Both Happy and Sad

I am sure I have written about some of the same things before. I can’t remember everything that is in my older posts, but I can always share things in a different way. I know I have shared this before, but the reason my site is called Very Haley is because it is a phrase I have heard since childhood. As a child I would hear, “That’s very Haley” when my mom saw or heard something that reminded her of me. The phrase was used with flowery prints, musicals, goofy sayings, my favorite colors. There were many things that made me who I am, and “very Haley” was the happiest and most proud part of me.

I was always called “the life of the party”. I could make just about anyone laugh, and some family members encouraged me to join a play. I was too scared to ever audition, so I entertained my family and friends instead. When I look back at childhood photos of myself I often do not recognize myself. Part of it is my dissociation, but a bigger part is that I tell myself “that kid doesn’t look like she was abused since toddlerhood.” My family took a lot of pictures and I was encouraged to give “big smiles” so much that it became a habit. It wasn’t that the photos were not genuine at the time, but what the photos never showed was how goddamn sad and scared I was most days.

I was called “happy-go-lucky”, but I also was abused in brutal ways. I believe I tried to hold on to my happiness, and making others smile was something that made me feel better about myself. When I got older and was able to communicate my depression, I heard disbelief. It was as if there were two sides of me, and the one I wanted everyone to see was ignored. Maybe it was unintentionally, maybe they did not want to see it, but I felt like a fraud for everyone thinking I was a human sunshine. Later on I would ask myself if it was my fault for not expressing more clearly what was happening to me. I could cry so easily, and I felt more like a mushy raincloud than the sun. When I did express my fear and sadness as a child, I was distracted or consoled. “Here Haley blow the bubbles.” What I needed in those moments was not someone telling me I was OK, but someone to try to understand WHY I wasn’t OK.

Even today I have this way of trying to turn off my emotions to protect others, and protect myself. I fear being a burden. I will cry myself to sleep, have anxiety and panic attacks, I will sit on the floor of my shower and feel incredibly alone. I have cried getting ready for work, or while driving to work. The moment I walk through the door, I ask everyone else how they’re doing. Even if I’m not OK I seem to throw on a smile, and make a joke about it. I let others believe I will be OK, because I want to assure myself I will be OK too. I am not always able to do this. Often I cannot hide my sadness. I have turned my camera off in staff Zoom meetings because I can see myself looking sad in the reflection.

I do believe it is a strength of mine that I am able to be happy despite how much I struggle. The times I feel genuinely happy, I can feel how bright my energy is. There have been times where I felt so good that I would also cry from pure joy and gratitude that I was able to experience that. I do believe that when you have experienced such heartache, it is easier to appreciate the good feelings. Good feelings become overwhelming too, but in the best way.

I wrote in my post, August Slipped Away that it is normal to have days that consist of both happy and sad. I think my whole life I did not know how to define myself. Am I happy? Am I sad? Am I a coward? Am I fearless? Am I shy? Am I confident? It certainly depends. It can depend on the day, the moment, and how safe or unsafe I feel in my environment. I can be all of the above, and it is because I am human.