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This is high Function revealed. People see what I get done. What I want to talk about is how I got this way, what I learned growing up, what it takes to keep going, and what I'm starting to notice about the things I do over and over again.
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Some of those patterns have served me well, some I'm still working through, and I'm curious whether you see them in your life too.
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Season 1 what yout Don't See Episode 4 Raised by Chaos Chasing Perfect Content Note this episode discusses childhood trauma.
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On one of the most traumatic days of my life, I went back to history class and earned a grade of 100 plus the bonus.
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I was a teenager already capable of functioning through trauma so well that the grade could tell you one story and the rest of my day could tell you another.
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Maybe you know that particular contradiction.
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Something happens that you can barely put into words and somehow you still deliver.
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You know the answers, you do the work.
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Looking at the result, even you have to wonder how you pulled it off.
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That grade stayed with me. What it reveals has changed.
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Now I can see how young I was when I learned to put one experience aside and give another part of my life my full attention.
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I can also see how much I wanted that attention to lead somewhere.
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I was raised by chaos. Chasing perfect and looking for a way out.
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School mattered in all three I had to test to get into both middle school and my high school.
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I was afraid to attend the local schools.
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One thing I always knew I was getting out.
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Even with everything happening around me, I could look ahead, find something I was good at, use it to reach a place I wanted to be.
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That belongs in the conversation about compartmentalization, too.
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I could still think about a future while managing the present academic ability gave me options and I wanted to use them.
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Maybe achievement meant something like that to you.
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The result mattered because of where it could take you. You were working toward a possibility while still living inside the circumstances you wanted to leave for high school. That brought me to Norman Thomas on 33rd street and Park Avenue in the city, aka Manhattan. For anybody who's not from New York, high rises, an absurd amount of taxis, Grand Central Station, the train, the sheer pace of it all.
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I'm pretty sure that energy fueled my curiosity.
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Not exactly a low stimulation environment, and I wanted to be a part of it. By then I had already attended five elementary schools.
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Five.
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Making friends came easily. I had plenty of practice being new at Norman Thomas. My friends came from all over the city and all kinds of backgrounds. I I was a rock girl with my rock Friends. And some of those people are still close to me today.
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What mattered was the consistency.
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Those friendships gave me, the kind of family stability I needed.
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Even now, I can almost transport myself into those hallways. The people, the music, the shows I did there. Certain experiences come back with their feelings still attached.
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The whole period is extraordinarily vivid to me.
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And I remember a girl with a lot going on for her.
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Bright, popular, the do gooder. I cared about my grades and I enjoyed my life at school.
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Yes, I wore a lot of black. That wasn't a complete psychological assessment. I did wear pink Converse.
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I don't think I came across as a depressed kid. If you knew me then, this good times you remember were real.
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So were the experiences you might never have imagined.
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Maybe someone remembers a period of your life fondly and you do too.
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Except your memory includes something they knew nothing about.
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Same years.
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More than one truth that was my teenage life. Belonging, ambition, pleasure. And experiences that didn't necessarily show in my performance.
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Getting into those schools had already shown me that ability could help me move forward.
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Once I had some stability, there was room to keep achieving.
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Learn the material, know the answer, earn the grade. An outcome I could influence. A little control.
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And then one day the principal asked to see me. There were authorities there who wanted to hear my story.
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After that conversation, I took the escalator back up to history class.
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That was the day I earned the hundred plus the bonus.
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Stay with that return to class. For a moment I had just been talking about something deeply traumatic.
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Yet I could concentrate, recall what I knew and perform at that level.
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By that age, my ability to
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compartmentalize was already remarkable.
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Back then, I was a girl doing it.
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Today I'm the woman recognizing what it took.
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When the authorities wanted to hear my story, I felt heard.
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Until I didn't.
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Again speaking to courage. Then came the pressure I felt to retract, to restore some version of normal so everyone else could be okay and I could still reach that part of myself that knew the history.
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I feel blessed that I could do that. Whatever made it possible to keep going, I'm grateful I had it.
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Looking back, I feel pride alongside questions I couldn't have asked then.
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How did I learn to move between those experiences so young?
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How much of the woman I am now was already there.
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Taking that escalator back to class.
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Think about a day when you surprised yourself with what you managed to accomplish. What else was happening?
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Sometimes we remember the results so clearly that we barely stop to consider the circumstances.
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That same ability extended beyond the classroom as a Teenager. I was working with a doctor on the weekends and earning my own money.
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Independence was already taking shape. I'd used my ability to get into schools I wanted to attend. Now I was discovering what I could manage for myself.
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I left home the day I graduated high school.
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By then, I'd been moving toward that decision for years.
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I could compartmentalize enough to concentrate on what was in front of me and still look ahead to what I wanted next.
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That's what stands out to me now. My ambition was alive in all of it.
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Maybe you recognized that in your own life.
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What were you already building before anyone else understood where you were headed?
