THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH YOU
My grandmother lives on a dead-end street in a no-name town in Northeast Pennsylvania. She moved into her house in 1963, the year my mother was born.
Next door to her lived "Ann and Bubbles," and if you could picture those 1960's developments that existed famously in shows like The Wonder Years (original,) that was what it was.
When I was a kid, my parents divorced and we ended up back living with my grandmother for a time.
She was always really concerned about what Ann was doing, and how Ann was "so nosy," and "always watching." She would stare out of her door over to the other house, and watch as Ann looked from the curtains to examine what was going on with us, mere feet away.
Both of these women are miraculously still alive, by the way, still staring at each other. 🤦🏻♀️
I have a very vivid memory of playing in the front yard when I was a child. I had a collection of over 200 rubber bouncy balls, and I would make them "play pretend" and develop all sorts of storylines about them.
I was a beautiful, curious child, but unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of playmates. My grandmother's street was mostly old people like her, whose children moved off and started their families elsewhere.
I remember vividly her coming out and yelling at me as I was playing, telling me I shouldn't be talking to myself because people would think I was crazy, and I would be placed in an institution.
...I'm a fucking 8-year-old.
I'm telling you this story for a reason- not just trying to unload my trauma on you. I'm telling you this because I'm 36 years old. A third of my life, thus far, I spent pre-pubescent. Essentially, I spent an ENORMOUS CHUNK of my living years TO DATE as a child!
And yet, THIS is the memory that stands out most strongly to me. This, and other memories of times when I was told that there is something wrong with me.
I can dig for memories of being taken through the Drive-Thru for a happy meal, or band concerts, or going to get new shoes back in the '80s when they measured your foot with that terrifying contraption. But those things I have to dig to remember. THIS MEMORY is clear.
It was one of the defining memories where I was programmed to think that if I was curious or if I showed the world who I am, something bad would happen.
And every person I know has a memory like this.
It was the time when you were told "how you are is fucked up. You have to be different."
As an 8-year-old, I didn't know all the oppression going on with the Silent Generation, of which my grandmother is a member. Now, as a sociologist who studied generations in grad school, I have a little more insight. But at 8, I just trusted that what people told me was right and that I needed to protect who I am at all costs because something bad is going to happen.
I've been coaching for a little while now, and most clients that I've had have stories like this- moments in childhood they remember so vividly, whether it be a time they were neglected or scolded or had to carry a burden far larger than they should have.
What's interesting is that, like me, the same few stories come up time after time. Through that massive chunk of time, where massive shit happened, we tell the same three or four stories over and over.
This is what Coach Sean Smith, one of my mentors, likes to call "Arrested Development."
That's to say "the moment when you were growing up when you learned that "this. isn't. safe."
And yet, it was all a lie! Nothing was wrong with you! But that was the moment you began to develop the ego, the identity that protects you from everyone and everything. Because hot damn, Andee Scarantino isn't going to an institution for playing with bouncy balls in the yard.
Coaches are not like therapists. We don't tell you what's wrong with you, because nothing is.
You, like all humans, just started building layers of protection, and we help you unearth those so you can live more authentically, in your truth, in your bliss.
If any of this resonates with you, drop me a line.
Otherwise, I'll see you next time.
PS: This went out to my email subscribers on January 20, 2022. I got feedback from a few people, saying they too were threatened with “institution” by a Silent Generation member.
If you are interested in joining me in THE WESTERN REBELLION, where we tear all this shit apart, validate, rewire and inspire, find me: breakfree.getthefuckoff.com and sign up!
