Transcriber: Take A Mile Reviewer: Denise R Quivu
I was 25 years old and living out my dreams in Philadelphia.
I moved to Philly after I graduated from Cornell,
to get my master's degree in social work from UPenn.
After I got my master's,
but because I hadn't spent enough time in school yet, as you all heard,
I went across campus for law school.
I was lucky enough to move to Philly with some of my friends from college,
so if we weren't writing papers or doing problem sets,
we were having a pretty amazing time.
But that's just the front-facing part of my story.
Between the academic achievements and student version of carefree living,
I was having trouble turning the page on a really difficult chapter in my life.
Until this point,
I lived like many people who'd experienced some form of trauma early on in life:
in compartments.
The brand of trauma I experienced
was sexual abuse at the hands of my stepfather.
For a long time, I thought I managed to keep that part of my story separate
from everything else I had going on.
There were things that were OK for public sharing,
like birthdays, academic success, professional experiences,
those things went right here in this compartment,
and eventually they went on Facebook, in Twitter, in Instagram,
and all the other social media.
Then, there were things about relationships,
past and present, family and otherwise.
I only really talked about those on an as needed basis,
so I kept them right here,
close by but off to the side.
And then there was my other stuff:
my insecurities, my pain, my unaddressed issues,
those things filled the messiest
and probably the largest compartment of all.
So I kept them tucked in the back,
because I wanted them out of sight and out of mind.
I believed that certain parts of my life and story,
didn't really impact other things that I had going on.
I mean the hard parts of my story weren't really part of me anyway,
definitely not in the same way that being from Hempstead,
or going to Cornell, or being raised in a Jamaican family were part of me.
Imagine if people knew about the messy stuff: the abuse,
my mother and father's battles with drug addiction,
the pain I felt not knowing where my mother was
for some years in my childhood,
if people knew about those things, and if I took ownership of those things,
then I would be different.
To me, taking ownership of those parts of my story,
meant being defined by the hard parts of my story.
But here's the problem I faced.
The hard parts of my story started to show up in my life
in ways that I couldn't imagine and definitely couldn't anticipate.
It was almost like my past became prologue,
and slowly changed what I had come to understand about who I was,
and who I wanted to be.
And of course it all comes back to a boy.
(Laughter)
Why wouldn't it, right?
But what started as the ending
of a really complicated and draining relationship,
opened the doors to feelings of loss, abandonment, shame, and so much confusion.
And after a while, I started to realize
that something was off about the strength of my reaction,
because this was just a breakup.
So why was I so angry with myself?
Why was I questioning my value?
Why did I feel like I have done something wrong?
I asked myself these questions over and over again for months,
and I couldn't come up with any answers,
and when I tell you I was frustrated,
I was so frustrated and so exhausted!
But as frustrating and as exhausting as this time was,
it showed me that I couldn't move forward with my life,
by accepting some parts of my story,
and trying to box up and bury the parts of my story
that I didn't like, or didn't want to deal with.
At this point, I didn't really know what else to do, so I prayed,
I prayed for the courage and humility to ask for help,
because I had to make a choice:
I could either continue to live my life in boxes and compartments,
or I could embrace my whole story and do the work that I needed to do
so I could heal.
Eventually, I started therapy,
and I learned that my feelings after the breakup confused me,
because they reminded me of how I felt as a little girl.
Alone, ashamed, and unsure of my value.
So what I had to do as a little girl,
I couldn't really talk about those feelings and emotions,
but I still needed a way to control them and manage them on a day-to-day basis,
so I learned to divide up my life based on experiences and emotions.
After the breakup, I needed that same sense of control again,
so I did what came naturally:
I compartmentalized, and I stuffed my emotions back into that messy box.
But this time, the box started to fall apart on me.
And the box started to fall apart,
because I couldn't ignore what was inside anymore:
the pain that I felt on a daily basis,
my need for validation from other people,
my fear of not being worthy of love.
I had to acknowledge that my past was keeping me from turning the page,
and I had to decide that I wanted something different for myself,
because I just wanted to experience joy,
I wanted to feel true confidence
not the counterfeit brand that I've been parading around and for years.
I wanted to love myself,
I wanted to be a good woman to myself,
so I could eventually be a good wife to my future husband,
and a good mother to my future children.
I didn't want to be silenced by what had caused me so much pain,
and I was finally ready to own the strength in my story.
As we go through life,
sometimes we shift, suppress, or even deny parts of our story
to put distance between our past and where we hope to be in our future.
But when you take ownership of your whole story,
not just the successes and the good times
but the pain and the struggles that you experience too,
then you will see that your story is your strength,
not a set of limitations meant to keep you
from imagining and achieving the life that you want and deserve.
When you see your story as your strength,
you can live like you know the truth about who you are,
and you can refuse to be defined by what's happened to you,
and instead, be inspired by it.
And when you see your story as your strength,
you won't have a need for all those boxes and compartments anymore,
because you will be open to being more of who you are, more often,
and you will live your life in a way
that encourages other people to do the same.
Imagine that.
Thank you.
(Applause)