Unlearning What My Bullies Told Me

What were you teased for as a kid? What else was happening in your life that the people who teased you knew nothing about?

Starting at age ten, I was being teased for being dark skinned, having parents who had an addiction disorder, and for being poor.

The teasing mostly came from the boys in my class who said things like:

• “Your mom left you in the oven too long, that’s why you’re burnt.”
• “Yo momma is a crackhead, she was buying from my brother last night.”
• “Dirty ass clothes you got on, I should smack the shit outta you.”

I learned to have tough skin, a witty tongue to be able to strike back fast, and I quickly discovered that being funny made others pay less attention to what I lacked and more attention to how I made them feel through laughter.

I became the class clown. It was my shield.

I also became someone who laid in the bed and prayed, “God if you love me, you would let me die tonight.”

The version of me that I knew died. Who I was before being teased, before being the “funny one,” before having to defend my parents’ addiction… died. Did God love me?

I turned to writing and I turned to art to rediscover my voice. To get back in touch with the memory of who I was and who I want to become.

Lesson: KINDNESS COSTS NOTHING… cruelty could cost someone’s life… it costed mine…

Who are you being kind to today? How are you showing kindness to your inner yourself?

Curate the Home Experience and Energy you WANT: 5 Tips

If you know anything about me, I have intentionally decided to curate a life I love.

I grew up in Chicago. On the south side. We lived in three different sets of projects, (Robert Taylors, Washington Park, and Altgeld Gardens) each of which I resented more than the one before. There were 6 of us. 4 kids. 2 adults. And usually 3 bedrooms.

My sister and I shared a bed until I was about 16, then we got bunk beds. Nothing was ever mine — my money would mysteriously be missing when I woke up most mornings (my sister didn’t take it), I’d come home from school to see my mom (or sister)wearing my latest pair of jeans or shoes — which were usually hand-me-downs. But they were hand-me-downs for me!

So, I began to stay away from our house as long as humanly possible… at church, at school, with friends, at extra curricular programs, events or anywhere I could… home wasn’t safe. My parents wouldn’t really notice because they were grappling with their own ways of escaping.

I promised that when I got big enough to have my own home, I would make it special. It took a while, but here are some steps I took:

1. Start with writing out the kind of experience you want to cultivate in your home. (Do that for 2–3 days before any major purchases)
2. Add color and details to your writing. (What would you want to think, feel, and say about your home?)
3. Move from writing to creating a vision board. (Pictures that represent you.)
4. Decide the scent. (How your home smells makes a world of difference)
5. Draft a budge and locate furniture that is connected to your vision & budget.

This process is iterative. There’s no set date or time to have it “done..” I mean, is it ever really done though?

Anyway, the absolute final thing I would offer here… no matter what… no matter how… HAVE FUN! Let joy overtake you in the process! Let yourself enjoy the PROCESS.

I’m Finally Ready to Talk About Why I Quit My Solo Trip

How A 1 Year Trip turned into 3 months By Mia Dunlap

5. Survivor’s Guilt: my grandma’s last words to me before I left were, “how you got money to travel but not to send your damn family?” Yeah, that’s right, how could I? I was an imposter… and selfish for thinking it was ok to take a sabbatical from a near 6 figure role to just travel. So while away, I couldn’t get that voice out of my head. She recently passed. I wished she’d apologized before she left.

4. I didn’t know how to be free: I kept being in fear that something bad was going to happen to me. While there were only two distinct times during my travel that were life jarring scary, daily I felt like, I didn’t deserve to have that kind of life and as a result, something bad would happen. And the worst thing that happened was I couldn’t let myself be free.

3. Trust the Process…NO! Where was my big aha??? Wasn’t I supposed to have a moment that I could tell everyone about? A moment where I changed??? When was that thing supposed to happen? Why won’t it hurry up so I have a story to tell people? A reason for why I made this decision! Wasn’t I supposed to turn into someone new — - suddenly become a minimalist and suddenly have more answers than when I left? See… more evidence for why I’m not the person for this trip, right.

2. I Ached for Intimacy: I got scared. Lonely. I didn’t know how to be with myself… for so long. The only was there was me. All day, everyday. While I love silence, I couldn’t turn off the noise in my head. I couldn’t interrupt it. Being solo reminded me that I was alone, absence of physical touch for days at a time. I felt cold. Distant from the world I knew. I wasn’t sure if that was ok to feel… I knew how to ache. But I didn’t want to. Hadn’t I ached enough in life? I felt guilty when all I wanted to do was sit and do nothing all day, “are you kidding me?! You came all this way to be scared!!!? To rest? No way! Go make friends with strangers!” GET THE HELL UP.

1. My Friend Needed Me: My former principal called and said she needed me for the role I’d left… “oh! I have a 7 day silent retreat in Portugal next week, I will call you after that to let you know if I will come back,” was my immediate response to her request. She was my friend. I’d worked beside her before. If she was calling me knowing I was on a 1 year journey traveling the world, surely she was desperate. Did she really need me, though?

