Women are rarely asked to disappear all at once. Nobody gathers the family in the kitchen and announces, “Right, from now on, we’ll need you to slowly abandon your needs, ambitions and identity so the rest of us can function without experiencing even slight inconvenience.”
That would be too obvious. Instead, it happens gradually, under the cover of being good. Be a good partner. Be an attentive mother. Be the daughter who is always available and the employee who can absorb one more job without making it awkward for everybody.
Remember the birthdays, the school sports day; you dutifully put the emotional support vegetables on the shopping list, even though everyone involved knows they will die a slow, sloppy death in the crisper.
And so we vanish by degrees. Death by a thousand questions, most of which could be answered by opening a cupboard or moving one object slightly to the left.
For a long time, I believed every family needed one person to act as its central nervous system. And because I am a deeply irritating combination of control freak, eldest daughter and gold-medal over-functioner, I appointed myself.
I knew where everything was, what everyone needed and what was about to go wrong. I could hear an abandoned school form approaching from another postcode.
This is the trap of being capable. Once people know you can carry things, they rarely stop handing you more.
Then you reach the middle of your life, look around at everything you have successfully kept running and think: where the hell am I in all of this? What do I want? It is a truly terrifying thing to face when you have spent decades making yourself useful. Usefulness earns praise. It can look like security, self-esteem, and even show up as love. Wanting something simply because it makes you feel alive is far more confronting.
Women are taught to earn joy. We can have it after the work is finished, everyone is happy, every need has been met, and nothing in the laundry basket can legally be classified as urgent.
Of course, the work is never finished. So joy remains permanently pending.
Enough.
We don’t need another productivity system, or to be told to rise at 4.45 am to meditate, journal, and stare bravely into a tepid glass of apple cider vinegar, which is going to magically fix us.
So what do we do, Em? I hear you all yelling at me through the screen; well, lucky for you, I have some suggestions. The first step is to figure out where you’ve gone missing: who does get the best version of you? Does she still exist? Do you remember her, or is she a misty vision from the past who occasionally shows up to haunt you like a sad Victorian ghost?
Then really interrogate all the choices you are making in a day; I’m serious – write them down. No, I am not suggesting journalling; this is not an exercise in self-flagellation. Scrawl it in blood on a shopping receipt if you must, but just take note of them and then ask yourself how many of them were genuinely yours and how many were made to help prevent someone else’s disappointment? You will be genuinely shocked at how many of those decisions are not your own.
I don’t know about you, but my family treats me like an internet search engine. I am their first stop before they actually use their own brain. Now, when my kids ask me things like, “Where are my shoes?” Or “Have you seen my school bag?” Or “How do I use the washing machine?” I shout inspirational quotes at them. “I have faith in you,” I yell supportively, and occasionally I’ll throw in a “Believe, dream, achieve.” I want them to experience the character-building pleasure of looking under things.
Say it with me: My attention is valuable. It is not a permanently available public utility.
The next one requires you to completely hand some of your responsibilities. This is not merely asking someone to “help” you. No “help” often means you remain the project manager, delegator, reminder service and emergency contact. Congratulations, you have outsourced one action and retained the entire mental effort.
Hand over ownership instead.
If you have children, and the other parent is around, do something crazy: list them as Parent One on the school permission forms and the contact sheet. Stop being the default parent. You can do it; I believe in you.
Let another person remember it, plan it and deal with what happens if they do not.
This will be difficult for the over-functioners among us. I can hear somebody completing a task incorrectly from three suburbs away. Sometimes you must sit on your hands and allow another adult to purchase the wrong wrapping paper.
It is how they learn. It is also how we avoid prison.
The next one will be tough for the recovering people-pleasers among you; be okay with disappointing people. Start small. Decline something without submitting a 14-page defence of your exhaustion.
“No, I can’t do that.”
Then stop talking. The quietness may feel long enough for you to age visibly. Do not rush in to soften your answer, offer an alternative or somehow end up doing the thing next Thursday instead. Don’t give them a long, complex over-explanation that involves the dog’s fungus infection; just say no! Did you know that “no” is a complete answer?! I know, it blew my mind too.
Disappointment is uncomfortable. It is not an emergency. You will be ok; I swear it to the old gods and the new.
Someone disliking your boundary does not automatically make the boundary wrong. It usually means you’re doing the right thing; it usually means that person was benefiting from your not having a boundary in the first place.
Now, the most important thing: schedule in the joy. Not once the emails are answered. Not when the house is clean. Not after everyone else has been fed, soothed, transported and emotionally regulated. There will always be washing. There will always be emails. Somewhere, as previously mentioned, a vegetable is liquefying. Those chores are not linear with an end; the washing is a circle, as is every other task. You will never reach the end of any of them. You know as well as I do you live in a sick game of chore whack-a-mole.
Do something because you want to.
No productivity. No monetising it. No turning the ceramics class into a small business by Thursday. You do not need to demonstrate that your pleasure produces a measurable return on investment.
Joy isn’t a reward for successfully disappearing. Some people will resist your reappearance. Of course they will. They had unrestricted access to your time, labour and attention. Your boundary may feel deeply inconvenient to them. Unfortunately, inconvenience is not oppression.
Let them look for their own shoes. Let them book the appointment, remember the date and work out what is for dinner. Let a ball drop occasionally. Watch what happens.
Most of the time, the earth remains stubbornly on its axis. Being needed can feel like being loved. I have confused the two myself. But they are not the same.
I do not want love that requires me to shrink so everybody else can remain comfortable. I do not want family life built on one woman grinding herself into a fine powder. And I no longer believe sacrificing your health to your work proves you are ambitious. Sometimes it only proves that your workplace will keep taking whatever you give it.
This is not about abandoning love, work or family. It is about refusing to abandon ourselves in their service. I want to love people without being consumed by their needs. I want ambition that leaves some part of me alive at the end of the day. I want to be devoted to the people I love without slowly vacating my own life.
I have spent enough time playing a supporting character inside a world I helped build. I am allowed to take up space in it. I am allowed to stay.
Em Rusciano is a comedian, musician, writer and podcaster. Her new live show, Addicted to Love, tours nationally this September. Tickets are available at emrusciano.com.