I can relate to this a lot. It helped me to think of my therapy as a gift I was giving my kids. Whenever I felt like I couldn’t stand it, I imagined how it would have been if my parents, particularly my mom, had done some of that work themselves. What would it have been like if the message I’d gotten had been that who I was and what felt most natural and comfortable to me was exactly the right way for me to be? That they loved me just as I was?

Yesterday my daughter picked out a dress that I thought was fairly ugly. I really wanted to discourage her from buying it. But she loved it and it was within the price range we’d agreed upon. She wore it to school today and when she got dressed this morning I saw her looking in the mirror and could tell she was very pleased with herself. To me, that confidence and her sense of her own style is awesome and beautiful and suddenly the dress seemed pretty cute.

It’s a small thing, but also a big one that I didn’t ruin that joy for her, that I allowed her to have that autonomy and that confidence in her body and her own coolness. It’s a thing I had to learn. My children’s way is the right way for them, I can offer guidance but I have to honour who they are and how they find their way. And therapy is the right place to work out all my anxiety about the unfamiliarity of that or the grief that I didn’t get it, or the awkwardness learning to be myself and trying to model something that is very much a work in progress.

You alone are worth it, it doesn’t have to be about sacrificing for your kids. But sometimes when I’m worried that the pain of something might be too much to bear, if I think, “I’m doing this to keep my kids from harm” the whole thing immediately comes into sharp focus and I know I can bear it.