Who am I?

Who am I? My name is Stacey Waterbury.  I am a human being having a human experience on this beautiful, complicated Earth. I am a mother of two adult children, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a godmother and a daughter. These are the roles I assumed for the majority of my life. I knew deep down there was more, I knew at a soul level I was more, but I just assumed the roles and stayed the “good girl.” Now I am 48 years old and come to find out most of those years I was living from a place of unspoken trauma and pain. Growing up I was in a constant state of dysregulation. I lived in my sympathetic (fight and/or flight) and dorsal vagal state (freeze/fawn) of my nervous system. Yes, I was a dysregulated traumatized child but now I see her, and I love her and allow for her to come forth and exist so that she can heal.  I know I was doing the best that I could with what I had through all the years of my life. I didn't dare explore outside my roles even though I knew deep down there was so much more to me and there were so much more than the stories I told myself, the narratives I would create in the life that surrounded me, the story that I told myself of unworthiness, and that I must be unlovable, and I will never be enough. The projections, expectations, and assumptions were all I had, and my nervous system wanted to keep me safe, so it stayed in the familiar. As mine does, so does yours. I heard a quote recently that said, “Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.” Our brains tend to cling to what is known, even if it is painful or harmful, because familiarity feels safer. The unfamiliar even if positive can trigger our nervous system and lead to self-sabotage. Your nervous system is connected to the trauma that you've been through, and it stores that trauma, and its number one job is to protect you and keep you safe. Your nervous system will protect you by keeping you comfortable. There is comfort in the familiar hell because it's known. It is the unknown that is scary and uncomfortable. 

When I was born on November 13th, 1975, I was born into a world of chaos, mental instability and addiction. I was born to a mother who is an addict and had severe mental health issues. She was abusive to my father and my older sister. I obviously have no recollection. But I do know that as a baby it is important that you have somebody to co-regulate with and somebody who is there to meet your needs. I am 100% sure that my needs were not met and there was nobody stable enough for me to co-regulate with. I was 9 months old when my dad took my sister and I away from my mother. The story will be told as a story of heroism. A single dad who saved his two girls from a mother who was toxic. A man who was told by his children’s pediatrician “take the girls and run.”  My mother grew up in an extremely abusive household. She did not have the tools that she needed to become a mother and take care of anyone else. She was very self-serving and loved to be high. Addiction can be a very selfish disease and is the result of trauma itself. My mother would come in and out of my life for the next 18 years. She was a hypochondriac and created a lot of health issues in her own world. These issues would keep her high for the rest of her days. I was told when I was a teenager that my mom would not live past the next 5 years.  That was 30 years ago, and my mom is still alive to this day. She is still sick, and she is still high and that's how she likes it.

My father on the other hand saved us from our mother but the story of heroism ends there because he placed us in the hands of another toxic woman. I want to say I was 3 years old when my stepmother came into my life. My dad was head over heels and in turn was blind to the abuse that would be a part of my life for the next 10 years. The mental and physical abuse that came along with her reminded me that the best thing was to stay quiet and small. I learned from the people closest to me that this world was not safe. I learned that I can't trust anyone and that I had to manage myself and my emotions to keep everyone happy. I realized later in life that that was a lot for one little girl to carry. I learned that my pain and struggles were not a priority. I learned that people project their pain on the closest people in their lives and the majority of the time they do not acknowledge their part. I unfortunately do not have a lot of memories of my childhood which I learned is from me disassociating from it because of the pain and trauma that I endured. I have memories of trusted family members doing unthinkable things to me as a child. I have memories of some of my closest family member’s pain and frustration being projected on to me through violence, yelling, and screaming. I have memories of a disconnected father who pretended that everything was okay and that nothing was wrong. I have memories of severe abdominal pain and my stepmom bringing me to the doctors and telling me, “There better be something wrong with you or I'll make sure there is.” I prayed the doctor would find something wrong with me. I remember enduring the pain of a broken wrist for a week due to fear of telling anyone or complaining and then when I finally couldn’t go on without medical intervention I was taken to ER. On the drive over my stepmom was so annoyed and told me they would probably have to rebreak my wrist and proceeded to tell me how painful it will be, and she won’t stay in the room with me. That is only part of it. As I grew there are plenty of vague memories of more neglect, abuse, and my emotional needs never being met. There was a moment in my later years while I was pregnant with my son at the age of 18 that my mother was mad at me and chose to take more insulin than she should to kill herself as punishment for me having feelings. She ended up in a coma for a few days. The world I lived in was not a world that was created in safety, love, peace, and/or connection. These are things I craved my whole life. I grew up in a world that was completely and totally disconnected from the reality of what was surrounding us. I grew up in a world where a child's safety was never considered. I grew up in a world where love sometimes felt conditional and was given only when you were being good and withheld if you didn't “play your part” to make others happy and comfortable. I grew up in a world where peace and quiet never existed. I grew up in a world where actual co-regulation and connection was something that was never considered. Nonetheless I grew up and as I grew up, I invited all of these same things into my life as a teenager, as a young adult, as a mother, as a wife, and now I see things clearer.

Who am I today? I can tell you who I am today has nothing to do with the people who were in my life as I was growing up. The person I was a few years ago had everything to do with those people. After starting therapy, I was learning new healthier ways of dealing with my sickness and my trauma. After a year being in therapy on August 28th, 2020, my husband had a brain aneurysm. That day our lives were changed forever. My husband survived and is now disabled. Like all my other stories this story is very long, and I will share bits and pieces of it through this blog and the whole story will be in my up-and-coming book Dear John. During my first year of therapy, I thought I had a grip on my life and the things that had affected me, and I was touching on all my traumatic events and bringing them to light so that I can heal them, but I had no idea that the worst was yet to come. So, Who I am today is the person that I fought for through hard work, healing of my nervous system, and therapy. I found myself. My true self is the person that I always was but was hidden behind all of the pain, trauma, experiences, stories, uncertainty, and other people's perceptions and ideas that they had of me. I stepped out of the shadows of all of these people that have been a part of my life since the day I came into the world and after I was able to step away from feelings of unworthiness and the feelings of not being enough or lovable. I stopped asking myself what I did wrong, and I started asking myself what happened to you Stacey. I realized that the only way through it was to shine light on it. I had to get real. I realized that it was time for me to get real and speak my truth. That is where my healing journey truly began.

This blog is that journey. It is the stories; it is the things I've learned on my journey. It is real. The human being I am today is the person I was always meant to be. She was just hiding under a lot of layers. A lot of layers that I accumulated over a lifetime. So let me take you on a journey. A journey of a little girl named Stacey who fought for her life everyday of her life and one day she lost the battle, and her body started screaming. But in that loss, she found herself. and it had nothing to do with how enlightened she was or kind she was or how selfless she was. It had everything to do with learning to love myself and understanding that I mattered. It had everything to do with walking out of the shadows and shining a light on those wounds inside me. It had EVERYTHING AND MORE to do with returning to my body and regulating my nervous system. Now let me share with you, and if I can just help one person out there this will all be worth it. Hi, I'm Stacey, I am a trauma informed wellness life coach, blogger, and author. And I matter and I exist in this world, and I invite you to do the same.