false sense of control that I used to desire and I’ve allowed people to reject me. I’ve allowed unforgiveness. I’ve allowed accusations. And gossip. And assumptions.

    What I have realized in the middle of this season of isolation is that none of it matters. Whoever stays, stays. Whoever leaves, leaves. Whoever talks, talks. Defending a destructive pattern, justifying my own boundaries, apologizing over and over, working for acceptance – none of it makes a difference. It is counterproductive to want to learn who I really am if I give other people the keys to my worth.

    So while losing people used to terrify me – so much so that I altered my personality to suit their needs – now I’m just here – still sitting in discomfort and fear. I’m not defending what I’ve done. I’m not working to fix any relationship. I am not apologizing anymore than I already have. I am not anchored in external acceptance. I’m not clinging to a desire to be understood. And slowly but surely, the discomfort and fear that used to be unbearable isn’t so scary anymore.

    There is freedom in letting go. In not chasing. In being misunderstood.

    You’re okay. Just rest.

  • Giving Up Raspberry

    I am not a person who has ever been allowed to not know how to handle things.

    I’m a person who – of her own choosing – grew up too fast, and then acted upon every urge to escape responsibilities I was not emotionally prepared to handle.

    I am not someone who has ever been able to learn from a single mistake, but instead, I put the Mistake Playlist on shuffle and/or repeat, so that a series of the same mistake became a noticeable destructive pattern that many, many of my former friends and family members define as my character.

    hurt → seek relief → act against values → shame → self-loathing → need comfort → seek relief again

    I am someone whose decisions have negatively impacted many, but none as much as myself.

    I am a person whose mind attributes production with love, and because other people, who are aware of my destructive patterns, assume that someone with my “character” is not capable of love, I have worked extra hard to prove those people wrong, which has turned my love into something transactional.

    I brought tiny human beings into this world before I became whole, and I sacrificed and showed up and put my own healing on pause, so that now, all my children see when they look at me is a mess.

    I have unintentionally wrecked lives because I was trying to “feel better.”

    But intention doesn’t matter. Not to them.

    And there are a dozens of people who watch me from afar now. No contact. No communication. No engagement. Just observation and a hope that whatever narrative they have written about me doesn’t change by my making better choices – because if I ever straighten myself out…if I ever do anything correctly…if I ever finally learn…their hatred for me no longer makes sense. Those are the same people who couldn’t be bothered to support me or show me kindness or give me grace, but were also standing over me to laugh when I fell down.

    Early on, self-loathing became self-soothing. I convinced myself that being overly loud, overly obnoxious, and overly funny would hide my hurt and my insecurities. And I have been dishonest, off and on, my entire life, morphing myself into someone I’m not, just to feel like I belonged…because the Real Me? She doesn’t belong anywhere, except maybe a grave.

    And when being outgoing and extraverted and hilarious didn’t attract the acceptance I sought, I tried the opposite – shrinking. Their needs > mine. I became low maintenance. Tiny. A doormat. I had no boundaries. And I ate crumbs with gratitude.

    But when the crumbs didn’t satisfy my hunger for being chosen, or prioritized, or even considered, I sprinted to new crowds. New people. New men…whose interests I adopted as my own, whose needs I tried to meet so that a space in their lives was reserved just for me. But eventually, their attitudes about me ultimately became how I felt about myself.

    Not once. Not twice.

    Over…and over…and over. Not constantly. But intermittently.

    And thus a destructive pattern. A metaphorical stamp of brokenness that has left spectators satisfied with their own opinions of me. My very own Scarlet Letter, forever reminding me that I was born into messy, I stayed messy, and now I am consequentially doomed to carry messy. Alone and without the support I have tried a hundred ways to earn.

    Temporary relief is not relief at all, but that is a difficult observation to make when the relief is happening. So the first 20 years of my adult life were spent in irony as I ran directly toward a pattern I tried so hard to white-knuckle. The problem is that not once did that pattern ever scratch my itch. It only perpetuated the self-hatred I thought I was running away from.

    There is no one to blame except myself for the people I’ve lost.

    And that loss has presented itself in a similar, ironic way, because I once ate their crumbs. The discomfort I now force myself to sit in has created space for me to see that losing people who only offer crumbs may not be loss at all.

    And now I keep my mouth shut. But I don’t hide. Now I reflect without white-knuckling. Now I accept abandonment and rejection instead of trying to fight it.

    And I also understand.

    For the first time in 20 years.

    I understand.

    That’s not important to anyone but me. Other people don’t care if I understand, much less care, themselves, to understand. And that is okay.

    What I have done is wrong. Morally repugnant. Spiritually stifling.

    I knew it the first time. And then second. And on and on…

    But knowing that something is wrong and having the inner capacity to stop doing it are not always the same thing.

    The people who left? They assume that my repeated betrayals mean I am evil, I am immoral, and that I didn’t care if I hurt people. And while that narrative holds a certain amount of water, human beings are so much more complicated than that type of categorization.

