Hi Rebecca,

I can relate. I have always struggled with this, especially because I am so used to making sure that others are taken care of. When I was growing up, my mom suffered from depression. I was always first ready and on call to make sure she was hanging in there. On top of that my dad was (often still is) always putting me down with questions like, "what are you doing that for?" What I took away from my childhood was that it was tenuous or even dangerous to do the things I found interesting or enjoyed. When I hit major depression a few years ago I just kind of... stopped. I stopped functioning. I had been able to maintain these customer service positions. Had been working for 7 years in retail. I just couldn't do it anymore. I hung on barely. I went from being a "customer pleaser" to hardly looking anyone in the eye. Work had come to mean everything that I was hurt by. It came to embody the trading of my soul for someone/something that had power over me. It came to mean that I was supposed to make sure others were happy and make sure that I disappeared completely. Anyway I just wanted to say I relate to the notion of putting your needs/wants/likes aside. For me, it has gone along with a feeling of invisibility or disappearing. But the point of healing is to be whole, to come back. To say "I am here. And these are my passions. This is what I enjoy, this is what I like. I am allowed to like these things and enjoy them."

You have a right to do what you love. As much as you have a right to be.

Elana