*To date — NONE of the reasons were reason enough to come back. One of the few regrets in my life.

That was 2016… this is 2019. There is still something that feels so incomplete.

What I’ve Learned After Leaving The Church

By Mia Dunlap

My parents didn’t go to church. I started going on my own with my best friend and her family when I was 10. I loved it because I was away from home for hours and hours! Every Tuesday for choir rehearsal, Wednesday night for bible study, and early Sunday morning in time for Sunday school and I prayed we had an afternoon service!

My mom resented me and my dad didn’t see me. I was alone. At home and in the world. When I invited them to church, my mom came a couple times and critiqued my second language — church jargon! She hated it. It made her feel small and like an outcast. But it made me feel connected…. Like I had a tribe.

When I got to college, I attracted church people — like me. They loved the lord and also knew the “language of God.” They knew when to say “Amen” and when to moan, they knew when to stand up and move their bodies side to side and when to pop up and say, “You better preach!” We were connected. We were churched! When I took a class called “religious studies” at Spelman and began to learn about the root of religion, I became curious. Not about what we were doing, but why we did it. I asked questions. And if you know anything about church folks, we do not allow folks to question Jesus!

Shit!

I was stuck! Asking meant distance from my church tribe and not asking meant distance from myself!

What I learned in that season:

1. I went to Jesus to get away from a psychologically abusive home — when I introduced Jesus to my momma, she abused me more.
2. I was churched! I was a child of the King… but I felt silenced. Like it was a blind faith that didn’t allow room for critique. That felt and still feels dangerous.
3. I lost my friends.. my tribe when I chose to stay connected to myself. They didn’t demonize me, but I was a sore spot. I didn’t understand my process and neither did they. I talked less about Jesus and more about ancestors and God being “woman”… and well… we stopped being super compatible.
4. I judged my mother harshly because she didn’t know or want to know the language. I hated her not because she abused me but because she didn’t come into the fold of Jesus. C’mon, it’s JESUS and she wasn’t interested! All I was told to do was pray she comes around and sees the light.
5. There were too many damn contradictions in the Bible and I didn’t like that Jesus seemed to have favorites. “Mia, you are favored by the lord! You are chosen!” I got questions, what about my family? Can “This Lord” favor my siblings.. and shit, sprinkle some of that on my parents, too?? Nah!? That feels sticky and like I’m being set up to be hurt and alone and isolated! I didn’t ask for that. I wanted to be set up to be loved and accepted and seen and embraced. How come Jesus didn’t ask me what I wanted before just giving me something? Wait. No questions!

I allowed myself to feel the hurt. It hurt badly. And I couldn’t actually figure out what hurt, but I knew it had something to do with Jesus.

I’ve since learned that the highest power…the spirit… God… The universe…. Is whatever we need it to be…. And is working for us all, not just some of us. I’ve since accepted that asking questions and living tenderly is my preference and helps me feel free. And so as I lost respect for Jesus, I found respect for you… in all of your differences and for me in all of my inquiries.

5 Consequences of Being an Adult Child of Addicts

By Mia Dunlap

It would be easier not to write about it. Easier not to share. Easier to pretend like it didn’t have an impact. But why do easy when I can be do vulnerability? Why do easy when I can choose to expose and remind someone that they are not alone… and to remind myself, I don’t have to hide from ME.

1. I’ve not been able to get close to anyone in fear that they will leave after I’m attached. I’ve been heartbroken too many times in childhood, I tried everything not to experience it again.

2. Felt guilty for accomplishments because “I thought I was better.” I remember coming home from Spelman during break and hearing my mom say, “you are not better than us because you are in college!” It was at that moment that I was reminded not to celebrate college accomplishments because I didn’t want them to feel that way!

3. Too afraid to make mistakes, so I leaned on the “Perfect Patty” narrative. I needed to believe that I couldn’t fail. I needed to know that I would never have to live in poverty again. So, I did as many things “right” as I could. I was unforgiving towards myself when I made mistakes because I needed to run as far from poverty as possible!

4. Terrified of repeating the cycle, I did not focus on my passions but instead on making sure I ran as far away from my childhood as possible. I did not try to smoke weed until the end of college. I’ve only taken two pulls in my life time (two different occasions)… because what if I get addicted to weed and then to crack.. and then repeat the cycle?

5. Becoming numb so I couldn’t feel the trauma and ended up not feeling joy either. The same wall I put up to protect myself from feeling pain was the same wall that prevented me from being able to fall in love and experience bliss and joy. I didn’t want to let the weight of the pain in and as a result, I forfeited letting an incredible amount of love penetrate me.

I’m unlearning my survival tools and learning I don’t need to live in survival mode but there’s room for me to be all of me.

#Survivalmode