What’s a “mistaken zygote?”

Have you ever felt like you were raised by…people who didn’t get you? Some of us are labeled “black sheep” or “ugly ducklings,” but at the root of these rather negative terms is the sense that a child in a family feels a sense of non-belonging, or un-connectedness, or of just not being “gotten.” Ever.

I was an Independent at heart, raised in a hotbed of Republican values. My parents (mom and stepdad) loved the country club, I loved the country. My family stepped over dirt, I all but rolled in it. Horses caused hives and smelled bad for them, I couldn’t wait to get my first. The only time my mother ever sweated was when the AC broke…I’m happiest when I’m red faced, out of breath, and slicker than snot after a workout.

Mom says “potato,” I say “tomato.” We simply don’t see eye-to-eye. And it extends beyond these silly examples, to a much, much deeper level. I have always, on some level, felt, well…lost…in my own family.

I’ve kept a therapist essentially on retainer since college. I’ll see her for a couple of years, then step back and think I can handle things on my own, only to check back in for a tune up. After one particularly rough patch in my early 30s, she introduced me to the concept of the “Mistaken Zygote,” brilliantly dreamed up by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. (http://www.clarissapinkolaestes.com).

To boil it down so that my brain can understand it, I imagine myself a wee baby bunting, bundled up and dangling from the stork’s beak in my little basket as she soared over rooftops, looking for the correct chimney into which to drop me. And I’m so excited to be born and so precocious that I bounce and jump and wriggle my way OUT of the basket and INTO the wrong chimney.

Yes, that family was expecting a baby, but they sure weren’t banking on me.

And I’m not a bad kid. I’m not the black sheep who did all the stuff black sheep do. I’m still invited to Thanksgiving dinners and regular family functions. I just feel like when I walk in the room, everyone holds their breath, just waiting for me to say something (according to them) inappropriate.  A fate worse than death for my immediate family. Sometimes I don’t feel fully accepted…like if I could just come to my senses and do it their way, we’d all be so much happier. I mean, my mom is still mad at me for not joining the Junior League when I had the chance, and that was almost 20 years ago.

I found a woman on YouTube who explains it so very nicely. I’m interested to know if anyone else feels like a mistaken zygote, and, more importantly, if you have found your tribe.

I have – THANK GOD OR THE GREAT PUMPKIN – found my tribe. My girlfriends – the Sunshine Girls and the Fab Four – get me and value me and cherish me and make me feel “enough,” and never EVER “too much.” Every young woman I come into contact with through my job or my life, I wish for them – if they are a mistaken zygote – to find their Sunshine Girls/Fab Four/tribe/forever family.

They are out there. Promise.