Marie Romilus
Flaws and All
My mother and I are two very passionate people who love hard and will do anything for the people we love. Our personalities, however, are different. My mother presents her strength in her ability to not give a f*ck. Her ability to let people’s feelings and judgment of her bounce right off as if she has an invisible shield around her is something I admire and wish I had more of.
I’m an empath—I cry when I am happy, sad, excited, or whatever. I can feel other people’s pain so deeply it can increase my depression, anxiety, and often cause panic attacks. Some might call me sensitive. I would tell some to “kick rocks” as us New Englanders would say.
When I think about my identity, the first thought I have is of the relationship I have with my mother and my cultural upbringing. Although challenging at times, this relationship is very rewarding and helps me grow to be the person I am today.
Now let’s be clear: I love my mama. She has been through so much to provide for all of us and does the best she can every day. With that being said, having such a personality clash has made it difficult at times for my mom and I to understand each other. In the Haitian community, expressing dissatisfaction to your elders is disrespectful, so expressing any dissatisfaction is often not well received by my parents, specifically my mother. I used to tell myself I would never do certain things the way my mother did. I spent so much time trying to convince myself of this I missed the fact that I’m already like her.
Accept your flaws
As a therapist, I know part of loving who you are is accepting yourself. I also know that some things are easier said than done. If you have read any of my previous stories, you may remember me opening up about my struggles with loving and embracing my culture and melanin (if you didn’t read them, what are you waiting for? Pick up our other issues and sit back with a glass of wine).
The journey to loving myself has been long but very worthwhile. Aside from learning to love my culture and melanin, I also needed to love my flaws. We all have those things we hate about ourselves when we look in the mirror and pick at our imperfections and question our self-worth. When your environment consists of constant critiques, you begin to critique yourself constantly before others can do it for you. Our imperfections are part of who we are. We are a combination of our assets and flaws.
Have you ever made light of your trauma? When my siblings, cousins, and I would get together, we would often joke about the traumatic things we went through as children. “Remember that time so-and-so whooped your a** for missing the school bus?” We would all burst into laughter, amazed that we ended up somewhat “normal” if you can consider all of us having anxiety as “normal.”
I told myself when I was younger that I would never allow myself to end up like my parents. I hated the strict cultural expectations that made it difficult for me to express my feelings and have those feelings validated. I was 15, a sophomore in high school with an eating disorder, going from binge eating to starving myself for several months so my mom and my aunts would stop commenting on my weight. I went from 180 to 120 pounds in one summer, and my mom and aunts expressed how proud they were of me; however, once I hit 120, I now became “too skinny” and a different level of criticism began. My senior year of high school, while sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast, my parents started joking about my weight and how I had gained some pounds. I threw my plate and yelled, “I am F***ING DEPRESSED!” My mother questioned what I had to feel depressed about because my life was excellent compared to hers growing up in Haiti. My feelings were often invalidated with these comparisons. I vowed I would do something different with my children.
What my mother and aunts didn’t understand is that the more pressure placed on me to be a perfect size, the more I was unable to focus on the positive things about myself because I was so focused on getting to a certain level of perfection that I now know is not realistic.
Expectations are premeditated resentments
We often base our perception of happiness on how much we succeed at our goals and meet expectations set by others. What happens if those expectations aren’t put in place for a good reason? I could spend time explaining the long-term effects of slavery, decolonization, and the systemic racism that contribute to the lack of ability in the black and brown community to be welcoming and knowledgeable of the effects of mental health and gentle parenting. But I will let you research that for yourself.
Have you heard of gentle parenting? Gentle parenting is a parenting style that is more peaceful, positive, empathetic, and respectful. Parents who gentle parent focus on understanding their children’s emotions and needs. Gentle parenting was not a thing for my Haitian household. An authoritarian style of parenting consisting of brutal honesty and little empathy ran my house more than 80% of the time. My mother and aunts could expect me to be slim, but for what reason? I’m sure it was so I could be healthy, but the way the expectation was communicated to me was that being slim made me beautiful and likable, which to me meant I was not good enough. I wasn’t beautiful or likable if I wasn’t slim.
Imagine this, what if instead, my family communicated to me how beautiful I already was in my own skin? What If they encouraged and even participated in fitness activities and stressed healthier eating habits? This would help me maintain a healthy weight and become naturally confident. Instead, I focused on extreme weight loss solutions, acquired an eating disorder, and felt a hate/hate relationship with my body and food.
You can’t deny who you are
I spent so much time focusing on implementing positive parenting styles that strayed away from the parenting style of my Haitian culture, that I failed to pay attention to the fact that I had absorbed both the positive and negative parenting styles that my parents taught me.
The first time I yelled at my son, the guilt ate me alive. I felt so horrible for yelling at him for something small that I spent several days trying to make it up to him. Now mind you, he was two years old and forgot about me yelling seconds after I yelled. But I was so focused on avoiding some of the parenting styles my parents had utilized that I beat myself up over yelling at my son after he threw his sippy cup for the 40th time and refused to eat his meal, wanting only fruit snacks.
After weeks of discussing it with my therapist, other moms, and posting on mom’s groups on Facebook, it became clear to me that I was holding myself up to an unrealistic expectation. Parents aren’t perfect—everyone yells sometimes or feels overwhelmed. By allowing my guilt and fear of being like my parents to take over, I was failing to teach my son about the realities of life. I need to teach my son that his parents aren’t perfect—that he deserves an apology so he can learn how to apologize to others if he ever behaves negatively.
Becoming a parent has allowed me to connect better with my mother. I became more understanding of her ways, based on our Haitian culture and the strict upbringing that she experienced. My parents did the best they could with the tools they had available to them and the parenting that they received.
It became important for me to identify the negative parenting skills (as much as I had tried to deny them). I can address them instead of holding myself to a certain standard that is unrealistic.
When you live in denial
Sometimes we use denial as a coping mechanism because the truth is too hard to face. When we remain in denial, it is our unconscious trying to protect us from discomfort or anxiety. I thought that if I denied any negative traits and behaviors I obtained from my parents, then I wouldn’t end up like them. But instead, my denial created great anxiety and distress when it became clear to me that, at times, I was just like my mother.
When I explain my personality, I start off by letting everyone know 1) I am a Virgo, 2) I’m the oldest daughter, and 3) I’m Haitian. If you know anyone who falls within those categories, then you can probably get a sense of my personality. I also make it clear that 90% of the time I am a very calm, fun-loving, and accepting person. But 10% of me, if you get me angry, might go from 0 to 100 real quick with a storm of emotions. I have learned to love that 10% because she is passionate, her heart is so big that she would give everything she has to protect the ones she loves and those in need of support. Without acknowledging and owning that 10%, I would keep living in denial and making excuses for my negative behaviors instead of working on improving them.
