The Narrative She Was Handed and Carried Alone {Part 3 of 8 Series: Eldest Daughter Turned Cycle Breaker} | Episode 29

This has been one of the hardest episodes I've ever done — and I almost didn't get it out. But it needed to happen, in a raw, unpolished way, because any other version would have been a performance. In this episode, I'm sharing the wound I've been carrying since childhood: the silence, the addiction, the moment my world lost its color, and what it cost me to become the eldest daughter.

In this episode, I cover:

• What life felt like before third grade — free, feral, full of color — and how it all shifted
• Growing up in a home where silence was the loudest language and addiction was the norm
• How I split my world into the "problem parent" and the "savior parent" — and what both cost me
• Becoming the eldest daughter: raising my sister, becoming my mom's confidant, and learning to need nothing
• The 16 years I spent swinging between the responsible martyr and the reckless escape artist — and why both were survival
• The guilt of resenting the people I loved most
• What it means to stop paying the price — and what healing looks like when the wound is still fresh

Next week I'm continuing this conversation — how I am done paying the price and what breaking free from these limiting beliefs actually looks like in practice.

RESOURCES + CONNECTION:

Find Ashley on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsashleycrabb/ 

Download the Tell My Story Firestarter: https://ashley-crabb.mykajabi.com/opt-in 

Book a Vibe Check Call with Me: https://calendly.com/itsashleycrabb/30min 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This has been one of the hardest episodes I have ever done. And I want to sit here and say it's not because of fear, but somewhere deep down inside, fear is still trying to hold on by a thread. Not because I'm afraid to say it. Not because I don't know what happened. Not because I can't tell my truth. It's hard because once I do, I can't take it back. It's hard because this wound is still so close. It's hard because it is a wound I am still healing. And I've spent the last week and a half trying to get this episode out. And it has felt stuck. Stuck in my throat. Because every time I have gotten close to saying anything, the way it actually lives inside of me, I could feel myself wanting to pull back. Not because it's untrue, but because it is the truth. And I don't want it to control right here, right now, anymore. So here we go. Welcome to Wealth and Mothers, the show where we rewrite the rules of success for women who are building businesses, creating wealth, and raising families all at the same damn time. I'm Ashley Crab, and this isn't a show about balance, productivity, or doing more. This is a space for mothers who know they're caring more than anyone acknowledges, and who are ready to turn that into power, leadership, and wealth. Here we talk about what it actually looks like to create a movement inside the reality of motherhood. The invisible labor, the identity shifts, the ambition, the pressure, and the truth that none of it disqualifies you from wealth. It qualifies you for it. Because mothers don't need to shrink to succeed, they need to be seen. Let's get into today's episode. For me, I was free. That is one of the most beautiful things I can say about my life is that up until third grade, I was a feral little girl. I was loud. I was bold. I was audacious. I had no doubt. I had no fear. I had no shame or guilt or questioning. I didn't question myself. I didn't question those around me. It was so easy to do everything from a place of goodness and love. I think back to that little girl who was so creative and whimsical and joyful. And she truly lived in color. I wasn't able to see or feel yet everything that was going on around me, everything that was building up. I didn't yet understand that I could read energy, that I could understand the tone of those around me. I wasn't trying to figure everything out yet. I wasn't trying to figure out the kind of version I had to be to thrive in life. Up until third grade, I wasn't trying to stay ahead of the game. Up until third grade, I didn't know how to perform. I didn't know what perfectionism was. I didn't know how to think that I wasn't quite enough, that I wasn't quite worthy. That narrative hadn't been shared with me yet. It was there, but it wasn't being spoken out loud. It wasn't being acted on. I was just in this beautiful little bubble. I was so present and alive in the moment, in the room. I had the most positive outlook on life, on the impact that I could make. I believed in myself. I trusted myself. I trusted everyone around me. I trusted the plan. When I say I was a free little girl, it's not that everything in life was perfect. It was that nothing felt wrong. Nothing felt like it wasn't meant to be. Nothing felt chaotic and destructive. Whatever was wrong, whatever story was going to play out had not yet landed. We hadn't started that chapter. And then third grade came around. And it was just like all of a sudden, we flipped a page, and the entire scene, the entire context of the narrative was completely different. And sitting here with you right now, I cannot give you the pivotal moment where I realized the little bubble I was living in had been popped. And part of the reason why I am struggling to get this episode out and share it with you is because I am struggling to pinpoint the moment, the moment in time, the event that occurred where the flip was switched. And I can't, I can't in this moment, right now, figure that out. And so I thought that meant I couldn't share this story with you. In some ways, it feels like it was a slow burning fire that took over. And in other ways, it feels like the wildfire just consumed everything. It was the kind of change that a child who was made to be here with you all one day. It was the kind of change that she feels before she even understands what it is, before she can even explain it, before she even knows, she's picking up a weight that was never meant to be hers. And in that point in