I didn’t actually mean to write this article. The intention was to talk about the different types of therapy I’d experienced, but before I knew it, I was 800 words deep into something else! I figured it was written now, so it may as well be finished and shared if it might help someone else.

This all came up fairly recently as I dived into shadow work, which we’ll no doubt discuss at a later date. So this is for anyone who’s ever felt like they aren’t enough. That they’re not loved, wanted, or liked. That they’re not worthy of kindness, compassion, and love.

My first therapist

I’ve tried all sorts of therapy over the years. The first time I accessed therapy I was about 20 years old. I had to go to the GP surgery once a week to talk to a woman I hated… The problem was that I felt like she was looking down on me and judging me when I answered things. Not the ideal environment for therapy! But I do remember she asked questions that made me realise things I’d not considered before. I thought that was clever, at least. The trouble was, we didn’t deep dive into any of it because I didn’t tell her (because of the being judged feeling). I answered in my mind and went away with a few new realisations that weren’t worth much. In fact, one of them seemed to worsen a feeling I hadn’t realised I’d been living with…

My relationship with my mum

My mum said therapy was rubbish and they were only going to ask questions about childhood and blame the parents anyway because that’s what they always did. This was back in 2008, so that may have been a popular viewpoint then.

Anyway, back to the worsening of the situation. I told my mum that I’d realised that I believed she’d never loved me until I got sick and nearly died. Her response was simply: “It’s not my fault.”

And that was it. Left hanging there for years. It wasn’t her fault, so whose fault, was it? Was it mine? I didn’t know, but having confirmation that you weren’t loved until you were 19 years old wasn’t a good feeling.

Why wasn’t I enough? A question that then echoed in my existence for about fourteen years… Until we had a conversation. A conversation I’d not wanted to go any further into. It turns out that when she’d said “It’s not my fault”, what she’d meant was it wasn’t her fault that I felt that way. I had heard it wasn’t her fault that she didn’t love me.

I’d never felt good enough anyway. I’d never felt loved, wanted, or even liked really. I felt like I was in the way. An inconvenience. Mum and dad split when I was fairly young, and I was so grateful that happened. They both drank too much, and they were awful to each other. Witnessing the physical and mental abuse they gave each other, and hearing all about affairs and stuff is not OK for a child to be exposed to. But even when they’d split, sh*t still went down. My mum told me my dad was never there to see me anyway, he just used it as an excuse to be near her.

Thankfully, there was respite from the situation. At the weekends I was usually with my grandma, or my aunty, uncle, and cousins. We were always doing something, out and about for picnics, on bikes, in water, in fields, and woods. We went swimming, explored cities, or had days in baking.

Our relationship through my teenage years was pretty awful. I was obviously still feeling unloved and uncared for. She had zero idea how to handle that. I acted out like a child does when they want attention. I didn’t care whether the attention I got was for something I’d done wrong, as long as I got it. In fact, sometimes I think I did things that were wrong because if she told me off for it, that at least indicated she cared about my wellbeing. My mum’s default emotion was anger, and I learnt that from her. So, we argued, fought, screamed, and disrespected each other, mostly.

My relationship with my dad

My dad, who’s currently a not-on-the-wagon alcoholic, was never really present. He picked me up and took me to my grans every weekend then went upstairs and locked himself in his room to play guitar or watch Blackadder…

In all honesty, he scared me. His temper was unpredictable. He played games with my mum when I was young, taking me to meet people he’d told her he was sleeping with so that I’d go home talking about them. I remember him scaring the sh*t out of me when I was really quite young. I flung off my sandal and jumped onto a rock because ants were crawling on my feet. My panic angered him, and rather than issuing safety, he picked me up and dangled my hair in them as I continued to squeal. He nearly throttled me with my PJs once, after I splashed him with water because he thought it was funny to be throwing my teddies around when I wanted to go to bed. Another time, I’m not sure how old I was, but small enough to be riding side saddle on the front of his bike, he forgot I was there… We were going around the corner to the shop to fetch some beer (what else?!). Someone said something to him which angered him, so he dropped the bike on the floor to go over for a scrap. Of course, I went with it, which is when he remembered I was there. Obviously, he hadn’t been peddling along enjoying daddy-daughter time.

