SHEDDING
Every since I was a little girl I wanted to be someone different. I would spend the first 33 years of my life building an ego that could overcome anything this world threw my way. Labels...I collected them like candy. Good and bad. I continued on adding new labels to my identity without giving it a second thought. Who was I? Foster kid..check. Mormon...check. All- american athlete...check. Smarty pants...check. Virgin...check. Those got me into college. What a story! The foster girl turned BYU full ride scholar. I believed everyone was walking around as if they were an actor in a play. Manipulating and faking their way through life and love. It WORKED...until it didn’t. I got the husband, the money, the kids, the house...the “dream.” Why did it feel like a nightmare? Maybe it was because I got it all based on lies. What came next? The self- sabotage. Oh the sabotage. That’s a story in itself. I’ll make it short: a fit mormon housewife has an affair with another married mormon man. I’ll never forget the day I told my husband and the other wife. I was on a ride and I desperately wanted off. My mind was not my mind. It was as if a demon possessed me. Come to find out...that’s exactly what happened. I was POSSESSED. Possessed by an ego that tried it’s best to destroy a soul. The spiral after divorce was indescribable. I slept with any man I could get my hands on. In my culture this IS NOT OKAY. I was walking around town with a scarlet letter on my back and I was going to live up to that LABEL. I was miserable. I went to countless therapists and doctors and could not figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted a label. Tell me I’m a sex addict. Tell me I’m borderline. Tell me I’m bipolar. I just wanted a label to understand why I was so messed up. No one would label me.
