I Think I’m Becoming a Butterfly

This chrysalis is starting to loosen…

There is this thing wrapped around me. I don’t know what it is. It feels stiff and constrictive. I try to move within it. I try to move out of it. I often feel it shift, but rarely does it give way, loosen, crack.

And I don’t know how to make that happen. I’m just a caterpillar, after all. Aren’t I supposed to be in this chrysalis?

People tell me I’m a butterfly. Lately, with a regularity that kinda stuns me. I don’t understand. I try to explain to them. I try to show them the real me.

I look in the mirror and I see myself. I know what I am. I am a caterpillar.

Are all these people blind, I wonder. I know how easy it can be to see something interesting in someone — whether they are a caterpillar or not — and how that “something” could affect their vision, turning ordinary into extraordinary.

But I’ve been identified as a butterfly so many times now by curious onlookers, by naturalists, even by companions who know all the caterpillar-y things about me. It has made me start to wonder.

Do I really know who I am?

I grew up with parents who had a marriage that rapidly descended into dysfunction by the time I was in middle childhood. When I was a teenager, it bottomed out to a dangerous low. In an effort to not face the issues within the marriage, my parents (according to one of my past therapists) chose the most sensitive person in the family (me) to turn into a black sheep. To use as a scapegoat, essentially.

By 12, I already had legitimate mental health problems thanks to months of bullying, harassment, and sexual assault that was never called out or treated, thanks to the 80’s culture that said “boys will be boys,” and put the blame on me because I was pretty and wore tight denim skirts.

I needed help to deal with the emotional scars of what had happened but at the time, that wasn’t recognized. I had to deal with it myself.

Over the ensuing years, I developed anxiety and depression that made it difficult to get through a day. And by my late teens, when my parents’ marriage was in crisis mode, they turned all their attention on me, to distract from the problems they were having.

Suddenly, the entire family was focused on me. Yael was sick. Yael needed help. Yael needed to go from one therapist to another until someone could figure out what was wrong with her and fix her.

It didn’t occur to me that they might be wrong about me. I’d already spent years struggling with my anxiety and depression. I knew I had issues.

But the way things played out in the family made it seem as though my parents and siblings were “normal” and I was “broken.” I needed “fixing.” I couldn’t do the things my siblings could do because something was “wrong” with me.

This went on for years and taught me that I could not trust myself. I couldn’t trust my own perceptions. I couldn’t function like a normal person.

I started to believe I would never have a normal life like my siblings would. Because I was flawed beyond repair.

This wasn’t a great setup for cultivating healthy relationships with romantic partners. I very passively entered my first relationship with a man at 19 and behaved the way I was taught: with subservience, with respect to him as the “man” in the relationship, and with the understanding that he was inherently better than me because I so deeply believed that I was broken.

He was emotionally manipulative to me in ways that caused me to further question my identity — and even my sanity. When we moved in together, he began physically and emotionally abusing me. Interestingly, I found the latter to be the most damaging. It changes you when someone you love tells you over and over again that you are fat, hideous, disgusting, and unworthy of love. “No one but me could ever tolerate you,” he’d say. “You are so lucky I’ve stuck around!”

Though my family had never talked to me like that, it certainly seemed to fit within the narrative that something was very wrong with me and if only I could fix it, everything would be okay.

It never once occurred to me that maybe something was wrong with him. I didn’t process the fact that he was a raging alcoholic and drug addict until many years after our relationship ended. Nor did I recognize that he was abusing me at the time it was happening.

I’m not much, I thought. Just an average caterpillar.

Whatever came my way was good enough for me.

Twenty years and endless therapy later, I suppose not a whole lot of my life changed. I didn’t do a good job with relationships. I didn’t believe in myself as much as I should have when it came to my career and as such, I veered down many unsatisfying (and low-paying) paths.

Thankfully, however, my parents got divorced, my boundaries got better, and a lot of healing in the family took place.

What do I know today?

I know I’m book smart — and dammit, I’d better be, after shelling out $30,000 for a graduate degree.

I know I am a good writer. I suppose it’s fair to say that I have little evidence of this, considering the fact that I cannot seem to get an agent or a big magazine to publish my work, despite my efforts and skill. Regardless, if there is one thing I know in my heart, it is that I am a good writer.

I know I have an eye for photography. Maybe I’m not especially good at it, but I know I could be if I keep practicing.

And I know that I try very hard to be a good person. (Am I a good person? I don’t know. What does “good person” mean? All I can know is: I try damn hard.)

These are all things of which I’m proud.

So much of the rest feels caterpillar-y. I gave up some good jobs which paid a poverty-level salary in order to do my work for even less money. I love my work and I’m proud of myself for making it on my own, but I’m also embarrassed by my tiny house, the fact that I can’t take my friends out to dinner, the fact that kombuchas are a financial indulgence.

I don’t think I’m pretty or sexy except that rare moment when the lighting is right or just the right person is looking at me in just the right way. I’m afraid that every flaw and extra pound on my body makes me unlovable. Who is going to want all these stretch marks, or my square-shaped ass?

I worry that I have book smarts, but do I have the intelligence that counts? Can I build a business for myself that is sustainable? Can I make smart choices that will protect me in the long run?

Folks, I sleep on a bed that has a naked box spring. That’s right. I haven’t even bought a damn bed skirt because I’ve spent the past three years debating whether or not to replace my bed, since the one I want would barely fit in my current bedroom. Until I make that decision, I don’t want to invest in a bed skirt, therefore, my box spring remains naked for all the world to see, as if I’m a common hillbilly.

And I guess while we’re on that subject, there’s hardly a day that goes by that you won’t find dirty underwear on the floor. Because, apparently, it’s too hard for me to throw them into the hamper.

Somehow, despite all this, people keep insisting that my work is something special. That I’m something special. Maybe they’ll change their minds now that they know about the naked box spring and the dirty underwear on the floor, but they don’t seem to mind the other stuff. Strangely, they think I’m pretty. They think I’m smart — in all kinds of ways.

They think I’m a butterfly.

Is it possible that I’ve been wrong about myself? Maybe even just a little bit?

I’m starting to believe things about myself that I haven’t believed in the past. Is it possible that I am not as fat or ugly as I think I am? Is it possible that I do have more than just book smarts? Is it possible that I could hit my stride and create a business profitable enough truly “make it”?

Is it possible that I deserve to make a lot of money? Is it possible that I deserve to be wooed, both as a creative collaborator and as a romantic partner? Is it possible that I deserve to be…spoiled from time to time? Even though my box spring is naked and there’s dirty underwear on the floor as I write this?

I really don’t know the answer to these questions, but I do feel like something is happening. Something is stirring. This crusty little chrysalis is starting to shift a bit.

I can never tell if it’s real or my imagination. Sometimes what I feel comes to nothing. But in this case, there are shifts happening in every corner of my life, whereas in the past, the shifts I felt were only happening in one area.

And in the past, I waited for outside circumstances and people to convince me that something was different — that I could be more than just a caterpillar. Now, I’m starting to ask myself if that’s possible. Now, I’m just listening to what people are telling me and challenging myself to see the truth in their words.

If I’m a caterpillar, then I am also a butterfly, right? Isn’t that how it works? And likewise, butterflies can have naked box springs and dirty underwear on the floor because we’re also caterpillars. They are both the same creature, technically speaking.

The intriguing part of this is that all things caterpillar eventually lead to butterfly. You can only really go in one direction.

So doesn’t that mean it’s inevitable I’ll end up that way, no matter how much dirty laundry is on the floor?

You know what? I think it does…

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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