Growing Pains
The embarrassing, beautiful work of outgrowing versions of yourself
Everyone always says growing is painful, but they never tell you how disgustingly embarrassing it is. As I have recently begun reconnecting with select family members via therapy and cultural ceremonies, I have become receptive to the fact that I come from a long line of very nuanced hogwash. I know I have come a long way—exponentially farther than generations of my family—but I have spent the last few years feeling farther than everyone else around me, like I am endlessly on a treadmill, just trying to catch up.
In just about every room I’ve ever been in, I have been the youngest, along with most of my friendships. Coupled with my arrested development, this has gotten me into quite a bit of trouble as I am trying to keep up. I have always—maybe on a minutely obsessive level—wanted to know more; to get closer to my idea of “the perfect human”. That well-rounded, calm, decisive individual who knows just what to say, exactly how to act, interprets every invisible rule, eloquently handles every conflict. With all the confusion youth begets, I wanted to be a part of the intellectual masses, not the young people still learning and growing; I wanted to skip the mistakes and go straight to the lessons.
At a young age, I began befriending professionals, professors, and anyone with lived experience that embodied the ideals of my imagined “higher self”. I have always worried about the knowledge lost between generations, and felt a deep compulsion to learn as much as I could from those with wisdom to share. This, of course, led to uneven power dynamics and unfortunate situations such as condescension, grooming, and manipulation. For the first five years of my twenties, I truly felt like my life changed every two weeks, and I just couldn’t keep up. I was so ungrounded. I don’t think I ever really had a plan, because I honestly never thought I’d make it this far. I’ve just been kind of bouncing around; surviving, adapting, and chasing the “next big thing”. Trying to find my footing while constantly on the edge of slipping.
While I have always had the best intentions, I certainly have not always gone about things the right way. My parents were practically kids when they had me. My dad was in a foreign land and didn’t even know English yet. Both my parents came from very complex upbringings that left them without the tools to handle the complexities of life. From a young age, I always knew it was up to me to set a good example. Being the eldest of my siblings, I often found myself playing the role of the family manager, acting as everyone’s emotional support system, despite my inability to do so tactfully. Not many liked what I had to say, as my attempts to help arrived in a very matter-of-fact way, but in my mind, I was simply assessing the situation and offering improvements where they seemed fit. Unfortunately, this was often taken as “I knew more” or “thought I was better”, which was far from my reality. To counteract this assumption, I began fawning—dumbing myself down and doubting my intuition.
I come from bipolarity. I come from yelling until you lose your voice. I come from violence. I come from a long line of things that are not okay and a long line of people who pretend they are.
I’m not sure if it’s the stereotypical latin passion that is behind much of my inherited behaviors, but despite my best efforts, I still found myself to be defensive, emotionally reactive, and just downright dysregulated. I constantly over-explained, often feeling that I was in sitcom-esque scenarios where too many things happen at once, nothing is what it seems, and I am somehow left with a tangled mess of wrong perceptions.
In hindsight—which is all this personal essay is—I can recognize the situations where a reaction was truly warranted, just not quite to the level of primordial abyss I delivered. On the other side of the coin, I can also recognize the situations in which I could have reacted better. Situations where I was fully in the wrong. Situations I would not have even been in had I not carried such a colossal amount of self-loathing.
In my Sisyphean pursuit of reaching my “highest self”, I have spent my lifetime surrounding myself with elders, working to feed the endless cycle of managing a family that still doubted me every step of the way. While I was trying to absorb wisdom left and right, I was constantly reminded that I was “just a silly young girl who doesn’t know anything.” Which, of course, only made me chase it harder. I had something to prove.
I remember the pride I felt when, as a postpartum 21-year-old, determined to prove I could be a mother and still do it all, one of the organizations that nominated me for an award told me I was the youngest nominee in their history. While this was a momentous high at the time, it quickly faded.
I needed more—something of a higher quality.
I still had proving to do.
I still sensed doubt.
I was stuck in a wash cycle of making up for the previous mistake, tripping over my feet across the stage of my life’s play, no guardrails in sight. Thankfully, this is when I became more embedded in my local queer scene, which is heavily composed of young activists doing their best to stay informed and foster healthy communities. They helped me to deconstruct the outdated, toxic, compulsively heterosexual settings I grew up in, as well as validating that maybe some situations were truly unnecessary to my character development.
These past few years have felt like an endless fall from a building whose height could rival that of the Burj Khalifa, down into the dark hole of Alice’s Wonderland — except instead of floating tea and books, I passed the different lives I could be living, too fast to reach. I was coasting on all of the what ifs and memories I did not fully savor, until one day, I finally hit the pavement. All within a mere second.
