The Leopard Print Bucket That Made Me Realise How Far I’ve Come

I asked my husband Mark to pick me up a soft broom and a bucket.

That’s it.

Not exactly the beginning of a life-changing story, is it? 😂

I’d planned to go myself.

Then ADHD did what ADHD sometimes does.

I got distracted.

Side-tracked.

Did other things.

Suddenly realised how bloody late it was and ran out of time.

So I asked him if he’d grab them for me.

He came to pick me up with a bucket.

And a broom.

And a mop.

And a dustpan and brush.

All in leopard print.

I was absolutely made up.

Honestly, you could have presented me with diamonds and I’m not convinced you’d have got a better reaction.

Because it wasn’t really about cleaning equipment.

Firstly, he’d helped me.

He’d seen that I was running out of time and taken something off my plate.

However, then he’d seen these ridiculous leopard-print cleaning things and thought:

Louise will bloody love these.

And he was right.

That feeling of somebody seeing something and knowing you well enough to know it’ll make you smile is really rather lovely.

And it made me realise something else.

I know I’d love them too.

And that hasn’t always been true.

I didn’t know what I liked

For years, I didn’t really know who I was.

I knew how to fit in.

I knew how to people-please.

I knew how to watch other people and work out what seemed acceptable.

I followed trends.

Adapted.

Masked.

Tried not to be too much.

Tried to get things right.

And I was ashamed of some of the things I genuinely liked.

Including leopard print.

Too tacky?

Too loud?

What would people think?

Now?

I wear it.

I’ve got leopard-print towels, cushions, blankets and bedding.

Apparently cleaning equipment was the natural next stage. 😂

Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking whether other people thought something was acceptable and started asking:

Do I like it?

It sounds ridiculously simple.

For me, it wasn’t.

I had to get to know myself.

“I just want the old me back”

I hear people say this in therapy.

“I want to get back to who I was.”

And I understand it.

Yet when I began doing my own work, I didn’t really have a me to go back to.

I’d spent so much of my life adapting to everybody else that I wasn’t sure who that person was.

I knew who I thought I needed to be.

That’s different.

Alcohol became part of how I coped with all of that.

The noise.

The shame.

The feeling that everyone else had somehow been given instructions for being human and I’d missed the fucking meeting.

For a long time, I genuinely thought I was broken.

And therapy didn’t immediately make that better

This is uncomfortable for me to talk about as a therapist.

Yet I think we need to talk about it. I need to talk about it.

I’ve experienced therapy that harmed me.

I’ve had my confidence knocked.

I’ve had a therapist roll her eyes.

I’ve sat with someone who seemed more interested in telling me how wonderful it was to have a huge lake than actually being curious about me.

I’ve been asked questions in ways that left me feeling stupid for not knowing the answer.

“Why do you think knowing that would be helpful?”

“What do you think?”

Sometimes I didn’t fucking know.

That’s why I was there.

I became so frightened of getting therapy wrong that the very place that was supposed to help me understand myself reinforced the belief that perhaps I really was stupid, difficult or broken.

At my lowest, that shame became incredibly dark.

And looking back now as a therapist myself, one thing really matters to me:

Not every therapist is right for every client.

That isn’t an insult to the therapist.

And it isn’t a failure by the client.

Sometimes two people are simply a terrible therapeutic fit.

I wish some of the people I’d worked with had recognised that.

Instead, sessions continued.

I continued paying.

And I continued believing the problem must be me.

Until I found my person.

Then everything changed

I felt seen.

Heard.

Understood.

Not analysed from across the room.

Not made to feel stupid.

Not expected to perform therapy correctly.

I trusted her.

Really trusted her.

Eventually I could tell her the deepest, darkest, most shame-filled things inside my head.

And she stayed.

I got sober.

I stopped experiencing the night terrors and sleep paralysis that had plagued me my whole damn life.

I learned about boundaries.

Relationships.

My needs.

My brain.

My body.

My history.

I began understanding other people differently too.

And gradually, I started meeting me.

Not some polished, healed version.

Me.

I began accepting quirks I’d previously thought needed fixing.

My body dysmorphia improved enormously.

Did I suddenly wake up believing I was a goddess every morning?

Absolutely fucking not. 😂

I’m 46.

I don’t have a six-pack.

My boobs aren’t perfect.

I’ve got muffin tops.

I love chocolate.

I drink ridiculous amounts of fizzy drinks.

And I have an entirely unreasonable relationship with cookie dough.

I’m also a bit vain.

There. I said it.

Do I love every inch of myself every second of every day?

No.

And strangely, I’m okay with that too.

That’s been one of the biggest changes.

I’m okay with not always being okay

I still feel sadness.

Fear.

Jealousy.

Embarrassment.

Envy.

Shame.

Rejection still bloody hurts.

Sometimes I get things spectacularly wrong.

The difference is that those feelings no longer automatically mean something is wrong with me.

They’re feelings.

I’m human.

I don’t need to fall apart because I’ve made a mistake.

I can repair.

Learn.

Try again.

I can step outside my comfort zone.

I can say what I need.

I can tell someone when something doesn’t work for me.

I can say:

This is how my brain works.

I can be different without automatically deciding different means defective.

And I changed some friendships too

This part hurt.

I started noticing relationships where I was always the one reaching out.

Always organising.

Always checking in.

And when I stopped?

Nothing happened.

That’s painful information.

However, it is information.

I began finding my tribe.

People who check in.

People who know me.

People who accept my ridiculousness.

People I don’t have to chase to prove I’m worth keeping around.

People who love me with the same enthusiasm with which I love them.

Again, none of this means I’m permanently happy.

I don’t actually think that’s the goal.

What I have now is something I value much more.

Peace of mind.

Which brings me back to my leopard-print bucket

My husband walked through the door carrying something that probably cost very little in the grand scheme of things.

And I felt ridiculously loved.

Because he’d listened.

He’d noticed.

He knew me.

He saw something and thought of me, not the version of me he wanted me to become.

That’s why the bucket mattered.

It’s why the broom mattered.

It’s why the bloody leopard-print dustpan & brush mattered.

Being heard matters.

Being validated matters.

Being known matters.

Finding people with whom you don’t have to continually edit yourself matters.

And perhaps the biggest thing I’ve learned is this:

For years, I desperately wanted other people to make me feel lovable.

And I didn’t even really know the person I was asking them to love.

I had to meet her first.

Get curious about her.

Listen to her.

Stop constantly criticising her.

Learn what she likes.

Let her take up some bloody space.

And somewhere amongst all of that…

being loved by other people began to feel very different after I started learning how to love me.

So yes.

My new cleaning equipment is leopard print.

It’s loud.

It’s ridiculous.

It’s probably not everyone’s taste.

And that’s rather the fucking point.

It doesn’t need to be.

It’s mine.

I love it.

And finally…

I know the woman who does. ❤️

stay safe, stay connected & take gentle care

Lou x