A lot of things about me, my story, what’s happened, and what I sometimes still deal with are things I’ve kept hidden. Hidden from the world. Hidden from the people closest to me. Maybe because I’ve cared more about the scarcity of their story than the right to tell my own. Maybe I’ve cared too much about them and not enough about my own need to selfishly, unapologetically express who I am.
I am an expressive, creative person. Always have been. And I’m finally ready to embrace the chaos that’s shaped me. To share it all, even if it causes discomfort for the ones involved. Starting with my family.
I’m the black sheep. That title isn’t a metaphor; it’s a full-time role. Things were sometimes rocky, and I actually cut off my parents for five years. One day, everything had exploded, and I just… walked away.
It was hard, moving to Washington, D.C., on my own. But my parents always knew I’d leave. I had aspirations bigger than anything they could offer, demanding by age eight that everyone call me “Sheridan The Great.” So I was emancipated at 17, my parents sold my car to buy my sister a nicer one, and left me alone in a city that didn’t know me.
I made it work. I fought harder than anything for the career I wanted. But I was naive. I was alone. I didn’t get calls from my family, not even to ask how I was. My mom would call, but only every six months or so. And even then, it wasn’t about me. The calls usually ended with her saying, “I need you to contact me every day so I know you’re not dead from a terrorist attack.”
Eventually, I stopped calling my siblings. Due to a lack of answering, except for one sister. Though she and I never had a great relationship, I kept trying. In high school, I was such a social pariah that even she wouldn’t hang out with me, unless I paid her. Paid for her mall clothes, paid for her movie tickets, on top of giving her cash for simply being near me. When I moved away, our relationship became one-sided. I’d have to call. I’d have to perform. Play dumb, so she and her friends could laugh at me. And later, on a family vacation, she pretended to be sick just to avoid me. At that point, I had reached my limit, hoping that now we are both adults, it would be different. It wasn’t, and I was done.
A few months later, following the vacation, I was drowning in work in D.C. I told my family I couldn’t make it to my brother’s graduation party. It was the first time I’d let them down, and I spiraled. I mean full-blown panic attack. I turned off my phone for two hours just to catch my breath.
When I turned it back on, the first text I saw was from my dad saying, “Call me, or we are calling the police.”
And I thought, “You’ve called me how many times since I left?” We don’t have that kind of relationship. You emancipated me. You didn’t prepare yourselves for a daughter like me. You sent me off with no map, no compass, just the sheltered ideas of a family who didn’t understand what I needed.
So I didn’t call. I texted to say I was fine, that I couldn’t make it because of work. But that wasn’t enough. They convinced themselves it wasn’t me texting. Their first thought was that it was my “handler.”
Give me a fucking break.
They used control. They used threats. My mother hacked into my call logs and started contacting everyone I had spoken to. She told them I was being sold into sex trafficking. Or that I was dying of a thyroid disease. She begged them to tell her everything they knew about me.
I lost business clients, my friends were panicking calling me asking what the hell is going on. Then she changed my federal mailing address to hers.
A few weeks later, I took a well-earned vacation and flew to the Dominican Republic. During a layover in Miami, I was stopped in the airport by two police officers. “Ma’am, are you Sheridan Guerrette?”
“Yes… why?”
“We have a detective on the phone. He just wants to ask a few questions.”
”Is this necessary?”
”Maa’am, it’s just a few questions.”
They hand me the phone. I take it, press it to my ear, and it’s my mother. Screaming. No detective. No explanation. Just her voice, trying once again to get me to do more than message via text and Facebook.
If I hadn’t had the context, they might’ve arrested me for throwing a phone at two police officers. Because I fucking did. I tossed it back to the officers and stood firm, surrounded by a hundred strangers.
“That was not a detective. That was my mother. I was emancipated at 17. I am 21 years old. I have lived alone, paid my way, and built my life. She is not my guardian. Leave me alone.”
Everyone stared. The whole terminal froze.
Welcome to the Sheridan show.
It took five years of distance and unlearning to get to the place we’re in now. And honestly, we have all grown since then. I’m proud of the
progress we’ve made. The boundaries are strong. But it took years.
I remember trying to sit them down when I was 20, explaining that I won’t come home if I’m expected to follow a curfew of 10 pm. I told them I understood — they didn’t get the usual college transition, where I’d come home for summers or holidays. That never happened. I skipped college and jumped straight into my career. I was ready. I was educated. But they never prepared themselves for how to have a daughter like me, and nothing I could say would change that.
Those years were hard. There were times I needed my mom. I needed my dad. But the trust was gone, and the silence felt safer. I chose being alone over being controlled. And somehow, that choice brought me closer to who I really am. To who I had to be.
For a while, I only talked to my parents through Facebook Messenger. I didn’t want them to have my number; I’m sure you understand after that fiasco. If they sent something kind, something not ‘manipulative,’ I’d respond. I told them where I lived, worked, and who I even dated. Despite the version they told neighbors and distant family, I never ghosted. I communicated. I just did it on my terms.
I guess the reason my life has been private is that I try to hold myself to a high standard. I stand by my choices. Every single one of them. But the people around me haven’t always done the same. And for a long time, I didn’t know how to live out loud while also protecting myself from their decisions.
Things with my parents are better than I could have imagined. Though even when we’re all in the same room, I still feel like I’m not really there. I’m the eldest. The big sister. But I don’t feel like one of them. Maybe I’m not “Guerrette” enough. Or maybe… I’m just too much.
So, that’s how I’m feeling this week.
I’m in the mood to cut the leashes and be honest about who I am. About what I’ve survived. There are stories I’ll never share. But there are others, like this one, that might be exactly what someone needs to hear.
Because if I can be “too much” and still make it, so can you.
xo,
Sheridan Guerrette
WhatSheridanSaid.com
Life Behind the Artist: Wed at 9/8C
