Running head: AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Autobiography
Erin Lewis
MGMT 575: Leading with Emotional Intelligence
Professor Weis
Seattle University
February 8, 2014
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 1
Autobiography
For the purpose of this assignmentand the difficulty of cramming twenty five years
into fewer than four pagesthis part of my story absolutely must focus largely on my dad.
Please hang in here with me because my dad is not a topic that I discuss often, and he is
definitely not a topic that I have ever put in writing before. So, I apologize in advance for
disjointed or rambling thoughts, but I am approaching this autobiography in a free-flowing, say-
what-comes-to-mind-first sort of way. And here we go
My story begins on March 27, 1988 when I was born in Eugene, OR to Karen and Jeff
Lewis. It took me until my parents twentieth wedding anniversary in August of 2007 to do the
math on that timing! Childhood was a happy time for me. Sports, ballet, summer camps, and
family vacations are all memories that I look back on fondly. My parents were unbelievably
loving, my older half-sister was an amazing partner-in-crime for our outdoor adventures and
made-up games, and my older half-brother (who is sixteen years my senior) was my hero and my
idol all rolled into one, despite the fact that he lived in California my entire childhood.
One of my most significant struggles in early childhood was the constant ear infections
that I experienced. While this may not seem like a big deal to most, my ear infections were
crippling for me beginning at about age four. By the time I was ten, my eardrums had ruptured
four times, making ordinary kid things like swimming or flying to vacation with ones family
incredibly challenging and painful for me. This was the first time in my life that my character
was tested and challenged. Yes, I had been dealt a crappy hand with regards to my eardrums, but
I had to make the decision to either constantly cry and complain over the pain and discomfort
and let my peers teasing about the earplugs I had to wear in the pool get to me, or I could put on
a brave face for the world and prove that I was unaffected by all those things.
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The constant teasing and mocking that some of my friends and peers put me through
because of my earplugs and because of some of the activities that I was unable to do because of
my sensitive ears created a suit of armor around me. I shut down, walked away, or pretended not
to care instead of allowing myself to feel the true emotions of sadness and anger that I was
burying. Although I did not realize at that point the huge effect that putting on a brave face
would have on my life, in hindsight I now understand that was the moment I began to learn that
you should not let other people see you as weak. Now, I must say at this point that my parents
never pushed that message on me, but rather I pushed it on myself. Even at five or six years old,
I had convinced myself that crying or showing weakness was something I would not tolerate for
myself.
These younger years continued to be a very trying year for me and my family. My dad
had been struggling for the past several years with a congenital heart defect that caused his heart
to weaken and enlarge for no apparent reason. His heart was unable to pump efficiently, so when
things became dire, he had a pacemaker implanted to regulate his heartbeat. This, however, was
not a permanent fix, and my parents informed me and my sister that his heart was hurt and he
would need to get a new one. Throughout first grade my mom, sister, and I would make trips up
to Portland almost every weekend to visit my dad in the hospital at Oregon Health Science
University (OHSU), where he was awaiting a donor match for his heart transplant. These
frequent drives to Portland were unimaginably difficult for my mom, who worked full-time
during the week and then spent her weekends in Portland so that we could visit my dad. My
mom is the queen of putting on a brave face, as I have learned only really in the past six or seven
years.
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When I was six, my dad finally received a new heart. Obviously I had no idea how
serious his health was at that time, but now looking back it is clear that it was very likely that I
could have lost my dad at age six. I count the seventeen additional years that I was privileged to
spend with him as bonus time. After returning home from Portland, I expected my dad to get
back to his normal self, but I found him retreating and spending more time by himself. I did not
understand at the time why he chose to not eat dinner with us or why he worked so late. My
thoughts now are that he was retreating from us because he did not know how long he would be
around. He still played with us, attended our school and sports events, and drove us to and from
school when we needed him to, but the traditional family time in the evenings was gone except
for Sunday nights when we would watch our favorite nerdy TV shows as a family. (Yes, I am a
sucker for Star Trek and Murder She Wrote.)
This caused much tension between my parents. My mom became frustrated that he did
not eat dinner with us or that he worked on weekends as well as during the week. My parents
began to argue relatively openly in our house, and I remember wondering why they were even
still together. I have since come to understand that my parents remained together largely because
of my dads poor health. He needed my mom in more ways than he wanted to admit, and I think
my mom (after already having one failed marriage) needed to feel needed. Watching their
relationship deteriorate over the years contributed to the hard exterior shell that I currently bring
to my relationships. I could never understand why anyone would spend their life with someone
who did not (or could not) make them happy. The amount of time I spent torn between wanting
my parents to get divorced for their own sanity and being fearful of my dad leaving really
challenged me emotionally. To this day I still approach relationships defensively. I will leave
before you have a chance to leave meeven if you are not planning to leave me. I live
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constantly on the defense, and this is largely due to the combination of my parents unhappiness
and my dads health (not knowing how long someone is going to be around).
As I made the transition from elementary to middle to high school, I thrived in an
academic environment. I thrived in situations that I could control because I could not control my
parents relationship and I could not control my dads health. I threw myself into sports and
leadership opportunities to keep my mind and body busy at all times. I threw myself into
relationships with really incredible guysand then I promptly sabotaged those relationships.
