How Letting Go of Survivor’s Guilt Helped me Find my Magic.

I grew up in one of those little, rural places where the world still seems flat. Either people stay forever and never leave, or they leave and never come back.

I was the first born grandchild, and grew up with the unspoken expectation that I would help run the family business until it was passed down to me. I spent my whole childhood in that place- a care home my grandmother built, owned and operated alongside two of her five daughters, one of them being my mother.

I worked beside my grandmother before I was tall enough to reach the counters in her commercial kitchen. I stood on a chair to wash dishes in the deep, industrial sink and swept the blacktop parking lot for pocket money in the summertime. When I turned eighteen, I was added to the payroll officially as a part-time employee.

There wasn’t much to do in my hometown besides drugs or get pregnant. I did both of those things. (Not at the same time.) After my daughter was born, she came to work with me in my grandmother’s kitchen, just as I had done with my mother. Grandmother rocked my daughter to sleep every afternoon. She loved having us there with her, and took great pride in telling everyone that she had three generations of women running the business she had dedicated her life to.

But, as a single mother, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted more for my life and my child than the family business could afford us. I wanted a college education, something grandmother thought was pointless for women to pursue. I wanted to break the cycles of poverty, addiction and abuse that I grew up in. I wanted to see what existed beyond the edge of the little town I’d spent two decades looking at, and see for myself what opportunities I’d been missing out on.

This wasn’t a new flight of fancy - I had known my whole life that I didn’t belong there. I felt like an orphan of the living- my childhood marred with abuse and neglect. Hanging out at grandma’s house gave me some happy memories, but my childhood was painful and difficult. Living in that place was a constant reminder of the ways I had been hurt by people who were supposed to love and protect me.

Now, I had a baby girl who needed me to take care of her, and I was not going to let her down. I wanted to give her the mother I always wanted. I wanted to give her all of the opportunities I didn’t have. I refused to raise her in the cesspool of dysfunction I grew up in. And, though it broke my grandmother’s heart, I left the family business and began testing my wings.

I took a job at a local hospital that came with a hefty pay increase plus benefits. It was not far from the local community college, where I enrolled full-time. Two years later, I left rural Michigan with a husband and another little one in tow. We started a new life five states away.

A couple years later, we moved to Texas, where we lived for a decade. I became full-time mom there, and part-time student. Then, in 2010 we relocated again to Tennessee.

I received my bachelor’s degree when I was thirty-three years old. After many twists and turns, I had finally achieved that goal I set for myself when grandmother was still alive. I don’t think she would have been terribly proud of me, still I wished that she could have seen it, if only so I could show her that I did what I set out to do.

Everything fell apart for us in Nashville, swiftly and beautifully. I ended my thirteen-year marriage, and found a new gratitude for the degree that felt like kind of an afterthought when I received it. In the unraveling of the life I had built with my ex-husband, I began becoming the woman I was born to be.

Through all the years, milestones, buying and selling houses, moving cross-country, earning a degree, walking away from my toxic marriage and learning to stand on my own two feet — I felt alone.

My promotions at work, the writing career that was beginning to show signs of life, traveling to far away places — all the accomplishments I worked so hard for went mostly unacknowledged if not criticized by my biological people. This was not unlike my childhood, certainly I was used to their apathy, but it still sucked.

With each happy new thing that happened in my life came a twinge of hurt, sadness and feeling like I didn’t deserve it. I wrestled with feelings of unworthiness and shame. When bad things happened back home, and oh-my-gods did some bad things happen, I felt guilty. I found myself asking, “why me?”

My grandmother had six grandchildren. I am the only one who fell off the edge of that place never to return. We lost one to suicide, two have been in and out of prison, and two remain there doing the best they can in the little town that is now plagued with meth and what’s left of the Rust Belt’s economy.

Why?

Why was I the only one who somehow knew that we didn’t have to live that way?

Why was I the only one who wanted more badly enough to go out and get it?

Most importantly, why did I feel unworthy of all the things I had worked so hard for?

Why did I feel so guilty for wanting a better life for myself and my children?

I can only compare this cognitive dissonance to survivor’s guilt.

On some level, I felt as if I’d watched the rest of my family die in a fire, and I was the only one left standing. With each happy moment for me came sadness for them.

These feelings of not deserving all the good stuff I left home to find were holding me back and keeping me stuck. I couldn’t continue moving forward with my life while always looking back to the places and people I had left behind. I had to let it go, but how?

First, I realized that maybe the ones who stayed there did so happily. Maybe they didn’t feel stuck there, maybe they chose to stay on purpose because they actually liked it there. It was comfortable, familiar, safe and predictable. We don’t all want the same things, after all.

I wanted out. Maybe they never did, and that’s OK. Hell, maybe they think they’re the lucky ones. Who am I to say they’re not? Not everyone wants to climb a corporate ladder, or put themselves through college, or live in a busy city. To each their own, as they say.

I remembered that I am only responsible for myself- my choices, my actions, my future. I was not born to be the savior for the rest of my family. Their lives, struggles and dilemmas are theirs to manage- not mine. Feeling guilty for making different choices for myself cannot fix their issues, it can only make things harder for me.

Finally, I realized that I don’t have to keep myself small so others can feel big. I have felt the cold sting of envy from certain members of my family. The underhanded compliments, their absence from my celebrations and downright disapproval of my dreams. I’ve listened to the guilt trips and the manipulative ploys and the pity parties until I want to poke my ears out. To this, I can finally say, “Fuck ‘em.”

I understand now that I can never be a happy person if I’m living to please everyone else while ignoring my needs and desires.

Here’s the thing: All of the blood, sweat and tears I poured into becoming who I wanted to be were mine. I followed my dreams. I did the work. I deserve to enjoy all the success and fulfillment I’ve been seeking in the world- and no amount of holding myself back would make life any easier for anyone else.

Letting go of my guilt created space for me to grow, expand and become even more magical than I was before. Allowing myself to receive without guilt opened up new opportunities for me that I never would have pursued while I was beating myself up and playing small to keep others comfortable.

I know that there is more than enough good stuff in the world to go around, and my success and happiness can never take anything away from anyone else. We are limitless beings. Opportunity, wealth, security, love and happiness are only as limited as we imagine them to be.

I know that all of the love, success, health, wealth and happiness I enjoy today is my birthright, and I choose to embrace it.