a 21st-century women's guide to being wrong

On anxiety, control, and the belief that we have to be “right” to be loved (and how embracing "wrongness" can set us free).

A guide to being right as a 21st-century woman:

Be trendy, in fashion, in speech, in thought.

Be small, in opinions, in size, in impact.

Be unique, but not weird.

Be girly, for his approval.

Be quiet, a lady must remain demure, digestible.

Be intelligent, but not threateningly so.

Be clean, your messiness is your ugliness.

Be someone, for their benefit.

Be motherly, for those who never grew the f*ck up.

Be happy, because we said so.

Do you meet the criteria? Oh, you don’t… You'd best starve yourself of joy and nourishment until you do. And do hurry, dear, you’re not getting any younger.

My wrongness has always been a kept thing, a learned thing. I carry it in secret and carefully mask it behind a delicate balance of complacency & conformity.

When I was young, I learned that my very being was incorrect. That it offended and, therefore, endangered.

Those who should have nurtured and loved me unconditionally as I explored my right to fit into the world instead gatekept their acceptance. The conditions to access it were variable, dictated by emotional whims and broken belief systems.

So I learned to shapeshift. To become for others instead of becoming for myself. I caged my unacceptable, unlovable self, and I learned to deny the parts of me that begged to be seen and explored. Eventually, denial, absence, and starvation became the measure of my lovability, of my rightness.

I starved myself literally and figuratively; the smaller I became, the less at-risk I was for accidentally stepping out of line, of taking up space, of being seen and, ultimately, denied. I hid from the world and became entrenched in disease, “dis-ease.” My safe, controllable space to shield the world from the storm of wrongness that raged within.

Though over the years, the ritual acts to contain my wrongness have shifted, and the definitions of right and wrong have evolved, the core belief remains:

To be me is to be wrong.

And to be wrong is to be unlovable.

My environment conditioned me to believe I was unlovable as I was, so my brain, bless her misguided heart, adopted behaviors and patterns of thinking that sought to protect me from further hurt.

For a time, it worked. Existing in my dreams and delusions felt like a shield from harsher realities. But somewhere along the way, that once safe space began to feel airless, stale, and unforgiving.

Persistent Anxiety has always tapped on my glass cage. It’s impossible to ignore her persistent tap, tap, tap. To alleviate her, I seek greater control. I reinforce my cage, make it smaller, hoping Anxiety will no longer find me there.

I thought Anxiety was my partner in becoming more perfect, more right, but now I wonder if maybe she is instead relentlessly reminding me that to control and shrink only serves to further neglect what is. Maybe she’s begging me to strip away my carefully constructed rightness and to look upon my wrongness with open-minded curiosity.

To gaze upon these unique and delicate facets of self with wonder, compassion, and love. To realize, maybe, possibly, these pieces of me might actually be right, just as they are.

- June

I invite you to stay and be seen here.

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for words with nowhere else to go

unspoken thoughts, unfinished feelings, & everything in between

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