I've never been good enough

[Inkdrinker]

I grew up with an alcoholic emotional absent mum who had her own mental health struggles, we received next to no outwards signs of affects. We had toys and anything we could have asked for but nothing in the way of love. My mum was very unwell mentally, I didn't understand why she was so different to other mums, it felt very much as though she didn't love me. My problems were never a concern to her, I was always being silly or she had it worse when she was a child etc. I self harmed from age 10 up unto 14 where my friend told my mum as she was concerned, this led to me just shutting down trust with everyone.

Growing up I always felt like I had to prove my worth. Everyone expected me to fail, no matter what I achieved it was never good enough and when I fell pregnant at 15 it was very much the case of 'oh you're going to fail your gcses' 'you won't be a good mum' which understandable I suppose for being 15 but there was no support. I was actually kicked out of my house and lived with my ex boyfriend who had died mum. When my daughter was 2 weeks, I sat my exams and I passed every single one of them with grades b and above. It felt so good to say 'screw you all'.

Now im 24, I had my son 4 years ago and I suffered terribly with my mental health, I've just been diagnosed as autistic and I became so unwell mentally I had to quit work. With 3 kids at home, I feel like a failure. I feel like I'm living exactly how everyone thought I would end up. I feel like this is my fault. That I'm so worthless that I can't even face most mornings. I hate myself and have never ever felt one bit of self worth about myself. I don't think I'm a nice person, I'm not. I don't go out of my way to help others because I can barely look after myself. Whilst I know my children are amazing, I know I'm needed here for my children but I do not see the purpose of my life. I feel so insignificant and pointless in all of this. I feel like I'm just a carbon copy of my mum. I'm so tired of feeling this way.

Hi, it sounds like you're having a really hard time and I'm not surprised, you were treated very badly as a child.
Can you try and think of some things you are good at, or that are positive things in your life? I haven't been in the same position as you but I have got depression and had cbt and counselling to help with really low self esteem and self harming. I'm just at a good point right now, but under no illusion this might happen again.
Could you speak to your gp or practice nurse as it sounds like you could do with some help.

It's so much that I'm having a hard time. Nothing is really hard. I'm just tired. I'm tired of feeling like I'm stuck in this endless loop of feeling so worthless. I'm quite academic but it hasn't worked out all that well for me anyway considering I can't work due to my mental health. My children and partner are my positives, I have a roof over my head, food in the cupboards but as selfish as this sounds, it doesn't make me feel any better.

The thing is I don't feel my childhood was that bad. I feel like others had it so so much worse but it just effected me so much 😔

Gp is aware of my mental health history, I'm under a psychiatrist, I've had dbt which helped with self harming and stopping me acting on suicidal impulses.

I'm glad you're at a good point, I hope you keep on feeling positive ♥ xx

It wouldn't surprise me if your mum was autistic too OP and spent a lot of time feeling completely out of her depth and medicating with alcohol - asd/dysleia/dyspraxia/adhd often run in families. Feeling someone is there for you emotionally when you're a child is so important though and it's not surprising this has had such an impact on you.
I understand the feeling that you are academically very able but you can't cope with a job, you also have three kids which is a lot to deal with by itself! I wonder if you could consider some voluntary work of some sort? It might help you feel more positive, more like you are a 'good' person and feeling like you are using your academic abilities without the pressure of having to perform the way you would in a full time job. It could also give you more confidence and may be a way back into work if you feel up to it as the kids get older. xxx

Quite possible. It would be hard to tell as she has a whole host of mental health problems. Now I have my own children I can appreciate that despite it all she tried her best but sometimes I think that just wasn't good enough through no fault of her own. I have a good relationship with her now that I don't live with her but she sees our childhood completely different, in her eyes nothing in my childhood was traumatic.