time, it didn't feel like I was picking up a weight. It felt like my vibrant world lost its color. It felt like my flame went out. And when I think about my kids growing up, when I think about how I want them to see the world, how my husband and I are raising them, I want my kids to see the world in color. I don't want my kids to have a story where their vibrant world turned to black and white, where they got stuck in this gray matter that was just static and noise and chaos because of the trauma and the cycle that doesn't get to be theirs anymore. That's what happened to me. I was handed everything. I was handed silence. I was handed tension. And I was handed being able to sense when something was wrong in the room, but no one would say it out loud. I was able to feel a shift without anyone naming the shift, being able to understand that, and really every child does. I wasn't special. Every child knows how to pick up on that energy. But because my narrative was being read, that we don't speak about this. When the narrative was this is the way that it's supposed to be, that is what changes a child. When a child isn't allowed to be a child, that is the part that takes their spark. And in my family, we do not talk about things. That is the deepest truth of not just the parents that raised me. That is the deepest truth of my generational line. No one talked about anything. The parents that raised my mother didn't talk about anything. And so on and so forth. So when something, when something like a wildfire, when something so destructive as a wildfire starts and we don't say what is happening, when we don't say what is going on, when we don't drag the truth out into the open to not just be aware of it, but to do something about it. We learn how to move in it. We learn how to move with it. We learn how to act like that weight isn't even there. We keep going, we keep thriving, except as a kid, when you absorb everything around you, when you let, when the silence is allowed to take over, you're no longer thriving as a child. You are surviving. So silence is a truth in my narrative, my family's narrative. But the truth under that is that drinking, addiction, hiding and coping with pain is my family's pattern, is my family's norm. It is our culture. The point of which drinking and alcohol and addiction was normal to me, and that it wasn't destruction for such a long time blows my mind. Because when I look back on life now, when I look back on how I idealized growing up, that destruction was always there. And it wasn't just at home, it was everywhere else around us too. We weren't the only people, we weren't the only family dealing with that type of wildfire. Think about a whole freaking generation of feral little girls growing up thinking that that silence and that type of care for yourself is good, is healthy, is normal. And when we all grow up inside of something like that for long enough, and drinking, drinking is just my pin, right? We could pin a lot of different other points there. But when you grow up inside of destruction like that for long enough, that normal is one of the most dangerous things I can think of. Normal means nobody recognizes that this isn't just affecting you. It affected everyone before you. It's affecting you, and it's going to affect everybody after you. Normal means that the child, the feral little girl standing in the eye of the shitstorm, trying to be the eye of the storm, has to do it alone, has to do something she never should have done alone. And that is what I did. I made sense of everything going on around me the best I could with what I had, with being a little girl. My mom was the problem in plain sight. My dad was the savior in my mind. And that's where my split started. That is where the seed of resentment started. Right? My mother was the problem because her pain was visible, her drinking, her chaos, her unpredictability, everything that changed the room, the energy, the atmosphere, my life was because of her. The things that I didn't see, the things that I could feel and didn't have language for. She was the one person that I could blink, that I could pinpoint my resentment to. But I needed someone to be the good one. So I made him the good one. It started my seed of resentment for him too. It solidified the story that I knew I had to live inside. Because when my dad was still there, even though it was so chaotic for two years, the arguing, the yelling, the screaming, the fighting, the breaking, the lying and cheating, the destruction. Even though that was all happening for two years, my dad was still there. But when he left, when he left, it was like I knew I had to become, I had to fill that role. And and a daughter can't fill the father role. So I became the eldest daughter because my father still had that strength, right? He was he was there just enough to give the hope that something would change. He was there just enough that I felt like he was reachable. He was close enough that the split never truly happened. And because he didn't leave fully, it made it so much harder. Because if he would have left and been fully gone, then okay, I can that that decision is severed. That kind of pain can be severed. But when he was right there, just a mile down the road, still part of the landscape, still close enough that your body still expected him to show up to the front door to rescue you, and it never really came. That does something to a child, that does something to a daughter. It causes her to have to step up. And so those years that he was there and the chaos was happening, my body was preparing for the moment that it knew I would have to step in. My body knew how to handle and hold the chaos, the addiction, the silence, and the noise, the disappointment, the pain. It learned how to blame certain people and how to idealize others. And it muddied the water so much because the truth wasn't being spoken out loud. The truth wasn't being shared. And so instead of becoming the little girl who didn't question anything, who didn't question herself, she became the little girl who questioned it all, but not out loud. She