    Something drove that destructive pattern. I merely attempted to solve pain.

    1. I tried to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. I wanted to feel validated, chosen, excited. I wanted to escape loneliness. I wanted a distraction from grief and my own emptiness. Real needs. Damaging methods.
    2. What I have generalized as a destructive pattern started and ended, initially, as a coping mechanism. Instead of grieving rejection, I sought attention elsewhere. Instead of speaking honestly about how unseen I felt, I sought intensity in other forms. That’s not my character’s destiny. It’s just conditioning.
    3. My shame for one decision fueled the fire for the next round. A vicious cycle with a detrimental outcome.
    4. I was emotionally starving. It is natural for other people to judge a final act while ignoring the years I spent with unmet needs. I picked the scabs of every wound – loneliness, resentment, numbness…until I finally realized that vulnerability wasn’t an option.
    5. As I’ve already established, I firmly believed that attention equaled worth. If someone needed/wanted me, I mattered. Each new pursuit felt like medicine. Only recently have I realized how expensive that medicine really was.
    6. I was at war with myself. I knew it was wrong. But desperation overrode conviction.

    I don’t ask myself why I was bad anymore. I get it now.

    And I don’t seek support or acceptance like I once did. I have just realized that it’s probably not something I’ll ever have.

    Instead I’ve answered questions so that I can identify my triggers.

    What pain was I medicating? What need felt unbearable the longer it went unmet? What belief about myself kept seeking outside proof? What emotion was I not able to sit with? What was I trying to feel each time?

    Knowing right from wrong increases responsibility. But it hasn’t put me in a place beyond redemption, even if that redemption does not come from those crumbs I mentioned.

    Now healing looks like radical honesty without self-crucifixion. Identifying the unmet need beneath the reactive behavior. And learning how to meet that need myself.

    I have made amends where possible. I have built boundaries against the old cycle.

    And I am trying my best to accept that my past behavior is data, not my identity.

    But convincing other people that I’m worth more than crumbs…that I’m worth a second (or third or fourth) glance…that I’m safe…is an unachievable goal.

    So I quit trying.

  • Raspberry Hats

    Like most people, I wear many hats.

    I am different things to different people.

    A wife.
    A mom.
    A paralegal.
    A daughter.

    For other people, I’m someone worse.

    The root of their trauma.
    Someone to discuss at the next coffee klatch.
    A deceiver.
    The cause of so much hurt.

    Those roles matter. They shape my days and carry responsibilities. They require things of me. Even the negative parts I’ve played in other people’s lives have weight, prompting me to work against my own decisions to prove myself “worthy.”

    But lately I’ve wondered who I am when all the hats come off.

    I have always measured myself by how well I performed my roles. Was I useful enough? Needed enough? Successful enough? Defensive enough? Good enough for people connected to me?

    And circling that drain seems productive on paper, but slowly, over the last 20 years, I have become so disconnected from myself.

    Roles are what I do. They are not always who I am.

    There are not many moments when no one is asking anything from me. Big asks, like shrinking myself to suit someone else’s agenda. And little asks, like managing a schedule, or attending an event, or folding laundry.

    But in those few-and-far-between moments when no one is asking anything from me – no tasks or titles or immediate responsibilities – I have had to ask myself, “Who is still here?”

    Who remains when I am not producing, helping, fixing, managing or proving?

    Underneath the hats, I am someone who feels deeply. Someone who notices things. Someone who reflects privately.

    I’ve become someone who values truth over comfort – which is a change from a former version of me.

    I’m someone who has made many mistakes but is still willing to grow. Someone who values quiet. And peace. Not chaos anymore. Someone who still hopes, even after disappointment. Someone who is softer than she looks and stronger than she once knew.

    I don’t know what unconditional love looks like, and I’ve always “proven” love in the work I’ve done.

    But I am not just what I provide. I am not only valuable when I’m useful. I’m not only worthy when I am needed. I’m not only lovable when I am performing well.

    My worth doesn’t begin and end with what I can do for others.

    I do not have myself figured out in full. And I don’t think we ever reach the finish line of that journey. We are all made up of parts. Of different seasons in our lives. And since the present eventually becomes the past, and the past becomes part of who we are – eventually – what I do now will become part of my story.

    I am still learning what matters to me. I am still unlearning destructive patterns. I am still growing into integrity.

    At my core, I am not willing to accept that my mistakes have become the finish line for growth. I am willing to do the work, willing to tell the truth, and will to become different…

    …and I have to pray that counts for something.

    No title fully captures my private resilience, the battles I’ve fought internally (even if I have lost those battles), the compassion and empathy I carry (a side effect of my mistakes), the grief I’ve survived, the discipline I’m building, and the faith that continues to transform me.

    Those things don’t always show up on paper. But they’re real.

    I fill a role in several people’s lives. And I’ll keep filling those roles. I’ll keep showing up in the hats that my decisions and my life and my family ask of me.

    But when those hats come off, I’m still here. A whole person. Still growing. Still valuable. Still becoming.

    And that person matters, too.