"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate him."
- Chimamanda
In my last and final therapy session, we talked about my RED, and how, regardless of what I hear about myself, I still feel larger and bigger than what is probably reality. The first line of the statement above could not be truer with mi. Somewhere in life, at some point in time, it became ingrained in mi to believe that I needed to and should be smaller. Occupy less space. Not stand out. Not over shadow. Granted, when I was younger, my way of attaining this position stemmed from mi developing a RED. This soon morphed to include the distorted belief that my presence is also overwhelming, and needs to be more contained. Because as a girl, as a lady, I am meant to be smaller and in the background.
Why??
I guess the answer to that will be the next step in removing mi from this twisted web of oxymorons I have been trapped in.
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