had to figure it out. She had to answer those questions for herself. And she learned how to play the role. She learned how to be useful. She learned how to perform. She learned all of those things, right? I learned how to fill the gap that was left behind, that was left behind in the wildfire destruction. When I understood the pieces of the puzzle that were missing, I decided it was my job as the eldest daughter to become those missing puzzle pieces. I started holding everyone around me because one, no one was holding me. And if I didn't do it, who would? Who would if I didn't? Because the realization that I have come to is that I became the eldest daughter because my mother was her first. And when she could not hold everything, when she could not see how to hold everything, when she decided she no longer could carry the weight, that gap, that void opened. And I filled it. And not because I wanted to, not even because she wanted me to, not because anyone asked me in those words, but because that is what happens. That is what happens when we let these narratives run wild within our generations, within our families, within our stories. I raised my younger sister. I became my mother's confidant. I became the one who had to save everything, who had to hold it all together, who noticed it all. I carried so much more than I should have. And I learned how to not need anything, or I learned how to keep my needs silent. I learned how to be the woman who didn't need anything, who didn't want help, so that I was always enough and I was always worthy. The older and older I got, I continued to martyr myself. I continued to victimize myself. That is the cost that still ran true until so recently. That is the cost that I am still trying to break apart today in order for me to feel loved, in order for me to feel like I was enough, in order for me to feel like I was worthy. I had to be the mature one. I had to be the responsible one, the capable one, the one who could always problem solve and carry the chaos, who could be the chaos coordinator, who could be capable and not need anything, who never needed help, who never needed to be held. That role is so fucking expensive. That role is so fucking exhausting. And that role made me angry. Sometimes it made me a loud angry. Sometimes it made me a quiet, angry, obviously angry. It made me angry. It made me resentful. Resentful that I grew up too fast. Resentful that I was carrying things that I never asked to carry. Resentful that being needed was confused with being loved. Resentful that I had always felt useful before I ever felt safe. And then the cost was guilt. It was guilt for that resentment because I love these people. Because I'm supposed to love these people. I'm supposed to save these people. How dare I not want to hold this anymore? How dare I recognize this cost and want something to change? And that's when I became loud. That's when I became the one who was willing to save face, who was willing to act in goodness and love, but who took all of that anger and resentment and rage and the belief of not being good enough, not being capable, not being put together or perfect or easy enough in order for me to be able to stay steady, to save face and stay steady, to be able to handle the pressure, to be able to outrun the chaos. I had to be the chaos. So as the little girl who was impressive on the outside because she could perform, I stayed ahead of it all by being reckless myself. It wasn't the feral-free little girl anymore. She decided the way she was going to cope with the narrative she was living and the role that she was handed was to become exactly the character everyone thought she was meant to be. Because at some point everyone knew the blame would have to be passed on to someone else. So I had had enough years of being responsible for everyone else, for being responsible for myself. And I decided, oh, now I know. Now I know where the destruction comes from. Now I know where the drinking and the drugs, the recklessness from the time I was 12 until COVID hit in 2020. For 16 years, I was the eldest daughter who was also the reckless martyr. It was like I lived so fully in the role, and I also detached myself from it. I was in it and I was outside of it. My body, my brain, my soul was fighting itself for carrying a weight like that for so long and deciding that you are going to handle everything you've been managing and holding by destroying, by saying, I finally went out of this cave. And I'm going to do it in a way that doesn't hold me accountable, that doesn't hold me responsible, where I don't have to be afraid because I don't care. Because I don't have to take responsibility. And in so many ways, I blew up the performance. I so didn't want to be the one that everybody depended on. I didn't want to feel numb anymore. But I combated that numbness with the recklessness. And when I look at it and I see how deep my pain ran, that wound is still not fully healed. And it's okay that that wound isn't quite fully healed, but that doesn't mean that I don't do the work. That doesn't mean that this wound that has been allowed to live inside my body for such a long time gets to fester, gets to be felt and recognized and babied any more. And then the guilt sits in for all of the resentment because I love these people. I love these people and I'm supposed to save these people. These people need me. I can't abandon them. If I abandon them, no one, no one will love them like I can. That martyr that need to save everyone, the role of being perfect, being capable of being together, of easygoing, of being the one to hold the room steady. I held the chaos for so long. I held on to being able to read people and energy and tones and how to stay ahead. I learned how to outrun the chaos until I couldn't outrun it anymore. The fucking chaos caught up. And instead of being the chaos coordinator that I once was, I was the chaos creator, not feral and free and fun and joyful. I had spent enough years being mature and responsible for everyone else that I decided I was done being responsible for me. I finally saw how