Finding My Rhythm: Healing, Leading, Becoming

All my life, I have been in motion—driven, determined, always striving. On the surface, it looked like ambition. In reality, it was survival. I was chasing something I could never quite grasp: a sense of being worthy, of being loved as I was.

It began in childhood. My father wasn’t cruel, but he wasn’t there—not emotionally. He was distant, unengaged, a ghost in the room. I tried everything to make him notice me. If I was perfect, maybe he’d see me. If I was exceptional, maybe he’d love me. I learned early that attention was earned, not given. And so began my relentless pursuit of achievement—not out of desire, but out of desperation.

My mother, on the other hand, was a warrior. She returned to school when I was in fourth grade, working nights, earning her degrees. Her resilience inspired me. We mapped out my path to becoming a physician together. It was more than a career. It was a lifeline. A promise that I could build a different life—one where I mattered.

I excelled in school, pushed myself through college in three years while working up to 30 hours a week. But beneath the achievements was a girl still waiting to feel enough. I struggled silently. A C in chemistry shattered me. Mediocre MCAT scores made me feel like a fraud. Rejections from med schools echoed the old message: you are not enough.

Still, I persisted. I worked as a medical technician, reapplied, and got in. That first exam in medical school nearly broke me—I panicked, convinced I had failed. But then I learned I’d actually earned an A. The test was curved. I was near the top of the class.

For a moment, I allowed myself to believe: maybe I was capable. Maybe I did belong.

But those deep grooves of self-doubt are hard to unlearn. And that’s the thing about childhood emotional neglect—it doesn’t disappear when you achieve. It waits in the shadows. It distorts your compass. It sets you up to mistake familiarity for love.

That’s how I ended up marrying someone who felt like home. Not the warm, safe kind of home. But the one I knew. The emotional unavailability. The conditional affection. The subtle devaluing that felt eerily familiar.

He didn’t hit me. He yelled. He lied. He had explosive unpredictable anger. And he didn’t protect me. He let his mother walk through our boundaries like they didn’t exist. He watched me be erased from family photos. He stood by while I was isolated, dismissed, diminished. Over and over again.

And I stayed—because somewhere deep inside, I believed that was love. Because I was taught that love meant earning your place. That being cared for meant being perfect. That being good enough meant being good always.

This is how the cycle continues.

Not because we’re weak. But because we’re wired to return to the love we knew, even if it wounded us.

Breaking that cycle takes more than courage. It takes awareness. It takes grief. It takes looking at the little girl inside and whispering to her: You don’t have to earn love anymore. You already are enough.