I live normal life - better than average job, supportive family, good friends...from the outside all is well.
However, I have bad anxiety (getting better year on year), and from a young age I have had problems with self confidence to the extent where I often do not feel worthy. An example is self-destructive relationships (not the recent one, but more in my early twneties), and generally a self-destruct mode - ie I would hate birthdays and feel huge anxiety where I would actually create problems to ruin the day for myself. For a long time I felt I didnt deserve happiness. I spent a lot of my childhood feeling insecure, even though my paretns were always around and very involved in my life. In partiuclar, I felt insecure around my mum as she would often lie to 'protect me' even into my teenage years, and I felt i was never free to become a proper adult until i left home at 24.
Since I have properly left my parents' home and moved out 3 years ago, I feel I have changed a lot. I feel better in myself, and more secure.
As a child I remember being told very often that I was a 'little hitler,' and told that I was a show off and out of control (these memories are from around age 6-7). Both parents used to hit me if I was creating a scene, but to the point where clumps of my hair would be pulled out when I wouldnt go upstairs to bed (perhaps thats fair enough!). I remember always feeling suspicious of my parents as they would often do things and not tell me...from minor things to big things (if i asked if there was a certain food in a dish they would lie, or when i was older and my boyfriend sent me cards they would intercept them and hide them). i never felt i could sit down and talk to my parentss, particularly my mum, as she was so obsessed with being in control and making decisions that she thought were best for me, any conflcit would just result in hysteria on her part. looking back, i was extremely shy at school and i never felt confident in myself, and i know that my bad behavior (and it was bad, i know it was at times) was 90% of the time associated with feeling very insecure around my parents. is this even a thing? it has only just dawned on me that perhaps since i moved out i have recovered from all this.
my paretns are good people and very supportive of me, but even now when i am around them i am treated very much like 'theirs' rather than just 'me,' and i do feel a lot healthier being apart from them. i guess i just wonder if this is me blaming them for what ive had to recover from, or whether my suspicions are right and their choice of parenting was to blame...maybe i was just a really awful kid.