Stop Standing in Your Own Way:
Susan Armstrong's Story of Survival and Success
By Christopher Cussat
Alcoholism, drug-addictions, street gangs, motorcycle gangs and being shot... No it is not the character progression and plot synopsis of the next Bruce Willis or Jet Li action blockbuster, but rather a summary of the struggles and experiences through which Susan Armstrong actually lived! Most people outside of movie set would not survive any one of these wrecking balls, let alone all five. But Susan Armstrong not only survived them, she went on to reinvent herself, establish her own company, author a book and use her personal experiences as the blueprint for helping others to be successful and achieve their greatest potential.
However, before learning how she saved and found herself, it is important to understand how she became lost. Armstrong feels that her eventual "end" began at an early age as she struggled to please a mother who was perfectionist and to be accepted in a world where she did not feel she fit. Saif Armstrong, "Very early on in my life I got the message [from my mother] that nothing I did was good enough." Even as an intelligent child Armstrong did not find social acceptance at school and often, from fear of being different, chose not to participate. "I didn't want to raise my hand in class because I thought the other kids wouldn't like me if I always knew the answers." This strange dichotomy of never feeling good enough for her mother and (as a result) not having the confidence to apply herself in school, created a tightrope upon which she balanced personal uncertainty with her desperate desire to please others. As Armstrong described it, "I always felt that I had to walk on eggshells for everyone." The stuggle to balance herself amid her family and society's tensions of expectation and acceptance led to deep feelings of inadequacy and eventually, a deeper desire to escape them.
One day at age eleven, Armstrong and her friend got a case of beer. It was an epiphany and release for her young, troubled mind. She explained, "When I drank the beer it took away all of the eggshell feelings and I didn't care anymore if I didn't fit in or if I wasn't perfect enough for my mother." Thus, she found a way to escape the strains in her life and began the cycle of dependency on alcohol (and later drugs) in order to drown out the feelings that haunted her. "That was it, from the day forward I wanted more of the same; I didn't want the nervous 'eggshell' and 'not being good enough' feelings anymore."
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