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I’m Not Stronger Than You: I Just Stopped Abandoning Myself

A woman wrote to me recently after reading something I shared about having a jealous, narcissistic mother (link below). She told me she loved it, but that she could never be as strong as me. Her words didn’t hit me as admiration they landed with deep sorrow. The hidden belief that whatever strength or fire she sees in me is something she wasn’t born with broke my heart, because I know that belief - I have lived there, too.

I want to be clear here and stress that I am not stronger than you. I am not made of something different. I didn’t get here because I had more courage or ferocity or willpower. I got here because pain cornered me until there was no other way to move, exist, or breathe. I didn’t start roaring because I was bold. I started roaring because disappearing again, and being held hostage by pain, fear, rage… all of it felt like death.

I still fall into the victim story. I still hate it when I feel myself circling the drain of it. The only difference is my anger eventually rises and refuses to let me stay in victimhood. Not because I’m above it - but because something in me has decided that returning to that cage costs more than the risk of speaking out and living authentically and unapologetically.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

_Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin

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