You never knew what might set his shouting off, so I didn’t say much when he was around. When I was young, if I wanted him to spend time with me I’d post a note under his door to ask if he would do something with me. Most went ignored, but on the occasions he did something with me, they usually ended abruptly because he’d got mad about something. Getting bonked under the chin when I was on a pogo stick for example.

The final straw for me, when I was still pretty young, likely under 10, was when he came to cuddle me, whilst crying, to tell me that he was going to stop drinking now. He was going to do it for me. It was a completely unprompted scenario. I didn’t know whether I believed him, but it was soon proved to have been false. I gave up expecting anything from him from then on. I didn’t trust him, and I wasn’t enough to solve his problems. I wasn’t enough.

In my later teens, he wasn’t really around at all. I’d stopped going to my grans at the weekend because I was too busy being a huffy teenager and didn’t want to play with my cousins. He once said to me: “I brought you up so you wouldn’t need me.” Well, yeah, not being around will do that!

How those feelings played into my relationships

That feeling of unworthiness, plus my self-confidence plummeting following emergency stoma surgery at 19 years old, is likely a big part of why I stayed in a toxic romantic relationship for so long. It was physically and emotionally abusive, and he was an alcoholic. Part of me knew it was all very wrong, but I was brought up that way so there was also an element of the norm. He told me no one else would want me now I’d had surgery. I believed him. I felt broken. I felt disgusting. I felt alone. I tried my hardest to help with his alcoholism, but I eventually realised it wasn’t within my power if he didn’t really want to sort it. I wasn’t enough for him to want to fix himself for. I’d told him I didn’t want to be with him anymore, but he wouldn’t leave the home we shared and I had nowhere to go. It crossed my mind that there was no escape from this situation whilst I was alive. That was worrying.

One night, after another bout of drunken rage and breaking things, I locked him out. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t leave the house because then he’d get back in. I worked from home for the next few days and tried to figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this situation. Then, he came creeping around the house at night, trying to get back in. I was petrified. I knew how angry he would be, and I was genuinely scared for my safety if he got back in. So there I was, at 24 years old, in the hallway of my own house, hiding in the dark, crying on the phone to my mum.

I think that scared her, so she called my gran and asked if she would lend me money. She emptied her bank, I emptied mine, and my gran put in the rest. We found me a house to rent and off I went. Money was super tight. I couldn’t afford to actually go anywhere or do anything, but friends would come over and we’d drink cheap wine and talk, or we’d drink tea and I’d make a meal. I could finally breathe. I’d save up for a night out on occasion and enjoy a boogie and a drink.

That was the first time a noticeable shift happened. I started finding myself. Learning about what I wanted, and more importantly, what I didn’t want and wouldn’t accept.

Friends commented on how much happier I seemed now, and how miserable I’d been before. It was true, I was much happier. I’d forgotten what it felt like! But I was also annoyed that none of them had pointed out how miserable I was, to me. I hadn’t realised because I was so wrapped up in it. I promised myself that I would never be that friend. Instead, I would be the friend who prompted conversations and said if I saw signs of the misery I’d experienced.

Pouchitis started flaring again, which is no surprise considering the stress I’d just been through and the alcohol that had just been through it. I stopped drinking, which meant most of my socialising fell away. I learnt to say no to things, which was a huge step for me. I also learnt to rest, which was completely unlike my usual go go go attitude. I didn’t learn to rest enough though. I never took a day off work despite being incredibly ill because I knew if I stayed home, I would wallow. It would just be one more thing my disease had taken away from me, and I didn’t want to accept that. Work was a good distraction, and pretending I was fine somehow made me feel that little bit closer to it.

Healing the trauma

That period on my own, and circumstances I’m sure I’ll discuss at a later date regarding community and support, helped me realise I am not unworthy of kindness, compassion, and love. And as cliché as it sounds, that realisation had to start with me.

It is not fair that I didn’t have the safety, security, and love that a child should have. It’s not fair that I never felt like I was wanted. But it’s what happened, and I learnt that that feeling of not being enough had played into so many negative parts of my life. Realising that presented the opportunity to try and work through it. I realised that a lot of it hadn’t been about me. It was about other people and what they had been through, and the negative patterns they had learnt from their past experiences. I’m not saying that excuses it or makes it OK. I don’t think it does, but, it explains a lot. And the simple fact that it was never about me helped me begin to realise that it had never really been that I wasn’t enough either. It didn’t mean there was something fundamentally wrong with me that made me not good enough.

I am enough.

You are enough.