This is an exploration on how trying to fit in hurt me over and over again, and how I am starting to learn how to embrace the way I am in all its beauty.
I relate to so much of this Emma. I am SO with you on the absurd pressure in our society to be 'normal' which I actually think means 'copes with the capitalist system& modern life and works like a machine'. If you can't do that - if you're sensitive or express/feel 'too much' emotion - you're labelled sick, disordered, mentally ill. I actually think that so many of the supposed disordered or divergent ways people are labelled is just a different way of being from the arbitrary norm set my modern society, and that these ways are probably exactly as evolution planned. e.g. a tribe surely needs sensitive people to care for others, and I have read that having ADHD could have been an excellent trait for a hunter gatherer as it meant that those people encouraged the group to move onto the next place to explore for more food.
And I also have a son who has never slept 'well' and has tons of energy - basically from the moment he could roll around at 6 months old he hasn't stopped!! But I have felt the pressure from society, books, other mothers etc for him to fit into, I guess, 'the norm' e.g. sleeping 'well', eating 'well', napping at the correct time for the correct length of time, being quieter etc. It makes me angry that we can't just be accepting of how different babies and children are. From birth they are expected to fit into routines and 'norms' of behaviour.
I've just started reading Gabor Mate's The Myth of Normal - have you read it? I have heard him say - it's no measure of health to be well adjusted in a sick society....
I love your definition of normal...yes. There is a place for everyone, I have read similar things about what you said for those with ADHD...they are the hunter gathers. I struggled so much with embracing how my son is, like yours it was evident from so young, but I thought it was a reflection of my mothering and if I could just figure things out and approach things differently, he would be a calm and normal baby.
I had a paragraph in here about that book, but I took it out. I just started reading it too! I may have to message you to chat about it.
Oh how I feel this, the trying to fit yourself into something because not fully understanding/or more accepting right..of what who you are and what you need! Motherhood for sure helps to open us up to our truest selves and how we need to learn to nurture our whole being.
Truly appreciate this post, and you sharing so deeply! It’s a convo that more sensitive mothers need to have! 🤍
Thank you, because I had regret in the middle of the night thinking I made a mistake sharing this one. It is a conversation we need to have, I find a,l mothers identify with being tired, but there is a different experience mothers who hold a deep sensitivity are experiencing. I am glad this resonated, thank you for being here.
Not a mistake at all I know that feeling you are talking about!! And I think we get that when we are pushing a personal boundary within, and “ego” wants us to stay small and in the doubt.. but that’s also when we need to share the most because it’ll usually make the biggest impact!
Totally different for those who are more sensitive, I’ll also say I think there are more mothers who are sensitive and overstimulated but not necessarily aware of what is going on internally and that is leading them to be tired, when it’s a deeper issue…I say this from experience not a place of judgment. 🤍
I completely agree, it is definitely brushing up against an internal boundary!
Also, yeah...motherhood is the first time I was able to understand overstimulation and sensitivity. It was always bubbling around the edges of my life but motherhood shifted that.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! Interestingly, I had the opposite experience in high school college but the same desires. Maybe not the desire to be “normal” because I always felt slightly different, probably because of my introversion. But being a highly sensitive person I was never interested in alcohol or drugs because I absolutely hate how they make me feel. I didn’t drink in high school, rarely drank in college, and have never done drugs. I felt these decisions made it hard for me to fit in because the “normal” experience of high school/college is to party. None of that felt comfortable for me. By choosing to honor who I was I felt like I also isolated myself. I found it very hard to find my people and I still do to this day.
With my children, I try so hard to honor their unique personalities and school has also been a really big issue in our family. I’m having a really hard time accepting the traditional school model for my son who I know will thrive with something more active, experimental, and outdoor-focused.
It’s so funny, really, that we all strive for “normal” when there is no such thing. Just all our collective, unique experiences. And yet we all want to”fit in.” We need, as a society, to be better versed in accepting others for who they are not for what society wants us to be!
