My boss spent nine months telling me I was stupid. I didn't realize I was still carrying her seven years later.
When I finished university and got my first job, I thought the hard part was over. What I didn't know was that year would become my personal hell.
My boss would walk in every morning at 9:30 and immediately pull me into her office. To tell me how ungrateful I was. How incapable. How stupid. Every single day for nine months.
My gastritis got so bad no medication touched it. Every time she screamed at me my throat would close, my chest would tighten, and I would stand there swallowing my tears waiting for someone to help me. Nobody did. Not because they didn't want to but because they were protecting themselves from the same person.
When she retired I could finally breathe.
What I didn't realize was that I would question my abilities in every job that came after, even when I was praised, even when results were undeniable. What I didn't know then was that this pattern had been running my entire life through different people. A university professor. My parents. Every relationship I chose.
It took me ten more years to understand that the pattern was mine to break. Not because it was my fault. But because I was the only one who could.
If you're reading this and recognizing something familiar, you're not broken. You're carrying something that was put there by someone else.