A Life That Is Truly My Own

My therapist said something in our first or second session that hit home, that up until this point it doesn't seem like I've ever lived a life that was truly my own.

As a kid, my parents wouldn't let me play soccer no matter how hard I begged, telling me that soccer is a boy's sport and I needed to dance instead. I despised dance with all my heart and told my mom every week, yet she still sent me to 4 or 5 dance lessons a week. I wanted to do robotics, but my parents thought it was meant for boys. They told the coach that I was "sick" and unfortunately had to leave, even though I was in perfectly good health. My dream growing up was to be a neurosurgeon, and my Facebook profile even said I was a physician at John's Hopkins Medical Center in elementary school, but in high school my mom did everything she could to nudge me into humanities-focused extracurriculars and, up until this point, I've never taken a single biology class in my life.

My freshman year of college, I felt free for the first time, away from my parents' scrutiny. It felt like my college acceptance was a pass to focus less on what they defined as "productive" and to explore my own passions. Then COVID hit, and I came home. It was the first time I was taken over by intense and serious suicidal ideation. In retrospect, I think a big factor was losing my new-found sense of ownership over my identity.

My parents pushed me into finance in college. I know you must be thinking, "she was an adult, she could have made her own decisions." But, growing up, I became over-reliant on what my mom thinks. In early high school, I could not buy a t-shirt without first consulting her on the color. She is an incredibly insistent person. She always says "you make the final decision then" in an angry, passive aggressive way, repeating it over and over when the decision I'm erring towards is not the one she hoped for. We would call everyday my sophomore year, and she would always ask about applications for finance roles. I told her I didn't want to do finance, that it was for sell-outs. I cried when she kept pushing. Ultimately, a different set of circumstances forced me to take a leave from school and I needed a stream of income. I was sad and tired of disappointing her, so I gave in.

I own that I was an adult and responsible for the decision, and at the same time, I was deeply unfulfilled by it because of where the idea originated and the pressure I felt to satisfy my parents' strong desire.

The role left my heart feeling empty. I slaved away, and 12 hour days were considered lucky and very short. Many weeks were 80 to 100 hours without weekends. I enjoy working and learning for the most part, and I may have felt differently if my mental health was more under control and if I found the work more meaningful. But a big part of the reason my mental health suffered was because I did not find it meaningful. I felt like I was living someone else's life. I felt like a shell of a person going through the motions of life.

I'm now working on pivoting and redefining who I am. I am working on learning to do hobbies my mom does not consider "productive" and to be ok with being extremely mediocre at them, to not need to collect certificates for hobbies. I'm working on asking myself who I want to be and what I value. I'm working on identifying when I'm hearing my mom's voice in my head as opposed to my own.

It's not easy, but just asking the question makes me feel like I have more agency. I don't want to die living a life that isn't mine. Despite all my parents' good intentions, I felt like a trophy. I felt like I was living the life they wish they had lived. The way my mom justified dance classes was by telling me it was her dream as a kid, but the family couldn't afford it.

I had a conversation with them. I told my parents I could either live my current life, in line with their dreams...and maybe I could be a billionaire, but I may be dead by 40. Or, I could live a life that is truly my own. Maybe I could make a big difference in the world. Maybe I could make a small difference. Maybe I will make no difference at all to the world, but I could be there for my family when it mattered. Without hesitation, they chose the latter option, and I feel like I have their blessing to build a life worth living, a life that is truly mine.