Recently I agreed to meet with three old friends from high school, women I hadn't seen in more than 40 years. I knew the weekend would include a lot of catching up on what we had done with our lives. And I didn't know which "face" I should let them see.
Should it be my professional resume face? All the things that went right and that i appreciate? Or should it be the equally true, severely damaged person who's barely made it this far? Both are me. I'm trying to make myself into an integrated whole, but it is never easy.
Yes, I finished up college on my scholarship and the work I was able to do during college. Then I went to law school after working for a couple of years. I was fortunate enough to graduate in the top ten from UCLA Law School and that got me a job at a top law firm in L.A. where I had a great time working with interesting clients and cases. I had plenty of money to travel and do the things I wanted during the law firm days. My husband and I were lucky on our timing buying and selling houses. We are comfortable now and enjoying some travel.
Sheesh! That sounds conceited to me when I know the truth.
How about:
You never knew all those years ago that I was living with an unmedicated bipolar mother who actually decided to kill me at least once. Of course, I tried to beat her to it. I was unmedicated bipolar until my 50s and started attempting suicide at about 13. I got married at 20 because I thought I was supposed to. When that blew up after college, I threw out all the old rules. For at least the next two decades it was too much alcohol, drugs and sex of every variation (if there is such a thing as long as you don't catch something!). I was a raging bi-polar and I self-medicated with the best (worst?) of them. I became an alcoholic. (I got sober almost five years ago.) I couldn't work the hours required to make partner at those big law firms because of my bi-polar disorder. I blew through another marriage, two live-togethers that were longer than the marriages, and a decades-long, never-allowed-to-be-sexual love affair. I'm on hubby no. 3 now and who knows if I would have stayed with him without meds? I never had children, in part because I was afraid I would be too drunk or high and accidentally let them get hurt. Oh, and my second husband was a psychotic who pimped me out so he could watch, slept with a pistol under the pillow, still stalks me. And that's just the most memorable low points.
How do I explain to any one that I am both descriptions? What am I? An over-achieving success story? A victim? A screw-up? Or a survivor? I like the last label best.
After decades of living halfway across the country from my family and seeing them maybe once a year so I could compartmentalize "good girl daughter" from the other separate compartments of "successful lawyer" and "crazy person", I moved back near my parents about ten years ago. I've been trying to knit together my separate parts and become a whole, not just a series of masks.
Getting meds helped. Getting sober helped. Accepting my mother, with all her flaws and struggles, helped. Having the courage to let people see all of me, not just the face I choose to show to that audience helped.
In the end, I did let my old high school friends see all of me, good and bad. I knew it was a risk, but they accepted me, although they were rather surprised. And, after I did that, they opened up about their lives, the bad as well as the good. I'm learning that I'm not as unique as I thought. My extremes may be more extreme than most. After all, I am bi-polar which means I hit both extremes! But I'm learning that almost everyone who opens up to me has their own set of good and bad, their own masks that they wear.
When I look at people now, I'm not as quick to conclude that I know what their life really is or what they really are. I know I'm not the only one wearing a mask.