Making an Introduction

Hello, my name is Gretchen. I have decided to share with you my journey of self discovery. It’s been long overdue.

I am 46 years old, I’ve lived most of my life by other peoples rules and expectations. I know that my parents and grandparents did their best. I want to make that perfectly clear. I love them so much for everything they have taught me and shown me along the way. I would not be who I am or even on this path if it weren’t for them.

Just to give you a bit of personal history. I am the oldest child of my parents. They were both in their early 20s newly married and I came along a year later. My dad was a child of an alcoholic and an alchoholic himself at the time. He would find recovery a few years later after the birth of my sister. On the heels of that would be their divorce. I lived with my mother who was very young at the time going through her own emotional rollercoaster. She worked evenings which would lead to numerous babysitters and never feeling safe when I went to sleep at night.

Fast forward a few years my mother would meet her second husband. He was 9 years her junior and 11 years older than me. This was a hard dynamic for me, and I did not feel safe with him either. He had a temper and sometimes a cruel sense of humor. During this time I spend lots of time with my maternal grandparents who were the rock I needed and gave me the stability I craved. It came at a price, that I am just now discovering so many years later.

That price was my losing my voice. Children were supposed to be seen and not heard. I did so much to please them, but as a small child I interpretted that as my thoughts and ideas were not valuable. My outword expressions turned into inward struggles against my true self. I developed depression, low self esteem, and later anxiety.

I married my high school boyfriend who had issues with anger, and who on so many occassions triggered my feelings of abandonment and worthlessness. I became co-dependant to his emotions and feelings. I lost connection to myself even more. We divorced after 16 years of marriage. That was in 2017. After a few failed relationships that have followed in the past few years, I am finally taking the time to work through the trauma’s of my childhood, family traumas, and baggage carried through my marriage.

I hope that by sharing what I have gone through can help other people discover and recover. Welcome!