Nov./Dec. 2017

Loves Me for Me
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Dr. Michelle Bengtson
8
Do you ever find yourself doing things, in order to feel good about yourself or valued by others?
I would’ve said no, until I came to the end of myself, and all I could do.
Born an achiever, the description served me well for decades. I was born weighing less than 3 pounds at a time when that
was not considered a viable birth weight. Doctors predicted I wouldn’t live, or would be brain damaged.
Three years later, the doctors again predicted my death when I succumbed to a life-threatening illness with an equally
threatening treatment. Unaware I was deathly allergic to aspirin, the doctors prescribed the medication to reduce an
extremely high fever in hopes of saving my life and preventing brain damage.
My body endured anaphylactic shock, while my parents were prepared for my death, brain damage, or at least severe
physical and cognitive consequences. Doctors warned I would never again walk.
Those doctors didn’t know me or my personality.
I sustained the least devastating effects, but was left with physical deformities of my legs and foot, and feet that were
significantly different in size: one grew to an average women’s size, while the other remained the size of a small child, twisted
and misshapen, resulting in years of physical therapy to teach me to walk again.
People identified me as a self-starter, hard-worker, go-getter. Neither average nor quit existed in my vocabulary.
In school I earned top honors and straight A’s.
Each accomplishment was merely a stepping stone to the next. In that, I resembled my father.
I didn’t know the term at the time, but today I imagine some referred to him as a “work-a-holic.” He took his responsibility as
head of the household very seriously. But every “a-holic” pays some price. My father’s came in the form of his health.
He suffered a massive heart attack when he was merely 40-years-old. True to form, however, he took even that experience
and worked to full capacity to beat the odds: another cigarette never again touched his lips, his diet became completely
“heart-healthy,” and he took up exercising, running every single day for the next two years until a second massive and fatal
heart attack took him from us just a few months after his forty-second birthday.
I was just a young teen at the time. But given that my mother did not have any post-high school education and was from
another country, I jumped into the familiar role of doer. I determined to help support our family in my father’s absence. I was
also determined to ensure I would be able to support my family once I married and began a family of my own.
I had the personality to make it happen. True to form, nothing stopped me.
I first earned my bachelor’s degree, then my master’s, and finally my doctorate. My husband and I held together through four
years of a cross-country commuter marriage so I could complete my clinical internship and post-doctoral fellowships allowing
me to specialize in the very male-dominated field of neuropsychology.
I had never before known failure. It wasn’t an option for me. When met with obstacles, I just dug in deeper, tried harder, and
worked more.
Just after reuniting permanently in the same household, we started a family with the birth of our first child just as the walls
came crashing down around me. Shortly after he was born, my mother and best friend, received a cancer diagnosis.