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When I trace that resourcefulness further back, I reach a much earlier childhood memory.
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I used to grab myself in the dark and say, you are alive. You are alive.
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I understand now that I dissociated as a younger child.
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That's the language I have today.
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Back then, I had those words and the act of holding on to myself. You are alive.
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When I look at that little girl, I understand how strong I am.
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She was already finding a way to reach herself.
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I want to give her credit for that.
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I can't explain every connection between her and the teenager in history class.
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I can recognize something persistent in both the ability to find a way through, to keep some part of life moving.
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The word that comes to me is pivot.
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She could pivot, land, make an entrance, make an exit. There was a grace in how she adjusted and found her footing again.
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By high school, some of that grace had gone into managing the atmosphere within my family.
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That's delicate for me to say.
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I love my family.
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I always remember feeling responsible for making things feel normal. After I'd spoken about something that mattered to me, I was living the experience and helping other people manage. Hearing about it.
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Consider how much attention that takes. Your own feelings are there, and you're also thinking about the room, how everyone is reacting, how to make the next moment easier.
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Maybe you finally said something difficult only to find yourself guiding the other person through the conversation, choosing your words carefully, trying to be understood while helping them feel comfortable.
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Where does what you needed to say go in all of that?
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At school, getting something right had a more straightforward result.
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Effort could earn recognition. Doing well could bring attention and a feeling of being loved.
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It had also opened doors. I had tested into schools I wanted to attend.
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I was earning money. My ability had practical value in a life I was beginning to build.
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And I liked being good at things.
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I still do that. Pleasure deserves its place in this story. So do curiosity, talent, ambition and the people I loved being around.
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There was a whole person there with more going on than any single explanation could hold.
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But I can see why achievement became something I reached for when other parts of life felt beyond my control.
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As a result, offered something solid evidence that my effort could change an outcome.
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What I want to understand is where wanting to do well became needing to get everything right.
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I knew achievement could move me forward.
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How much did I come to depend on that feeling?
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That question reaches directly into my life today.
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I
build businesses, hold several titles, take on a lot.
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There is real satisfaction in turning an idea into something that exists and recognizing what needs to happen next.
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I can see the beginnings of that ability in the teenager I've been describing.
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She could concentrate, adapt and pursue an opportunity while managing circumstances other people couldn't see.
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I'm proud of her.
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I'm also interested in what happens after capability becomes familiar.
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Once I know I can function through something difficult, do I begin to expect it of myself every time?
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Do you?
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If you've pulled something off on one of the hardest days of your life, what exactly do you expect of yourself on an ordinary Tuesday?
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That's where chasing perfect gets complicated.
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There's always another improvement available, another detail to refine, another result within reach.
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And I know how to keep going.
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The question is what I'm expecting the next achievement to give me.
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Sometimes I simply love the work I wanted to see how good it can be. Other times I want control, recognition, or the satisfaction of having one part of my life turned out as intended.
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It helps to recognize which desire is doing the asking.
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Think about an ability you're proud of, something people rely on you for. You may have learned it so young that it barely registers as skill anymore.
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What did it make possible for you when you first needed it?
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I want to leave room for admiration in that answer. We spend plenty of time examining what's wrong with us.
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Sometimes I look back and think, look at what that girl figured out.
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Look at the possibilities she could still see.
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I still want that hundred, let's be honest.
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And apparently I'd like the bonus, too.
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Even my idea of easing up seems to involve full marks.
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But I want to understand the girl behind that result.
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What she enjoyed, what. What she was reaching for and what she could set aside long enough to keep moving.
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I can hold the weight of that day and my pride and her together.
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That applies to the younger girl in the dark, too, the one saying, you are alive.
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I recognize her resourcefulness now in ways I couldn't then.
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There were maybe 3,000 students in those hallways.
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I sometimes wonder how many other girls were functioning through the things the rest of us couldn't see.
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In my own life, I can trace how achievement became a way forward.
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Getting into those schools, earning my own money, finding places where my effort could change the outcome. I was learning that I could count on my ability. And somewhere in there, being good at things became tangled up with needing to get everything right.
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That's the thread I'm following.
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Raised by chaos, chasing perfect, becoming so good at functioning that I could keep moving toward a future while setting aside what was happening in the present.
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There's strength in that.
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There's ambition.
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There's also the question of how much control I expected perfection to give me.
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Maybe you recognize that expectation in yourself. You know you're capable. You've proved it. But does every difficult day have to become another demonstration?
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I'm proud of that girl's hundred.
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I'm proud of the life she was finding her way toward.
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I can trust her ability without asking her to be perfect.
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Next time, I want to follow another part of this pattern. When you become good at making things work, people come to rely on you. You and being needed can get tangled up with wanting to be loved.
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That's where we'll go next.
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Thanks for spending this time with me. If you recognize something from your own life today, I'd love for you to tell me that story. I'll talk to you next time.