In what felt like asphyxiation, my metaphorically thrifted toolbox was opened to reveal a missing majority of tools. I had thought the box was heavy with equipment, but I came to realize that I was just carrying self-hate and distrust. I ignored my intuition, which led to a lack of discernment for how to handle difficult situations. I had spent years severely masking who I was, and in turn, masking my own intuition—even from myself. I listened to what others said I should be; tried to squeeze into their molds; tried to be who they told me to be.
So, much like the ancient tale of King Siddartha becoming the Buddha, I figured it was time to really commit and focus on my journey.
Buddha’s origin anecdote is the ultimate story of searching for purpose. He left his wealthy palace, visited every corner of society, and tried every path to enlightenment. He realized that the answers were not in extreme luxury or harsh suffering, but in a quiet, balanced mind. This felt like a mirror. I always felt that I never had enough and that I needed to suffer to progress further
On my path to enlightenment, I started by stepping back from every active conflict, analyzing ways in which I wasn’t thinking straight and causing more harm than good. I gave myself some much-needed time to breathe and get my mind right and begin processing what I wanted to fix. I needed to climb up above it all to get a better sight and sense of what I was dealing with. I discovered an inability to let things sit; I felt that an immediate response was owed, and I accepted that I was overdue for some shadow work.
Taking this step back was triggering to the people in my life who had become reliant on my predictable reactions. They felt I was avoiding them or their problems, because I was not healing or engaging on their terms—of which I could neither figure out nor compromise. For others, it took intensive psychotherapy before I finally accepted that there was no fixing the conflict, and that it was not a reflection of my best efforts or intentions. For the rest, I am still learning and processing and using these discoveries to become the person I am meant to be.
In all of these rooms, with all of these elders who had have had the time to screw up and acquired the tools to get it right, I had found myself to be afflicted with this plague: a rhythmic ocd loop of toxic shame and guilt, replaying in my mind, keeping me up all night to finish tasks that paralyzed me in the day. While some still believed I was far away in a world of avoidance, my reality was much dimmer. I was trapped in daily replays of every single mistake I have ever made, of every conversation where I was horrendously wrong, and every finite diagnosis on my character that arose from each. This made me shrink myself, both in my career and personally, as I thought every mistake or judgement would be waiting for the right moment to strike me. I feared that, no matter what changes were made, it would all be futile in the end.
I was drowning in the feeling that I am not seen for who I am, and regrets that I should have traveled the world more before settling down in my hometown that I never left. Fears that my son deserved a better mom who knew all the answers because she’s done it all and could open all the right doors for him. The complex cherry on top is that I truly love the little family that I have created. They are my world, my comfort, my reason for being—and I would not trade them or my life with anyone else’s for anything in this universe. I just couldn’t help but still feel so behind everyone and ill-equipped for them.
The next stages came in waves. Sobriety. Deactivating every account. EMDR and IFS. Multiple therapists. Community activism. Crying to close friends. Video essays. Self-curriculums. Self-help books. Reiki. Cultural spiritual ceremonies. Philosophy. Severe introspection.
All of it has led me to a divine level of disgust over what the fuck has been my problem.
It has felt like I’m a bird in a long-term molting process and I’m taking longer than my other bird counterparts. And it’s SO uncomfortable. I know that we are meant to make mistakes to become our highest selves, but I have to grit my teeth trying to be nice and hold hands with my past self, rather than stabbing her in some dark alley. I know there are people capable of genuine and profound change, I’ve seen it. Take the complete 180 turnaround of Jersey Shore’s “Mike The Situation”. If he can turn it around like that, I most definitely can.
Now, my journey is about making peace with myself and my past, while still prioritizing accountability. I allow myself to feel guilty, taking it as a positive sign, considering the lack of guilt we’re experiencing in the world at-large. I also understand that much of my shame has stemmed from prioritizing other’s feelings over my own, and because hindsight really is 20/20.
I was recently reminded of a quote by Frida Kahlo: “And in the end, I believe that we don’t need to do anything to be loved. We spend our lives trying to seem prettier, smarter. But I realized two things. Those who love us see us with their hearts and attribute qualities to us beyond those we really have. And those who don’t want to love us will never be satisfied with all our efforts. Yes, I really believe that it is important to leave our imperfections alone. They are precious to understand those who see us with their heart”.
I am praying that the changes I am experiencing are not only the fruits of my labor, but also my long-awaited frontal lobe finally dinging in the oven, “I’m ready!”
As Anaïs Nin said, “your reality expands or contracts based on your bravery and imagination.” I am embracing bravery with my community. I am leaning into imagination with my son.
Viola Davis said, “The definition of hell... on your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.” I am finally becoming the person I always wanted to meet.
I don’t want to be remembered for my worst mistakes and I don’t want to be on my deathbed with regrets. Who does?
So, I am choosing the harder path, leaning into the growing pains.
Yes, it is humiliating.
And then, all at once, you are free.