Whether intentionally or unintentionally, I found flaws in every guy I dated (or even liked!) and
distanced myself from them in fear that they may someday hurt me emotionally. My mindset was
that it was better to feel nothing than to feel the pain caused by someone else.
Other than my inability to develop and nurture a successful relationship in high school,
everything else was going relatively well! I had a couple wonderful groups of friends, and I
considered myself a floater because I did not simply stick with one group of friends. I had my
leadership/Honors friends, my volleyball and track friends, and my neighborhood friends that I
had grown up with for years. Friends were people that I could always count on. The great thing
specifically about my group of neighborhood friends is that their parents were all friends with
my parents, so they had a thorough understanding of my dads medical history and my parents
relationship. Their houses were second homes to me on the weekends.
The last half of high school brought a new scare in my dads health. Due to the large
amount of anti-rejection medication he had to take daily for his heart, we began to see some side
effects that we were not expecting. One of his medications was a neurotoxin, and he began to
become weaker and weaker in the right side of his body. His face began to droop on the right
side, and many people began to ask if he had suffered a strokewhich he had not. My dad put
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on a brave face, yet again, and did his best to continue his normal routine of work and handball.
Handball became increasingly difficult for him, causing a great deal of frustration.
By the time my parents moved me into my residence hall at the University of Puget
Sound my freshman year, my dads strength had significantly decreased. He could not walk up
the stairs to my second-floor dorm room, and this was the first time that I was truly scared not
only for my dad, but for what my life would become without him. I made a point to travel home
often during college to visit my parents because my mom would constantly update me on my
dads deteriorating body in our phone conversations. The one thing that was still unaffected by
his failing health was my dads brain, so I made sure to call him several days a week and ask
advice, chat about classes and life, and ultimately let him know that I loved him and appreciated
him. College was the first time that I really talked to my dad about his heart condition, which
turns out is genetic. His father died from it, both his sisters have a milder version of it, and my
male cousins all have it too. During this time, I relied heavily on my older brother for comfort
because, unlike my sister, my brother and I shared the same dad and therefore could relate about
our fears of this genetic condition.
After graduating from college, I intentionally moved back to Eugene and began working
at a local middle school. I knew that my dad would not be around for much longer, and I wanted
to be there to help my mom care for him and to make sure that she was not all alone as well.
Knowing that my dads heart condition was genetic and watching him deteriorate for many years
made me paranoid about my own health. I began to have panic attacks that felt like a heart
attackwhich only made me increasingly more paranoid about my heart. Because I was working
full-time and was also young enough to still be covered by my parents insurance, I was double
covered in terms of insurance, and I used that to my advantage. I had chest x-rays, EKGs, and all
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sorts of other heart tests done to help ensure that my paranoia was entirely in my head and that
there was nothing actually wrong with my heart. However, this did not ease my mind as much as
I thought it would. I became frustrated with myself because I consider myself a highly logical
person, and my fear was illogicalyet I could not turn it off. I began seeing a therapist and
having increasingly more conversations with my dad about his early symptoms. While this
bonded us in a way, I know that my dad felt some guilt about his genetic role in my very real and
valid fear.
My dad passed away on February 1, 2012 after four days of hospice care in our home. I
am glad that my entire family was able to be with him for his final days, and I also feel a
tremendous amount of guilt for not sitting with him more during those days. I knew it upset him
to see us all cry over him, so I removed myself from the situation and catered to visitors in the
living room instead. I took a large role in putting together the materials for his celebration of life
instead of sitting next to him and holding his hand like my mom did. Almost 300 people attended
his celebration of life, and I barely remember it. I did not have the emotional control or maturity
to handle what was happening, so I resorted to getting far too drunk that day. I woke up the next
morning with very little memory of the celebration for my dad, and that is something that I will
never be able to get back.
My inability or unwillingness to deal appropriately and responsibly with my emotions is
a large contributor to why I have chosen to take this class. There are so many times in my life
where I wish I could go back and change my behavior or my reactions to be more purposeful,
and I also fully understand that all of those moments have made me who I am today. If they had
not happened, I would probably be far less receptive to this course content. I cannot change who
I was or what I did, I can only look forward and work hard every day to improve myself.
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Ultimately, I know that my dad is unconditionally proud of the person that I have become, and I
know that he knows how much I love him despite my behavior in his last days and at his
celebration of life.
Looking forward, I know my fear and anxiety over my health is always going to be there,
and I need to learn effective ways of managing and responding to that fear. I know that I cannot
undo the effects that my parents unhappy marriage had on my as a child, but I can use the
emotions behind that experience to choose how I approach and nurture my relationships in the
future. Relationships are risks, but they are risks that are worth taking, and sabotaging
relationships before they really even get going is not the way I want to live my life. Having my
feelings hurt is okay, and even though it is never going to feel good, it is important to have those
experiences as opposed to feeling nothing. I know that my dad would not want me to retreat in
fear the way that he did following his heart transplant. He would want me to live fully despite the
genetic hand that I have been dealt.
I have never been a religious or particularly spiritual person, but even this is too much to
be a coincidence: My dada dedicated Atheistpassed away the same day that I received my
acceptance letter to Seattle University. He passed at 1:45am and I received by acceptance at
9:00am. I will also graduate on Fathers Day this year. If thats not a sign that he is looking out
for me, then I do not know what is.