I know this sounds incredibly selfish but I want to be more than just a mum. I want something that I've earned for myself and not for or because of anyone else. I don't think I could afford to do voluntary work and I am so desperate to earn for my own family. I feel so looked down upon because I can't work, I feel like I need to suck it up and get back into work. I need to just stop being like this.

Today has been a bad day. I woke up absolutely exhausted despite sleeping. My house is a mess and I'm just too tired. My partner is trying but he can't do it all. I feel so fucking useless as if it would just be better if I was gone. I wish so much that I just don't wake up. I'm so tired

Can you contact your psychiatrist or GP to discuss how you are feeling? Could you ask for long term therapy as I think you could really benefit from counselling? Your Mum may never understand the impact of her parenting on you, but you are feeling it now and I really hope that you can find support to process all that you are feeling. No one would be better off without you. Forget the house. Look after yourself. Find what you need to do to help yourself get well.

I absolutely understand that feeling of worthlessness because I currently feel like this too. Like you I had an emotionally absent mother and I also had an abusive father who left me feeling like whatever I did wasn't good enough - but if I could just be that bit cleverer he might just love me (at least that is what I thought) - I see now, that was a waste of time because he was incapable of loving me properly just as my mother was.

I am a fair bit older than you and I have 3 dc including a young one and I have only just realised the part my mother had to play in all of this (I always thought it was to do with my father).

I achieved a really good education but I have never used it because of anxiety, depression etc. I have worked in the past (probably way below my capabilities) but not currently working.

Having hit a low point, my next point of call is therapy and an assessment by a psychiatrist - I am only sorry it has taken so long. Maybe as leafy as said, longer term therapy may help (I certainly hope it will help me). I am uncertain what my diagnosis might be, I see aspects of BPD within me and also PTSD as well as a huge amount of anxiety- an assessment is long over due.

Voluntary work is something I am considering to get me out of the house and amongst people when my youngest dc starts school. I have trust issues (unsurprisingly) but despite my anxiety (including social anxiety), I would like to get to know more people.

You are not a carbon copy of your mum because you are already aware and most likely she was not aware of the damage she was doing and it sounds very much like you care for your dc. I don't have any answers - I think I am at the very start of trying to gain some sort of self worth and understanding and mourning the mother I never had. We've got to somehow realise this isn't our fault, we deserved to be loved and it is okay to be angry ( I suspect I have a lot of repressed anger) about what we didn't have because we have missed out on a whole lot. I have blamed myself a lot and probably feel a lot of shame too but this isn't justified and I need help to understand this and truly believe it. And our dcs can gain from this because we know what not to do (but we don't need to be perfect).

@Daphnesmate05, I agree with everything you have said and I also wish you all the best. You're so right, non of us deserved this as children and we owe it ourselves to find self worth and self love in order to break the cycle.

Sounds like autistic burnout , your tired of trying to act neurotypical and putting so much pressure on yourself to succeed. Masking long term can be too much and women with autism seem to do it so much more than men.

@Leafy12

Can you contact your psychiatrist or GP to discuss how you are feeling? Could you ask for long term therapy as I think you could really benefit from counselling? Your Mum may never understand the impact of her parenting on you, but you are feeling it now and I really hope that you can find support to process all that you are feeling. No one would be better off without you. Forget the house. Look after yourself. Find what you need to do to help yourself get well.

Gp don't seem to really care. They just prescribe me diazepam and send me on my way even when I explain diazepam doesn't really help. I asked for counselling at the start of the 3rd lockdown and was sent a number which I rang and was told that they only offer counselling to those who are under secondary care which I am not.

Thank you for being kind, I'm feeling a little better today. Just so exhausted. I know I need to do lots of things and I just can't do them. It makes me feel like less of a parent, less of a person really.

Op stop being so hard on yourself.

Firstly you really need to make a big effort to put away those supposed feelings of, l should have done this/ or been this.....Wipe the slate clean each and every time you start to think that way. put a stop to it. It doesn't matter now. Its a huge waste of your energy.

