Journey through my "Identity Crisis"

About 2months ago I was asked to share at a ladies tea at our church about my journey from a working mom to a stay-at-home mom, all the challenges, realities and fears I experienced and went through. 

Reluctant to do public speaking I thought about it and realised I have a story to share and if it helps one person well then it will be worth it.  (And the idea about getting out of the house and having other people look after my toddler was a strong motivator too).

It was a very small, casual relaxed environment and when we got introduced we got introduced as ladies who have gone through and identity crisis!!!  I felt my face and ears burn up as I was obviously blushing as I thought to myself;  “is my “screwed-upness” so evident?”.  We don't like thinking of ourselves in these type of ways. Immediately I felt a small quiet voice inside of me say: “it’s okay :”  There is a lot of power when we share the truth especially when it is about the awkwardness of an seemingly “all together women” talking about her identity crisis.

Anyways we were asked 5 questions and this was what I shared about my journey as a now,“reformed stay-at-home” mom:

 1)     Have you gone through a time where you have 'lost' your identity/ purpose?

Obviously the answer was YES, I was sitting on the panel wasn’t I? :)

I had been working since I was 16years old, my first job was at a Video Store and I didn’t stop from that point.  I grew up in a home of MOSTLY females, so the unspoken theme was that you need to make it happen and that you need to take care of yourself by working.

 Anyways to cut a long story very short, I was very incremental in establishing a non-profit organisation from scratch and proceeded to become the Director of that organisation.  So I was very used to being the team leader, many leadership hats that I fulfilled, making very important decisions on a daily basis and it seemed as though my cell phone number was on speed dial for most of this worlds inhabitants. I was 100% convinced that God had created me for this soul purpose. 

I am not going to write about my journey leading up to the decision to resign from my work, you can catch that somewhere else on my blog. But for the purpose of this blog, I am trying to tell you, that I was kind of “important” in societies eyes and in my own eyes.  I had been working for 18years, this was a STRONG part of my identity.

So not only did I take a HUGE pay cut I also lost my high rank in society which left me with a terrible identity crisis.  I had such a strong identity in what I did for a living and take that away from me and I was like “Who am I”.   Like I have said so many times, my heart and soul totally believed that I was created specifically for the type of work I was doing.

2) What feelings did you experience?

If I really didn’t want to expose myself at this point I would say: “Praise God, I felt like a new person who was running through the spring fields with my hair blowing in the wind”.  But that is just NOT true.  Nothing about my decision made sense to my personality type and what my previous prejudiced thoughts were on stay-at-home moms.

I felt rejected by God and man and it left me clinically depressed.  I felt really broken and was ridiculously angry and mad at myself most days for making a decision to end my “career” in the aim of raising our two girls full-time.  It felt as though I let God and the whole world down.

3) How did you deal with these feelings?

So in an attempt to deal with these feelings I started my own business :)  What an oxy-moron I am at times!! With a big exclamation on the MORON part :)

I cried a lot!!!!! I ate a lot!!! Did I mention I cried a lot?

I started blogging just to get the madness out of my head as I express my thoughts better on paper than I do talking.

It was around August (2011) last year, where I fell totally flat and just didn’t have the strength to get up.  I had strong suicidal thoughts and realised I need to get OUT of this black hole.  It was my birthday month where I was planning a morning breakfast with a few ladies and I cancelled the whole morning just a few days before that was to happen.  I just didn’t want to see anyone or pretend to be happy.  I tried to push every single person out of my life. 

That August it felt as though God had removed everything I held onto as a true straight from under me and all I had left was Him, my husband and a few good friends. It was as if me and my "identity crisis" were in a dual and only one could survive.

I call that phase my GHD times.  Yes like as in GHD hair straightner!  As an aside I firmly believe that a girls 2 best friends are a good bra as well as a good hair straightner (I love my GHD)!

So this is the core of what got me throught, what I could have just said in the beginning. 

G = God

H = Husband (family)

D = Dear Friends

The God part I share in my last section :)

You see I didn’t need someone to give me the run down on how broken I was?  I needed someone to love me while I was broken.  I didn’t need Christinese or another Church meeting.  I needed a space where I could express my emotions in a real, raw and authentic way.  So I got a friend who gave me a Bedazzler and a auto birography of a rock n roller and unconditional love from my husband who was not trying to fix me.

     

     Grace is the glue that fixes our brokenness, and my husband gave me an abundance of grace. Our 2 girls also helped me a lot on this journey, when I look at their unconditional love for me as a mom and their tangible joy of just seeing a butterfly I am reminded to; JUST KEEP IT SIMPLE!!!

On my birthday where I wanted to be left alone and didn’t feel like seeing anyone I had 3sms’s from different friends who asked if they could pop by.  Honestly my first reaction was: “Really?” (sorry ladies that you are finding out about this). To you it might just seem like 3random visits but to me it was a powerful message that I actually matter to someone.  Not as many as it would have seemed in the past, but at least to a few very brave ladies. 

4) Do you still feel 'lost'/ without purpose? How are you negotiating this?

I wish I could say that I felt better in an instant but it didn’t and won’t.  Each day gets better as I start figuring out this stay-at-home stuff.  When I see God’s provision and goodness in our family’s life and look back as to how far I have come, I get encouraged. 

At times my longing for my “career life” is so strong, but then God just keeps pointing me to the future and to be on this adventure of the unknown ignites my soul. 

I am now in a beautiful space as I figure out how to be a stay-at-home and work out the calling God has placed in my heart, that of standing up for the voiceless and giving them a voice.  

5) Practical advise

Amazing Grace!!! Amazing Grace!!! Amazing Grace!!! Embrace it today!!! If you truly get the meaning of this you can't help but be TRANSFORMED from the inside out.

Pursue a real and an authentic relationship with God in your own private space for no other reason than just being with Him.

Stay in community, especially that of Church even if every ounce of you doesn’t want to go as it WILL save your soul.  Week after week my bad thinking gets challenged and if I respond to that, I become a more whole person.  Get involved and stay involved even when you feel like throwing someone with a brick during the middle of worship :)  There were days that leaving Church I would be so angry for no apparent reason, that I swore to myself I am never going back.  But each week God's love just drew me back in again.

Getting regular exercise helped me in leaps and bounds.

Be real and stop pretending that you are “super human being”.  I wrestled that person to death on my journey.

Evaluate your friendships as they should be a place where you can go to and feel secure and let IT ALL HANG OUT :).  We all need a space that we can sometimes just say “shit man, I am not coping”, without our future heaven citizenship being questioned.   The kind of place that you are challenged but yet just accepted with all your shortcomings.

It's just a few days before my 35^th birthday and I can say that in the past few weeks I have taken massive strides and feel a whole lot better as I did last year and I am now convinced that God isn’t as concerned with what you DO with your life as He is with what you BECOME while you do it.