wonderful it was to no longer hold myself accountable, to no longer have to be the martyr. And I became the victim. I saw how the drinking, the drugs, the reckless decisions would carry me the way no one else ever did. From the time I was 12 until 2020, 16 years. I was so in the role, but I detached myself from it. I detached myself from the eldest daughter role in so many ways. So no longer was I just the eldest daughter, I was the reckless martyr victim. And I recognize that now. And I don't say that in a hateful, shameful way, but when you spend years carrying everything, managing everything as a little girl, that fire that was once in you that has been building and building and building, it wants out. It wants to fucking blow the performance up. I wanted to stop being the one that everyone depended on. I wanted to be stronger than the destruction. And the only way I knew how to do that was to numb myself, to numb myself from the pressure, to numb myself from the performance. The part that came out reckless was to save that feral little girl, that that reckless martyr who came out was the one who was trying to hold the little girl who never got held. For 16 years, that was the cost of the eldest daughter role. For 16 years, that was the cost of our family cycle. That was the cost of silence. That was the cost of handing down this role over and over again. What I know now is that every reckless decision I made, every time I didn't take responsibility or accountability for my decisions was another cost. It's okay that this wound isn't fully healed yet. It is okay that this wound is still trying to hold on with all of its might, but I fucking refuse to let it. What wouldn't be okay is if I refuse to put in the work. This wound has lived in my body for such a long time. The idea that I wasn't enough or worthy of being comforted, that I wasn't worthy or enough of being kept safe, that I wasn't worthy enough to have someone have an answer for me. That wound of wanting my mother to cradle me, to pick up the phone, to walk through the door. That wound of the woman who has hurt me the most being the woman who I have cried out for the loudest, that is part of the story, but it does not get to play its role of anger and resentment anymore. And I know that the reason why this episode has been so hard to get out is because that wound wants to hold on. That wound wants to grab my throat and hold on for dear life. Because how dare you expose me? How dare you breathe life into truth and want other people to know that you recognize the cost and that you will pay the price no more. Because I'm not just talking about what happened to me. I'm not just talking about the story I was given. I'm talking about the story that came before me, the story that I am choosing to tell out loud. It will no longer be silenced. I will no longer be useful before I feel enough and worthy and loved. I don't want to hold on to this wound anymore. And by breathing life into it, by recognizing it and refusing to pay the cost. I'm looking back at that feral little girl who lost her childhood, who lost her innocence. And I'm saying, I am the woman who is willing to hold you now. You are safe, you are loved, you are enough, you are worthy. Bring her forward. You don't have to pay the price anymore. The years that I spent being just a kid, seeing in color, get to become alive again. I forgive myself for the price that I have paid. I forgive myself for the cost I thought I had to carry. I don't need to clean up anything anymore. I don't need to make anything prettier. I don't need to sit in it. I don't need to overexplain it or rush the lesson and the healing. And the only way we are going to cut the cost that so many of us pay. The only way we are going to stop paying the price of the eldest daughter is if we allow the truth to come out and to let it go. If I keep this truth inside of me, if I keep this wound open and alive, if I keep refusing to heal it, that cost will continue to be paid, not just by me, but by everyone around me. That cost will ripple and it will not be the ripple effect that I want to have in this world. I was handed a narrative and I refuse to let it be the storyline that continues. I refuse to let it be the story that continues to live. I know that this episode needed to happen. It needed to happen the way it did in a in a raw dog sort of way, because any other way would have been a performance. It would have been me trying to say the right thing and make the story sound perfect. And it wasn't, and it's not, and it will never be. But my truth is alive and I feel more alive leaving this episode than I did when I started it. So thank you. Thank you for living in this vulnerable moment of deciding to share a wound that I am still healing. I feel like I can move one step closer to next week's episode. I feel like I can now break through some of those limiting fucking beliefs that have been holding me back from healing this wound once and for all. So thank you. Thank you for holding space for my truth, for my voice. And I hope that in by me being all that I am right now, by claiming all of my truth, you know that it's okay to do the same. Just don't let it fester. Don't sit there in it. Don't live inside of it. Don't pay the price anymore. And join me for next week's episode where we're gonna talk about how I'm done fucking paying the price. If this episode resonated with you, share it with another mother who is on a mission, who is building something real. This is how we change the conversation by making sure women like us are seen, heard, and paid. And if you're ready to step into your next level of visibility, leadership, and wealth, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss what's coming next. You can also connect with me on Instagram, TikTok, my newsletter, where I share daily thoughts and conversations around motherhood, identity, and wealth. I'll leave you with this. You are not behind, you are not too much, and you do not need to choose between your family and your success. You are the woman who gets to have it both. I'll see you in the next episode.