It is the desire to belong but to really belong we have to belong to ourselves first, I think I may be quoting Brenė Brown with that. We have to understand how we are unique and how we operate to find the people who can embrace that with open arms.
Oh gosh I have so fought myself into being more like partners! Thinking I should be more adventurous, more spontaneous, more easy going…. It’s now normal for me to say no, that’s just not me and to feel both sweet relief and a tinge of regret
Wow wow wow. I related to every. single. point in this post. I have the same struggles as you and married a firefighter who loves adrenaline which I need zero of since my adrenaline spikes over the smallest things. I also have those spiraling thoughts and was also forced into reckoning with normal vs not normal when becoming a mother. It also created PPD with my second and immediately was prescribed Zoloft to make me "normal" which felt so wrong. I luckily had the confidence to listen to my body and started a self-care regimen to ward off depression episodes that resulted in paralysis.
Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability in sharing!
You are so welcome, I am glad it resonate. We are not alone in these feelings, I am glad you were able to listen to your body and find another way to care for yourself that felt best to you.
Ooooh so much to relate to here… both from my own experience with dulling down my sensitivity… to raising very unique children who are also very sensitive in their own ways V is exactly how you describe your little one… and it took me so long to accept because she didn’t ‘slot’ in to our rhythms… we had to completely destroy and rebuild a new rhythm for our family life and that was hard and I really fought it at first. But both teach me so much. I finally feel… at 40 years old… that I can embrace my sensitivity for the most part… but still there are times when I wish I could just be ‘normal’ so I don’t feel things as intensely. I also know though… that if I didn’t have this I wouldn’t experience as much awe and wonder in the world. Both things can always be true. Xxx
I understand the desire to just be normal and not feel as much. It is hard to embrace that level of intensity, or that is how it feels to me. I move so differently, but the more I lean into embracing it and figuring out how to support my son to be himself, the more at ease we both seem to be.
I relate to so much of this Emma. I am SO with you on the absurd pressure in our society to be 'normal' which I actually think means 'copes with the capitalist system& modern life and works like a machine'. If you can't do that - if you're sensitive or express/feel 'too much' emotion - you're labelled sick, disordered, mentally ill. I actually think that so many of the supposed disordered or divergent ways people are labelled is just a different way of being from the arbitrary norm set my modern society, and that these ways are probably exactly as evolution planned. e.g. a tribe surely needs sensitive people to care for others, and I have read that having ADHD could have been an excellent trait for a hunter gatherer as it meant that those people encouraged the group to move onto the next place to explore for more food.
And I also have a son who has never slept 'well' and has tons of energy - basically from the moment he could roll around at 6 months old he hasn't stopped!! But I have felt the pressure from society, books, other mothers etc for him to fit into, I guess, 'the norm' e.g. sleeping 'well', eating 'well', napping at the correct time for the correct length of time, being quieter etc. It makes me angry that we can't just be accepting of how different babies and children are. From birth they are expected to fit into routines and 'norms' of behaviour.
I've just started reading Gabor Mate's The Myth of Normal - have you read it? I have heard him say - it's no measure of health to be well adjusted in a sick society....
I love your definition of normal...yes. There is a place for everyone, I have read similar things about what you said for those with ADHD...they are the hunter gathers. I struggled so much with embracing how my son is, like yours it was evident from so young, but I thought it was a reflection of my mothering and if I could just figure things out and approach things differently, he would be a calm and normal baby.
I had a paragraph in here about that book, but I took it out. I just started reading it too! I may have to message you to chat about it.
Oh how I feel this, the trying to fit yourself into something because not fully understanding/or more accepting right..of what who you are and what you need! Motherhood for sure helps to open us up to our truest selves and how we need to learn to nurture our whole being.
