What are your masks?

One of the commonalities of identifying as an ATCK is that we become very adept at learning how to hide under numerous masks.

When I first read about this I thought, "Me? Have masks? No way!" I was always confident that I was an open book. Upon further examination, though I've come to realize I was not as transparent as I thought or as other people used to say.  

Actually for decades after moving permanently to my passport country, I've only recently started unpacking the numerous masks I had learned to put on, starting all the way back during my first year here when I attended twelfth grade of an American high school, and the following decades after going to an American University.

I wish I could say those were joy-filled and easy years, but unfortunately, that was far from my case.  During the first decade of my repatriation I would say I encountered some of my most traumatizing and painful experiences. Some of these were of my own choosing, but they all came from a desperate place to be accepted and a deep need to belong in this foreign land. 

 

However, in trying to navigate those incredibly difficult years with nowhere to go, and no one to help me process all my confusion, unresolved grief, pain, emotions, and suffering, I mastered the art of posturing, with many many masks, under a deeply hidden sheet of fear, and a heavy heavy blanket of anger. 

While my anger intensified, I unknowingly became a terrible listener.  All my unrealistic expectations of others grew into bitterness, and being judgmental and harsh. I had no desire to stop and understand others’ perspectives because I was too busy trying to blend in and be accepted. I truly lacked self-awareness, which I now tenderly call being “introspectively challenged.”  

Ironically the more I thought I was blending in, the more I gradually morphed, from someone who was once known as “kind and sweet” in her teenage developmental years to someone who was now being labeled as a “big personality”, “too much”, "too intense", “too angry”, "too insensitive”, among several other negative labels.

Those negative labels led to even deeper wounds in my body and soul. Unfortunately I not only started listening them but after time I started believing they were true. Those lies and false beliefs slowly and silently seeped into the core of my identity, which made for a lot of toxic relationships, with God, myself, and others over the past forty years of my life.  

You could say as I adapted to others' negative labels of me, I slowly mastered the art of posturing, all in an attempt to keep those external labels under control.  Well, at least that’s what I thought because, in reality, the posturing turned out to be nothing more than a cheap cover in attempt to hide my addictive behavior patterns, which provided zero self control. 

As an imposter I became very proficient at using different methods of self-medication, such as eating, TV, social media, impulsive shopping, compulsive cleaning and busyness, which I know now were my wounded attempts to numb and steer the fear and pain away!  Tragically one of the greatest consequences of my years of self-medicating was the growing number of hidden God-holes I had silently carved into my body and soul. In retrospect I can see that my self-medicating habits were nothing more than attempts to satiate these all consuming God-holes with ungodly self-reliance, pride, escapism, and selfishness.

Decades of wearing so many different masks made me became more and more blind to my own emotions and very adept at living in other people's feelings and circumstances.

It was almost 38 years after living in my passport country when the Lord put a holy and beautiful grief counselor into my life, named Charmiel.  She helped me to see, for the very first time, that "my entire childhood identity was ripped away from me!!!"  Those were very strong words Charmiel used, and as she spoke these words out loud to me, they reached a part of me that NO ONE, not even my husband, has ever reached. Honestly it was a Holy Spirit moment that left me speechless. Charmiel proceeded to gently point out how I was never given the proper support and resources that I desperately needed to help process my repatriation. 

Fortunately today there is more awareness, support and wonderful resources to assist TCKs in processing their transitions from traumatic changes and circumstances to all the suppressed emotions that came along with each one! 

My inability to process the emotions had been compounded by the fact that emotional literacy was never taught or practiced in my disengaged family of origin growing up.  So it wasn't until well into my second half of life that I’ve begun unpacking the impact that these past transitions had in my life and I’m learning how to gently regulate those suppressed emotions.   

I'm still very much a work in progress, but immensely grateful, to our good Lord for walking alongside me as I heal these deeply hidden wounds.

Dear sojourner, would you please join me in saying a quick prayer of gratitude to God for Mrs. Charmiel Teresi, the blessed grief counselor who was one of the first people to reach the very core of my wounded soul and put me on a path of incredible healing. Thank you!

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I pray you found what you needed today. Please leave a comment below, I would love to continue this conversation and understand how it might have been helpful for you.

 

May God Bless You,

Leslie