Children grow up and you are very young, there is plenty of time to have a successful career, know this.

Help yourself by treating yourself kindly, this means accepting that you cannot fix everything at once ..see above... so commit to one improvement only for say 6 months. Then revisit where you are.
l think that should be working on your MH with counselling, self help podcasts, yoga...try everything until you find what works for you and your mind.

Ok, so we have to accept that there is only so much GPs can do for us. They have an arsenal of drugs or will send us off to therapy but that is about as far as it goes. Find the things that make your day manageable. Go back to your GP and ask for different medication and explain that diazepam isn't for you, stop allowing anyone in your life who treats you like crap, vow to love your children and respect them as human beings so they will not have the same mental hell as adults. You can do this OP. We are all struggling with the same. You are worth it.

OP, retired doctor here. I would recommend antidepressants rather than diazepam, which is just a sedative that will increase your sleepiness and feeling of fatigue.
Feeling worthless, being permanently tired, thinking it would be “better if you were gone” - these are classic symptoms of depression, and I think you need treatment. Please contact your psych team, not your GP, as he sounds less than helpful.
ADs take several weeks to be effective, and you need support during this period, but they can be life changing in terms of mood, energy, and ability to enjoy life.

It's the illness speaking. You don't have to be 'good enough'. You don't have to measure up to anyone or anything. There is no standard on which you succeed or fail. It took me decades of poor mental health to realise it is actually OK just to stand and breathe in and out. To just be alive. Nothing else required.

And the funny thing is, once you actually allow yourself to believe that, everything else improves. You start to feel good about small things.

This might not work for you, but I used to make daily lists when I felt like you do, called 'at least I' lists. They are the opposite of To Do lists. Just list what you did do in a day. A least I: fed the cat, and the birds, and the kids, and found DS's sports kit for him, and did a laundry load, and ordered those light bulbs we need. Etc etc. Gradually you realise that you do have value in the world. Instead of berating yourself for being intelligent but a massive underachiever, you start to realise: if I hadn't done what I did today, the cat, birds and kids would all have gone hungry, the clothes would still be dirty (or partner would have been frazzled by a double workload.) And that can move into the sphere of work or training too. You may not be doing groundbreaking work, but if you take on a small project on your own terms and do it, acknowledge it.

It took me years to realise it's OK not to achieve. What matters is that your DC's face lights up when they see you, that you have time to watch the birds, that if you do work, you enjoy it and it doesn't stress you. Like this Mary Oliver poem:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I love that Mary Oliver poem. Thank you for the reminder.

It's the illness speaking. You don't have to be 'good enough'. You don't have to measure up to anyone or anything. There is no standard on which you succeed or fail. It took me decades of poor mental health to realise it is actually OK just to stand and breathe in and out. To just be alive. Nothing else required.

This is so crucial to me and I'm trying to understand it (and more importantly feel it). I am not there yet. The only time I got (very minimal) attention was when I was achieving/achieved...and even then it could be negative i.e. why wasn't a B+ an A? I attained a degree (with honours). I also attained a nervous breakdown in my early 20's.

Babdoc is right. The right medication can help. Also you need to go back to your psychiatrist rather than GP.

Working with 3 dc can be tough, they will grow and something invariably has to give especially if you don't have much of a support network (which I don't). In the meantime, think about what it is you might like to do in terms of work and potential interests (a clue might lie in what you enjoyed as a child). Release the pressure a bit. Regarding housework, I pick one core task a day and anything else is a bonus i.e. yesterday it was to sort a huge pile of washing...today it hoover and mop floors etc. I have just spent 2 hours outside with my pre-schooler...the housework can wait...that is not what memories are made of believe me (my mother was extremely house proud and I resent it now because that is time she could have spent with me when in fact she didn't want to spend any time with me.) Every time I write something like this, it really packs a punch, it's horrible confronting the truth. I think I've tried to deny it for so long.