Truly appreciate this post, and you sharing so deeply! It’s a convo that more sensitive mothers need to have! 🤍
Thank you, because I had regret in the middle of the night thinking I made a mistake sharing this one. It is a conversation we need to have, I find a,l mothers identify with being tired, but there is a different experience mothers who hold a deep sensitivity are experiencing. I am glad this resonated, thank you for being here.
Not a mistake at all I know that feeling you are talking about!! And I think we get that when we are pushing a personal boundary within, and “ego” wants us to stay small and in the doubt.. but that’s also when we need to share the most because it’ll usually make the biggest impact!
Totally different for those who are more sensitive, I’ll also say I think there are more mothers who are sensitive and overstimulated but not necessarily aware of what is going on internally and that is leading them to be tired, when it’s a deeper issue…I say this from experience not a place of judgment. 🤍
I completely agree, it is definitely brushing up against an internal boundary!
Also, yeah...motherhood is the first time I was able to understand overstimulation and sensitivity. It was always bubbling around the edges of my life but motherhood shifted that.
Thanks for sharing your experiences! Interestingly, I had the opposite experience in high school college but the same desires. Maybe not the desire to be “normal” because I always felt slightly different, probably because of my introversion. But being a highly sensitive person I was never interested in alcohol or drugs because I absolutely hate how they make me feel. I didn’t drink in high school, rarely drank in college, and have never done drugs. I felt these decisions made it hard for me to fit in because the “normal” experience of high school/college is to party. None of that felt comfortable for me. By choosing to honor who I was I felt like I also isolated myself. I found it very hard to find my people and I still do to this day.
With my children, I try so hard to honor their unique personalities and school has also been a really big issue in our family. I’m having a really hard time accepting the traditional school model for my son who I know will thrive with something more active, experimental, and outdoor-focused.
It’s so funny, really, that we all strive for “normal” when there is no such thing. Just all our collective, unique experiences. And yet we all want to”fit in.” We need, as a society, to be better versed in accepting others for who they are not for what society wants us to be!
It is the desire to belong but to really belong we have to belong to ourselves first, I think I may be quoting Brenė Brown with that. We have to understand how we are unique and how we operate to find the people who can embrace that with open arms.
Oh gosh I have so fought myself into being more like partners! Thinking I should be more adventurous, more spontaneous, more easy going…. It’s now normal for me to say no, that’s just not me and to feel both sweet relief and a tinge of regret
Yeah, there is a tiny range of regret isn’t there? But it becomes easier the more I say that’s not for me or not what I need.
Definitely
Wow wow wow. I related to every. single. point in this post. I have the same struggles as you and married a firefighter who loves adrenaline which I need zero of since my adrenaline spikes over the smallest things. I also have those spiraling thoughts and was also forced into reckoning with normal vs not normal when becoming a mother. It also created PPD with my second and immediately was prescribed Zoloft to make me "normal" which felt so wrong. I luckily had the confidence to listen to my body and started a self-care regimen to ward off depression episodes that resulted in paralysis.
Thank you for your honesty and vulnerability in sharing!
You are so welcome, I am glad it resonate. We are not alone in these feelings, I am glad you were able to listen to your body and find another way to care for yourself that felt best to you.
Ooooh so much to relate to here… both from my own experience with dulling down my sensitivity… to raising very unique children who are also very sensitive in their own ways V is exactly how you describe your little one… and it took me so long to accept because she didn’t ‘slot’ in to our rhythms… we had to completely destroy and rebuild a new rhythm for our family life and that was hard and I really fought it at first. But both teach me so much. I finally feel… at 40 years old… that I can embrace my sensitivity for the most part… but still there are times when I wish I could just be ‘normal’ so I don’t feel things as intensely. I also know though… that if I didn’t have this I wouldn’t experience as much awe and wonder in the world. Both things can always be true. Xxx
I understand the desire to just be normal and not feel as much. It is hard to embrace that level of intensity, or that is how it feels to me. I move so differently, but the more I lean into embracing it and figuring out how to support my son to be himself, the more at ease we both seem to be.