Time for a Break

Over the months that I was attempting to discuss my trauma history with my mother it became more and more clear that she was going to be unable, or unwilling, to fully validate not only my history but also my emotional and relational responses as I was doing this trauma work. I was becoming more confident in being awake in my life due to all of this uncovering and feeling that I was suddenly doing and was making lots of rather substantial changes in my life. In particular, I had made the decision to seek out a new career after floundering as a moderately talented graphic designer since my undergrad years. I applied to several social work schools and decided that I was going to go massively in debt to pay for my graduate school by myself to pursue what I believed was my true calling as a social worker. I had actually realized upon review that I had been doing social work since the age of 16 when I began working at a summer camp for children and adults with cerebral palsy and had continued to do so with my fine arts pursuits in college. My college senior art project was partnering with a women's homeless shelter to redesign their logo pro bono and to create posters for their fundraising gala. I often volunteered at a senior living facility on the north side of Chicago as a recreational "specialist" and was often moved to be a general bleeding heart in my politics and my life. Social work seemed like a revelation when I discovered that it was an actual career where people could make actual, though limited, money by helping others.

If I was taking all of these risks to allow my professional life to be an extension of my own journey and asking everyone else in my life to accept my truth and treat me with dignity and respect perhaps it was time to take a break from my family. So, I did. I asked my parents to not contact me anymore until I reached out to them shortly after I began my full-time participation in graduate school. It seemed like the perfect time. I was speaking my truth and surrounded by people who held me in that truth and I needed to be able to be away from the painful reality that my parents nor my brother could not and would not walk forward with me in my healing.