"See yourself, you are the steps you take..."

My father's favorite dessert was tapioca pudding. He liked coffee black, but his tea with cream. His favorite composer was Bach and his favorite poem was the Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll. He hated nuts in cookies and his favorite candy was the See's chocolate assortment that didn't have any nuts.

I doubt my father could have told you anything about my likes and dislikes. He just wasn't that kind of dad.

I so wanted his attention. I learned his favorite foods and how to make them. I read the books he liked, watched movies he chose and did the activities he enjoyed. It never occurred to me to tell my father what I wanted to do. I don't mean that my father took me to only boring places. He would take me to Fairy Tale Town and the zoo. He liked cartoons and science fiction and fantasy, so most of the stuff we did together was interesting and often fun.

But I spent many years of my life hanging out on rails. I learned all the bell signals and could stand on a moving train car without grabbing the strap. I learned to hang on cable cars; swinging on and off them and turning them at the end of the line. I have never built a model railroad in my life, but I used to know all the gauges that could be built for display as opposed to the ones that could be ridden. I could tell you the routes of most of the SF Muni lines and where they ended. My favorite was the N Judah, because that meant milkshakes and hamburgers at Little Orphan Andy's. (I have let most of these bits of trivia go by the wayside, but they come up at random times.)

I put up with a lot from my father. While he did consider me when choosing our activities, things were usually about his wants and his needs. I was probably past 30 before I realized that I could make the perfect tapioca pudding, the best cup of tea and pasta like his mother made and my father would  not notice me. That's just not who he was.

I internalized his inability to see me  as "not being good enough". You could carve that on my gravestone as some sort of cruel joke, because it would be accurate. No matter how well I do something, I feel like I could always do it better. I could be better at school, at music, at swimming at anything. It's very hard for me to say, "I am good at a thing."

This is especially true of my relationships with people. I never feel like I am good enough for them. I learn their favorite foods and make them. I try to adopt their hobbies, their music, their tastes. This is not always a bad thing. I have over 90 GB of music because I've been collecting it for years. I have founds books I wouldn't have otherwise, tried new things, etc.

However, I have been realizing that I also treat people the way I did my father. If I get to know a person well enough and do what I can to make them happy, they will like me, right? Nope. I am really bad at asking for my needs to be met. I won't ask, I don't tell. I just assume that they won't be, because my needs aren't as important. I get my needs met if I am "good enough" and make the person happy.  If I am not good enough, then they get to ignore me until I improve.

To quote an amphibious admiral, "It's a trap!"

This line of thinking happened because of a really difficult session with my therapist. She suggested that a lot of my depression is rooted in this feeling of "not good enough". She asked me what would "good enough" look like and I realized I did not know. Good enough would be perfect, I guess.

I didn't cry in therapy, but I did afterwards. My therapist made me look at how many places I don't feel "good enough". I am not a good enough parent, I am not a good enough teacher, I am not a good enough partner, I am not a good enough friend, I am not a good enough knitter, the list goes on and on.

The upside of my daddy issues has been a ready willingness to learn new things and try out new experiences. The downside is that I become the worst sort of people pleaser. I offer to help, I give my support at my own expense and basically pour myself into other people, hoping to earn their love, affection and most importantly, their attention. When it goes well, it becomes a co-dependent relationship of the first order. When it goes poorly, its very painful, often for all parties.

I have decided to try something radical. I am going to try saying that I am fantastic and amazing the way I am. I am scared that I will lose my drive for improvement, but I am going to try it.

I am also going to try and rid myself of the people that don't make me feel fantastic and amazing. I am trying to be realistic, so there are going to be times when the old habits are going to die hard, but if I don't feel good about a person I am with, a group, or whatever, I am going to stop assuming that its me, but perhaps that I'm just not in the right place. 

I know there are places where I feel amazing and fantastic. There is Dickens Fair, gaming with my friends (board games and tabletop) and when I hang out with the people who truly care about me. (I had two friends invite me out tonight and I had to choose which thing to do. I wanted to do both and I would have been happy at either event. It was a lovely feeling even though I felt bad for having to disappoint someone.) There are places where I feel free to be me and the most amazing me that I can be.

I can't stay in relationships where I feel like have to beg and plead for attention. It didn't work with my father, it  won't work with anyone else. I am not sure what its going to look like in the long run, but in the short run, I've been purging my online demesnes of people who I feel aren't good for my ego. I am trying really hard to stop pleasing everyone.

I am going to try and ban the phrase "not good enough" from my vocabulary. It might end up meaning I'll have a lonelier heart, but that's better than a broken one, or so Yes tells us.